Sustainable Practice

Almost “Passively” Green

While you have to be careful about greenwashing, it's not a bad thing that being green is now trendy: if that's what it takes to get more people into green building, that's fine with us. But, we are taking it further, and three of us are now on our way to be Passive House certified!

We don't love the green building buzzwords around here. It can all sound so false, like you are just trying to fit into the current trends using the correct talking points. When green building became trendy, everyone was using it as a selling point. Just because you put some recycled materials into an otherwise run-of-the-mill house doesn't make it "green." Our industry has a lot of catching up to do (and a lot of cleaning up to do), and I don't think we need to be tooting our own horns for making incremental improvements that are absolutely necessary to the big picture and in some ways just sound design decisions.

That said, we are continually educating ourselves and pushing toward the next level of green building and sustainable design. It's like how the main goal of a charity or non-profit should be "to not be needed someday." The main goal with pushing green building practices is that they just become building practices. This has been happening at a rapid rate, as codes become more and more energy-efficient each year.  I became interested in the Passive House  concept because I believe that is where the building industry is headed: super-insulated, super-efficient buildings that are not overly complex (see a previous blog post on the subject).

Jeff, Ryan, and I recently went through training to become Certified Passive House Consultants (CPHC). We are not official yet, but have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge in the process, which included a month of online classes, a full week of an in-person class,  a three-hour exam, and a take-home exam/design exercise which consisted of a schematic design set for a Passive House. It will be a great accomplishment when we can finally put those letters after our names! Even if we never certify a Passive House through the official process (which of course I hope we do), we will immediately be able to implement the concepts to make our designs as energy-efficient as possible.

Board & Vellum is also now officially a member of Built Green, a local non-profit certifying green buildings. I have been involved with the organization for a few years on my own, including volunteering at their yearly conference, and look forward to seeing some of Board & Vellum's designs become Built Green Certified.