stephan tanner > integrated design

Waldsee BioHaus Wins Minnesota Environmental Intitiative Award

BioHaus won the MEI award in the category Air Quality and Climate Protection. The presenters of the award described the BioHaus  “ as a unique Environmental Living Center for the Concordia Language Villages in Bemidji, Minnesota. The BioHaus features cutting edge approaches to energy conservation and innovations in sustainable building design. This approach resulted in a dramatic reduction in energy consumption, as well as the showcasing of a green roof system and low-emission building products such as paints, flooring materials, and cabinetry.”

Economic-based thinking and climate change

Lately I've been drawn to reports with economic-based thinking in respect to climate change.

For example, here's an interesting report about CO2 trading from the European branch of McKinsey:  Download McKinsey Quarterly_Report 2007.pdf

For more on this matter, you can also read my post titled "The Biggest Market Failure the World Has Ever Seen" about Sir Nicholas Stern and Paul Volcker.

TAGS:

Climate Change, Sir Nicholas Stern, Paul Volcker

Climate Change Economics No One Can Dodge

One reason I have this blog is because I'm frustrated with the notion that everybody can define any issue on their own terms even after a body of global consensus has defined it!

The United Nation Department of Economic and Social Affairs has defined "sustainable design" as “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need.” And in 1992, 178 governments adopted an action plan called the Agenda 21 that you should definitely read.

And when it comes to Climate Change, Green House Gas Emission or Global Warming and Green House Gas Emissions, I think taking the IPCC findings in their report 1 and 2 as factual status should be as easy as accepting the U.S. EPA emission inventory and that it based on a globally excepted protocol.

After reading through all these reports, I'm left with the question: “Why reinvent the wheel?” Why not act now? The foundational work has been done by so many credible organizations. Why not get going, measure our success or shortcomings on the action taken, and build from there refined national and regional, segmented and appropriate action plans, rather than spending so much time defining and redefining these global issues?

I do understand that this is all very complicated. But I also understand it's time for action. I think too much talk is just a dodge for doing the real work that's necessary right now.

TAGS:

Sustainable Design, Climate Change, Global Warming, Green House Gas Emissions

Sustainable Campus Initiative

I just returned from a very interesting conference in Zurich, the Sustainable Campus Initiative, organized by Novatlantis. One can't be more supportive of the needed leadership provided by institutions of higher learning in respect to sustainability and climate change – though I found the differences in depth and understanding of each institution represented to be quite interesting! The entire conference and the commitment among these institutions to sustainable design was very encouraging to our efforts to further bridge European expertise and U.S. leadership on the basis of measurability through The Green Bridge.
 

On a side note, we presented an introductory poster at the conference titled ‘Be A Bridge’. Photos of people formed these words, not random photos, but pictures of people who quickly rallied to a request for support of The Green Bridge. All photos were received within hours of our request, to me, demonstrating once again that sustainability and climate change are critical issues people are aware of and responding to REAL leadership and solutions!

TAGS:

Sustainable Design, Climate Change, Green Bridge