By Joseph Quesnel
Imagine everyone has plenty of natural resources to survive. Let’s say everyone on earth has a bundle of 1,000 ‘units’– representing enough water, timber and other resources.
In 2054, however, this share may dwindle to 500 or even 250 as our population increases and we consume more resources.
Jonathan Westeinde, managing partner of the Ottawa-based Windmill Development Company, isn’t taking any chances. He’s preparing for the future problem of limited resources and finding ways to make money — all at the same time.
Westeinde is a real estate developer who realizes that buildings consume about one-third of our total energy and generate 30 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.
Westeinde is part of a new generation of entrepreneurs who are blending capitalism and environmentalism in an innovative way.
His company is developing housing projects that emphasize energy efficiency and have a low impact on the environment — so-called “green housing.”
Windmill is currently developing plans for the Currents – an ambitious project of 43 luxury condo units on Wellington Street, along with 23,000 square feet of commercial space that has been proposed to house the future Great Canadian Theatre Company.
The building is in the late development stages with construction slated to begin this summer. Occupancy is expected by summer 2005.
“Our objective is to put a building on the site with a load similar on the environment in all senses as a building half its size,” he says.
Westeinde and others are using the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system as a measuring stick of environmental performance.
LEED is an environmental building standard pioneered in the U.S. by the private sector. It has now become the benchmark in many other areas of construction.
This means that the building will retain more heat and the condo units will use more efficient faucets and toilets that will reduce water use by 50 per cent. The building will also reuse storm water in a cistern that will be recycled for outdoor use. It will use compact and fluorescent lights with less electricity requirements.
All appliances will be the most energy-efficient on the market.
A key innovation for the building, Westeinde says, is the use of digital meters in the suites that will allow residents to monitor minute-by-minute energy use.
The use of digital meters has been tested in other areas.
The City of Woodstock in Southern Ontario has had a voluntary system for the past 15 years where electricity users purchase smart cards that have units of power on them.
The households have customer information units that display the power used in kilowatts per hour, along with its equivalent dollar value. It’s having tangible results, say power company officials.
“The average customer in Woodstock is conserving to the tune of 20 per cent,” says Carl Kelly, business manager at InfoEnergy, the company that sells the smart technology to the city.
“If every household in Canada would reduce their energy by 20 per cent, you’d see emissions reductions equivalent to that of eight million cars,” Kelly says.
So far, 2,800 households out of 12,000 in Woodstock have the system.
Key factors pushing interest in things like smart meters and green housing in general are more exposure to environmental issues among the public and shifting attitudes.
“We believe there’s a good market for it,” says Westeinde. “We believe things like the hydro outage and national catastrophes help. The general social consciousness of environmental issues is much greater now.”
The Currents is not the only environmentally-friendly building in Ottawa.
A Mountain Equipment Co-op store that opened in Ottawa in June 2000 was the first commercial building in Canada to meet the rigorous C-2000 regulations. These are federal standards that call for a high degree of energy efficiency in commercial buildings.
Of the building materials, more than half were from recycled materials and more than three-quarters came from distances of no more than 500 km – a move meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from travelling long distances.
Every part of the building is environmentally friendly, down to the choice of using nuts and bolts instead of nails. That way, the new owner can take it apart easily and recycle it.
So far, green housing is more common in the West, particularly in British Columbia and Alberta.
“Some of the major ideas — good and bad — seem to arise in California,” says Nils Larsson, executive director of The International Initiative for Sustainable Built Environment, an international non-profit group promoting sustainable building.
Larrson also says municipalities such as Vancouver and Calgary have had success in ensuring that municipal buildings meet environmental standards, thereby setting a benchmark for the private sector.
The last major obstacle he says, is the higher cost.
Green housing can cost about two-to-three times more than conventional housing.
The demand for it, Westeinde says, is certainly there.
“If you did a snap poll, you’d find eight out of 10 people, if given the choice between an environmental and a non-environmental product at the same price, would choose the environmental.