The Greening Of Southie

The Greening of Southie is a great enviromental documentary that chronicals the construction of a “green” luxury condo seeking a LEED Gold certification. The first of it’s kind, with a gold rating, in Boston.

What makes this documentary so great is it captures the irony of the “green” hysteria.

In order for a building to earn a LEED Gold rating an architect invests hundreds of hours researching the combinations of building materials and appliances that are earth friendly. Each of them earning a fraction of or a whole point. In order to earn a gold, they need a total of 41 points. Examples of materials and appliances only earning a single point: bambo floors installed using low VOC glue, dual flush toilets, wheat straw cabinets, and a green living roof.

During the progress of construction you hear about how the green products perform from the tradesman installing them. Most of the products pass with flying colors. Others however, not so good.

The cabinets made out of compressed wheat straw without the use of fur-mald-a-hide. The fur is a glue and helps to keep its shape. Since these cabinets didn’t contain any and where installed as they did. The cabinets were having to be reset for expansion.

How about the fast growing and extremely renemable bambo floors? The floors are great, but the low VOC glue was not adhering well. In fact it was buckling. Buckling so bad, they needed to be torn out and redone. In order to be redone the bamboo need to be thrown out and imported from China.

The importing of bamboo was not the only green material to be imported. In order to gain an additional point the architects wanted to use lumber that was not clear forested for the units private decks. The nearest certified forest…Boliva.

Tip: you don’t loose a LEED point for: adding all the bamboo to a landfill or the energy wasted to import flooring and lumber from China or Boliva.

The part that drives me nuts the most about most grren or LEED projects is the cost. The Greening of Southie was no exception. The price range of the condos $500,000-$2 million dollars. In a part of Boston who’s majority of its residents are “blue collar” workers with large families. To many projects like these will force it’s native residents out because the increasing property values.

So why are the green projects only for the rich? The products being used are not industry standards. Take the bamboo floors for example. The tradesman that experienced the hassle of putting in those floors, what do you think they are going to charge the next person that wants to use them? $$$$

It is a catch 22. In order to make it cheaper demand needs to be higher. Is a larger majority high or middle to lower income?

I would like to see more of these LEED, healthier living for us and the environment, projects for low-income families.

You should try catching The Greening of Southie on The Sundance Channel.