November 12, 2007 | Volume 4, Issue 3
In Green Shadows
The Green Building Alliance Transforms Pittsburgh Architecture
The Heinz School Review recently sat down with Eamon Geary, a project specialist with the Pittsburgh Green Building Alliance (GBA), at the GBA offices on 14th Street in Pittsburgh’s South Side. The interview begins informally discussing Rebecca Flora’s role in the Pittsburgh Green Building Alliance. Rebecca is the Executive Director of GBA and was recently elected Chair of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC).
Eamon Geary:
When CCI Conservation Consultants Inc. came into the picture, there was the desire to affect the built environment, the commercial side, and GBA really came in to fill that gap. We started as a subsidiary of CCI in the late 1990s and there was just a one person operation. We had a cube, a little card table, a phone and a pager, and that was Rebecca.
Heinz School Review: A pager. (laugh)
Eamon Geary:
Yeah, a pager, back in the days when it was just a pager.
HSR:
And she expanded from there?
Eamon Geary:
She expanded it from there.
HSR:
She is intense.
Eamon Geary:
Yeah, she is intense. It’s impressive that she has been doing it for that long. There is an amazing story that is difficult to grasp until you hear somebody from PNC talking about it. That is, when PNC was building ”“Firstside””:http://www.gbapgh.org/casestudies_Firstside.asp on Second Ave., they had decided, “We’re just going to build it.” But Rebecca told them that they needed to build it green. She kept bothering them and bothering them and bothering them, and finally their head of real estate said, “Ok, I’ll give you a twenty minute interview.” Two and a half hours later she walked out of his office and he made the decision to build Firstside green. After the David Lawrence Convention Center became green, we had momentum; she is pretty much the reason the Convention Center became green.
HSR:
Back to PNC, Firstside went sliver? [“Silver” refers to LEED ratings]
Eamon Geary:
Yes, they went sliver with it. It was a pilot project, one of the first green buildings in the nation, one of the first fifteen or so. Since then, they have made a commitment that every one of their new branches was going to be LEED certified.
With that, they piloted a retail project that USGBC recently came up with. Basically you submit a design and the design is approved. See, for different branches you are not really changing the design – you’re using the same design for Mt. Lebanon, for Kensington, for Butler, etc. – so every single one of their new branches is green. They are also renovating their existing buildings to get them certified. This means a lot because a bank sees buildings as an investment and they see that the energy efficiency pays off over time and they are willing to absorb that upfront cost which might be three or four percent more than you’d have normally.
HSR:
I imagine financial institutions will have that long-term perspective; they are more prone to look at the bottom line over a long period, than other organizations.
Eamon Geary:
Exactly. There is a great number that somebody tossed my way the other day, it was quoted in McGraw-Hill: seven percent of the costs of a building over its lifetime is in the initial construction, the rest is operations, maintenance, and upkeep. If you are looking at maybe a three or four percent increase in green costs (we say it is zero to four percent more, zero to five, if we’re being conservative). So, zero to five percent of that seven percent is such a very small percentage that for people not to realize the benefits of it, they’re really losing out. I’m sure you have seen the studies of green building as a whole. Katz has studies, and Davis and Langdon, there’s a whole bunch of studies I can reference for you.
But I did bring this, which I thought you might be interested (GBA annual report). These are green building facts that we get from the USGBC. They recently they hit 10,000 member organizations; they are up to 11,000 now. They’ve expanded and are up to almost 100 employees. They’ve seen 300 percent growth in the last two to three years; they cannot keep up with it.
There are almost 8,000 registered projects; that is over eight times what is currently certified. So you are going to see the curve shooting straight up for projects that go through the LEED system.
Actually to go back to what I was saying about PNC. PNC really set the way by committing to their new building policy. Since then, you have had Wachovia and Bank of America committing to similar plans. Target has also committed to building all their new branches to be LEED certified. These are huge companies that are doing it.
HSR:
How can Target reconcile its box structure with LEED certification – how is that possible?
Eamon Geary:
Giant Eagle was LEED certified and they were traditionally box construction as well. You use skylights, you use environmentally preferable materials, you use very efficient heating and cooling systems. They managed to install a green roof at the Shadyside location. They’ve managed, I believe, to get sliver or gold.
HSR:
Could you elaborate on green roof?
Eamon Geary:
Sure, that is just a vegetated roof. Basically, you have normal asphalt type roof, or bitmus roof, which lasts thirty to fifty years, maybe up to eighty. The only thing breaking down that roof is UV light; that’s the only thing that hurts it, other than direct piercing. So you cover it with root mat, soil, drainage materials, drainage substrate, and then ultimately, low irrigation sedums.
HSR:
I do not know what a ‘sedum’ is.
Eamon Geary:
A sedum is, basically, a low watering type shrubbery. You’re talking three to four inches, deciduous and annual, so it comes up every year but it actually holds its form throughout the winter. You don’t need to water them much—the first year you do need to water them just to get them rooted. After that it is almost no maintenance – every year pick off dead foliage to prevent rot. But because of that covering over the top of your roof, your roof life is extended twice of what it would be normally because there is no UV breaking of that roofing material.
Green roofs also help the urban heat island effect through evapotranspiration and they also help with storm-water runoff because they help sequester that water during flood events. There’s also the insulating value, your R-value, almost doubles by having three or four inches of soil on top of your building.
HSR:
Do you know offhand how many platinum buildings there are in the country?
Eamon Geary:
I know there are zero in Pittsburgh and I believe there is only one in all of Pennsylvania – they are rare.
HSR:
As long as were on the subject, how is Pittsburgh doing nationally?
Eamon Geary:
We are second in the nation for green buildings.
HSR:
Is that per capita?
Eamon Geary:
That is pure numbers – not square footage, just number of buildings. We are behind Oregon, I believe. I calculate the number four times a year; I have a huge spreadsheet, categorize it by cities, use some pivot tables, and then it tells me how many each city has. Also, as a whole, Pennsylvania is second. So you are not only seeing Pittsburgh in a leadership position, but also the rest of Pennsylvania.
There are regional credits in LEED that say you need to use materials from within 500 miles. Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania are geographically well-positioned for those credits. You can get materials from Chicago, Cleveland, New York, D.C., etc.
HSR:
Is that for basic certification? If you’re trying to go platinum is the radius 100 miles?
Eamon Geary:
No, it’s a credit-based system. Your materials need to be sourced within 500 miles to get that credit. For platinum, the materials need to come from within 500 miles, plus, the materials need to have a certain percentage recyclable value. You get the 500 mile credit plus others. To get more credits, you have to get more and more complicated. The nice thing about Pennsylvania is that for much of what LEED requires we already have the infrastructure.
Before, when the CCI building was built, when green building wasn’t big, they had to ship everything from California, requiring a carbon analysis of everything they bought—calculating how much carbon would be put off from transportation versus how much they are saving by using the product. It is nice to have environmentally friendly carpeting, but if you are using tons of gasoline to fly it here, there is little incentive to have it. CCI thought about it progressively.
Since then we have seen manufacturers spread to the East Coast. GBA received a 1.5 million dollar business/economic development grant from the Ben Franklin Trust. They are trying to get us to work with building product manufacturers, to have them manufacture green building products in the area. We are actively partnered with University of Philadelphia, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), and other big universities in the city to get grants for local manufacturers to research how their products can be greener. So we are encouraging local economic development, keeping jobs in Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania, and making it easier to build green.
HSR:
What overall impacts have the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) and CMU had? Are they doing a good job? Could they be doing more?
Eamon Geary:
They are different. Universities and colleges are like islands, they are kind of in a world of their own. CMU is nationally recognized and probably has the most green buildings on their campus. They have a direct policy that every single one of their buildings will be green.
HSR:
Is there a certain level they aspire for?
Eamon Geary:
I don’t know, I think they base it on what is economically feasible. But let’s go down this list right here [GBA annual report], you have the Collaborative Innovation center on your campus. Google, IBM, and Apple are all there. That is a gold building. The Gates Center is also going to be gold. The Café is currently applying for certification. These are just ones from December, so there have been more since then.
HSR:
So are they being certified retroactively, or they are doing things to become certified?
Eamon Geary:
When you construct a building, your first step is when you are just thinking about building. You register the project, which gives you access to the entire USGBC database on how to build green. That’s about $300, $350. Very cheap; it is a declaration of intent to build it green. After we start looking at the site selection and some of the other areas, you are starting to design.
Once you are in design you can submit your first round of credits to USGBC. It is not mandatory. They will look at your credits and say, “these make sense, your documentation is doing well, you need some help here, you don’t need help here.” Then, usually after occupation, you submit all the documentation. You are looking at up to a year, maybe two years, after the building is complete before you receive certification. It is a fairly lengthy process. It can be affected by how quickly you build. We started our new offices pretty much last month and we expect to be done by December.
HSR:
You started new offices?
Eamon Geary:
Correct, we are moving. We’re moving to the Terminal Building, which is down Carson Street.
Eamon Geary:
We will be on the floor below Coro, at the front… walk in the lobby and we’ll be to the left. But, back to colleges…
HSR:
Yeah, as far as creating the human infrastructure of green building, are they pumping out students who care and/or are going into the field?
Eamon Geary:
It is interesting you bring that up. I talked to a gentleman in architecture from CMU who was explaining why they keep emphasizing green building at CMU when universities like Pitt have no green buildings. They are seeing it because their student body is asking for it. You have a group of kids who grew up with Captain Planet, with recycling, with the energy crisis; these people are very concerned with green. Children who grew up during that period really have this eco-centric view of their relationship with the planet.
LEED is a natural extension of that—looking at water efficiency, at site management, energy efficiency. Paying attention to these factors accounts for the desires of people who want to save the whales, who want to save forests, and water resources. It helps these students feel good about what they are doing and where they are spending their time.
HSR:
Pitt just constructed a large new building on Fifth Avenue. It finished a couple of years ago. Do you know if that was green?
Eamon Geary:
Pitt has no green buildings currently, well they may have green buildings but they don’t have any LEED certified.
HSR:
Do you know why?
Eamon Geary:
Well actually the McGowan Institute is down on the South Side. It’s not on their campus, but it is a medical facility owned by the University of Pittsburgh and it was a very early adopter in 2002. That is what they have that is currently LEED certified. I think it’s hard when you are a state-funded campus. You really do not have the leeway in the budget to experiment like CMU does.
HSR:
What is the biggest barrier to green building in the city, or state?
Eamon Geary:
Why would somebody not build green? That is what we deal with daily. People don’t build green because there is a perceived higher cost which may or may not be true. It depends on the situation. You are trying to make gross generalization for totally different building types and that’s something that’s hard to do.
Perceived cost and perceived amount of work can be a barrier. Architects and engineers are traditional builders; the way you build a building nowadays, minus the electrical, is pretty much the same way you built a building forty years ago. There’s not very much difference. It has become institutional, “We build buildings this way and that’s how we’re going to keep doing it.” There is also a higher level of education that has to come with the owner, the architect, and with the construction and engineering.
HSR:
Do you see a shift in that field in Pittsburgh? Is the old guard losing sway and being replaced by people who think differently about building?
Eamon Geary:
Yeah, you know Pittsburgh is remarkable. Like I said, we’re second in the nation and much of that has to do with GBA. When we first started, we were almost exclusively here to provide technical support to architects, engineers, and building owners who wanted to build green but did not know how to do it. There was no capacity within the work environment to do that. So we would come in. With the convention center, we did all the LEED work, all the documentation.
Since then, we’ve offered educational programs throughout the year. We offer training, continuing education units (CEU): everything an individual would need to become a LEED accredited professional (LEED AP). The private industry has since responded to that. When we tried to consult three or four years ago they pushed back and said, “It’s not fair as a publicly-funded organization that you are competing with us, who are privately funded and working for our due. You do not have to work for your funding.”
We decided not to compete with the private sector, rather we would let them do it and they have been amazing. In fact, I keep stealing this from you [takes GBA annual report], but if you look halfway through it, you’ll see right here is a list of all the LEED APs by firm in Pittsburgh. This increases every single year. We have to figure out different ways to display it because we get charged by the page here.
HSR:
Wait, each one of these names?
Eamon Geary:
Yeah, each one of these names have taken a test that says they are able to work on a green building. It’s an extensive test. I just passed my exam two months ago.
HSR:
Congratulations.
Eamon Geary:
Thank you. I’ve been working for two and a half years on green buildings. I was sick but I still barely passed. It’s a tough test. It was a little bit easier when they started. But now that the education has risen, people are a lot more comfortable with it. Before it was us going to owners saying you should build green, not the owners coming to us, not the architects coming to us.
HSR:
So now the barrier to entry is pretty low?
Eamon Geary:
The barrier to entry is much lower. Yeah, you are 100 percent correct on that. It’s a lot easier to get credits, because like I’ve said, there’s that infrastructure now for green building products, people understand how it works, the services are a lot cheaper. Before, you would be paying an architect or an engineer to learn how to do LEED. That takes more time. They have to charge that time somewhere, so it’s going into this miscellaneous ‘green’ category.
HSR:
What are some of the specific advantages for people in the private world of being a LEED accredited professional (LEED AP)?
Eamon Geary:
Well on a shallow level you get an extra LEED point for having a LEED AP. That’s because they view that as somebody who is well experienced with that project and will keep the costs down. In the evaluation, they do not want to see a ton of green building projects that are costing a ton of money because people have to be educated throughout the project. They want to see somebody who knows what they are doing from the beginning. So it’s to encourage that by giving you a point. LEED is basically broken down by five major credit sections. There are sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy, and atmosphere, and indoor environmental quality. LEED AP people understand all five of those categories, and understand the nuances of the credits underneath them. Each one of those may have as few as two or as many as fifteen or twenty credits underneath them. They understand what they are required to do for those credits and who in the building project team is responsible for it. Is the electrician responsible? Is the plumber responsible? What documentation is required? Basically, they are the project manager for the LEED aspect. I do the LEED for our new offices. I’m not involved at all in the specs, I just make sure they’re doing it according to what LEED says they should. You need to understand the guidelines in order to work with the project team.
HSR:
So how can you not deal with the specs and serve in that role?
Eamon Geary:
I deal with the specs in a way that I don’t have to write them, I don’t have to make sure the subcontractors are following them – that’s actually the project manager/the construction company that is responsible for that. I just make sure the specs follow the LEED guidelines. Those are all very well written out. They tell you that your energy efficiency has to be ten percent better. You already have a standard reference so basically whatever the standard reference is, you’re just saying we need to do ten percent better than that. That’s something that would be written in the contract. You’re just making sure that all the things that are written out are known to the team and that the team is on board. That’s the most important part is having an integrated design team.
In the old days, the old days being twenty years ago, you would have an architect designing the building, an engineer designing your HVAC system, and then a plumber coming in designing the water systems. And they’d all do their own thing. The architect would do the schematics, pass it on to the engineer. The engineer would do the electrical layout and the duct work and pass it on to the plumber. It was kind of like an assembly line. I would give it to you. You would give it to him. But with LEED you are required to have everybody at the project table. It’s really a non-traditional way, but in a lot of ways it creates some really exciting possibilities.
A good example is Clearview School in eastern Pennsylvania, in Hanover. They were one of the first green buildings. They decided that they were going to enlarge their windows so that they would have more day lighting. They had an electrical guy in who was said, ‘You know, if you want more daylight, if we put paint in here that is a little bit more reflective, I bet the light will bounce further back.’ So he used energy-modeling to demonstrate: if the sun comes in at this angle, with the paint reflecting, how far back can we get that light? So they kept upping the reflectivity of the paint. They eventually realized that if it is going to be this bright during the day, even on an overcast day – they can simulate all types of weather conditions – we do not need as many lights. They were able to downsize the electrical loads in the rooms by almost a third. So there’s a direct reduction in costs that are associated with those energy loads.
The average building nowadays is cooling all the time. There’s very little heating. The lighting, the people, and the computers are putting off the majority of the heat so you mainly need the cooling. Now with the reduction of lights they were able to downsize that HVAC system required to cool that building. So because they spent some more money on the windows, they were able to directly reduce the amount of lights. There was less wiring, less construction costs, a smaller HVAC system. The HVAC system was right-sized instead of being over-sized.
They had a little bit more upfront costs with the windows, but because they did that, they were able to reduce these other items and they were able to save almost $2,000 on the project by looking at it holistically, instead of ‘he does this, he does that, she does that.’ In a traditional building they would have had the bigger windows, the same size lights and an oversized HVAC system, because people are responsible for their own area. So there’s some good videos on that I can share with you. That’s one of the examples I talk to the gentlemen about the shows the new way of thinking about things.
HSR:
So do you interface much with the city government of Pittsburgh?
Eamon Geary:
Yeah, that’s primarily my job at GBA.
HSR:
To what end?
Eamon Geary:
We actually received some foundation support from Surdna, which is a non-profit founding organization. They decided they wanted to work with Pittsburgh to create a green government task force. The green government task force was co-sponsored by [Councilman William] Peduto,, at the time[Mayor Bob] O’connor, and then [Mayor] Ravenstahl, and Senator Ferlo. These three folks decided to bring all the top decision makers in the green community, everything from the Local 95 who work with installing solar and bio-diesel, to CMU, to all the major universities, all the major business partners, Giant Eagle, to the government. So we have representatives from all these major sectors and they are currently working on an action plan of different ways the city can reduce its energy use and its carbon footprint and its greenhouse gas emissions. So that’s at the high level. At the little bit more tangible level, I’m working currently with the mayor’s office to a policy where they want to mandate green buildings for the private sector, any building over 200,000 square feet they want to require it to be LEED silver. That would prevent the big boxes like Wal-Mart and others from coming in and creating these huge energy hogs that add a ton to our storm water. We have a big issue with storm water in Pittsburgh. So it really will fix that problem. It won’t hurt the average person, the average small business. 200,000 square feet is a big, big building. They also want to LEED by example so they are going to require it that all publicly-funded buildings will be LEED silver.
HSR:
I’m aware of a handful of buildings that are going to be built at the Pittsburgh Technology Center and the Bakery Square project. All of them are going to be less than 200,000 square feet, I believe. So..
Eamon Geary:
What are they going to get out of this deal? Currently we are looking at two main ones. One is—and you have to remember the city is in dire financial straits. You really can’t give them any kind of tax incentives, which is rough. Now we’re looking at a density bonus. For folks who are building downtown there’s a cap on how high you can build, so there’s currently wording where if you build LEED certified you could get an extra floor or two. That helps you because the cost of constructing a building is pretty much the same no matter how high you go. The incremental cost is much smaller. So by adding an extra floor or two that’s more leasable room that you would be able to sell…They figure if you are going to build bigger, you might as well be able to get something positive out of it. That’s one, and the other is expedited permitting…Every time you want to build a building you have to sit through almost a year of permitting process, which is everything from sewer to approvals for occupancy. So they’re going to bump you up to the front of the line if you have your LEED.
HSR:
So the new skyscraper going in, is that going to be LEED certified?
Eamon Geary:
The PNC at Fifth Avenue? Yes, that will be. Everything PNC is.
HSR:
That will be the first skyscraper that will be green in the city?
Eamon Geary:
In the city, yeah. That’ll be the largest. It’s going to be huge.
HSR:
So working with the city on all of these projects, what is your role? Who is your contact and how are you helping them or vice-versa?
Eamon Geary:
We started four years ago with Councilman Peduto to create a density bill which is like the one we are talking about now. For a variety of reasons it took us a very long time. The city was very not happy with having a third party tell them: ‘it’s okay, this building is green; you can give them a density bonus.’ They didn’t like that idea. Especially when they found out that LEED is updated almost every other year. So we had to deal with the law department on that. Finally it got through the City Council nine to zero. No opposition. But before, Zoning didn’t like the way it was written. Some thought it was too strict. Some thought it wasn’t so they voted it down. That was it from the City Council side. We do have a hearing on that bill coming up again soon where [Peduto] is going to try to push it through. This time we’re doing it with the mayor’s support, and the mayor in essence controls city zoning because he appoints the director. So that really helps with the process.
We now have all the main players at the table. We have the Mayor’s blessing. We are looking at what every other state and city is doing and figuring out what would work best for Pittsburgh. We are determining what would be most affordable and then figuring out what can be implemented now. We are looking at what should be more of a short-term goal and what should be a long-term goal. For example, mandating it all for the entire private sector is going to be a constant upward battle while expedited permitting is fairly easy to move through the system.
They lean on me to give them examples. I deal with Arlington, VA which has an expedited permitting process. I get their language and then I bring it to the law department and figure out if that language will work here – what do they like about it, what don’t they like about it, and how can we fit it into our system? Once we get the language, we pass it through all the departments and make sure that everybody is comfortable with it. At that point we are hopeful that we will get a thumbs-up. Right now, we are at the “we just decided what we want to do” stage – the bonus and the expedited permitting. They are also looking at the mandatory thing. We are working on the language right now.
The United States Building Council is actually very against making LEED mandatory. They see LEED as leading the market and it is hard to lead the market when it is a requirement. It is supposed to be the top twenty-five percent of buildings. Pittsburgh also has such slow construction development. The whole East Coast is in a rut compared to the West Coast. It is pure development out there. We do not want to slow people down or give them a reason for thinking twice about developing here.
HSR:
Even though Pittsburgh is in decline, it is amazing that we have the second-most green buildings of any city in the country. Is that an asset in your opinion? What are the non-environmental benefits?
Eamon Geary:
There are a lot of non-environmental benefits. This month alone they have had four conferences that are directly green-related at the convention center just because that building is green. People come from all over the world to see these buildings. I give tours of the green buildings for a variety of organizations. We just did the Air and Waste Management Association, a national conference. They wanted to see all the top buildings in the area. We did NETL [National Energy Technology Laboratory], a subsidiary of the Department of Energy. They had a huge conference here. They all want to see our buildings. We do full day bus tours. We set them up with business owners so they can see the buildings.
We are getting that kind of international and national attention. We are often featured in top articles from the Washington Post to the New York Times. We have developers on the residential and commercial side that are quoted in the New York Post and Times and every kind of major newspaper out there.
HSR:
Do you have anything that comes across as a social benefit or economic benefit? Is there something that comes along with the green building concept? Do areas with more collaboration and lighting improve mood?
Eamon Geary:
It is easy to look at utility bills and figure out what an average office would do compared to what a LEED-certified office would do. You can see a quantifiable difference. Some things that are not as quantifiable are employee productivity, absenteeism, and reduced health costs.
But I can give you a bit of anecdotal evidence. Take the Clearview School on the east side that I mentioned earlier. After they built their new school with the increased day lighting, they commissioned a number of studies. They found that their test scores were significantly higher.
Day lighting has definitely been proven to improve test scores as well as retail sales. Giant Eagle decided to “go for green” after conducting a major study that found that people in a store that has a lot of daylight and fresh air are more alert and tend to spend more. They pay more attention to the products, determine what they really need, and they buy more products as a result.
Something like productivity is a little harder to quantify. When you figure that the majority of the costs an organization incurs come from labor, even a one or two percent increase in productivity will almost always cover the cost of going green. PNC has some good information on this. For example, suppose someone’s job there is to input data x amount of times for eight hours a day; when they increase the amount of data input, that is very easily quantifiable by PNC. But for someone like us, who might be in and out of meetings all day, it is much harder to quantify.
I guess the easy answer is that there is not an easy way to measure social impact. But most of these buildings have day lights and views. Those are buildings that people are happier to work in and if they are happier, you tend to have more employee retention, and less absenteeism.
Another example is Fireman’s Fund, a big insurance provider. They give preferred rates to anyone in a green building due to the reduced liability. There are less instances of building syndrome, there are fewer chemicals, and the buildings are generally much safer. They decided that based on these quantifiable standards, they expect fewer instances of sickness or other debilitating effects; hence they can offer preferable rates.
On the financial side we are also seeing lenders give preferable rates to companies that have green building practices as they see that these companies have a more holistic view of where their money is and how it is being spent. We are really seeing a change in a number of indirectly related industries.
Go to www.usbc.org and check out their research page. They have articles on a wide variety of topics.
HSR:
You are pushing city-wide measures. How can we encourage the student body to help disseminate and to help push those measures through?
Eamon Geary:
I have never had that much faith in grassroots movements. My background is in environmental law and policy and that is where I was hoping to go with this, but I decided to take the more practical route. A whole bunch of letters to politicians may help, but it is really about educating them about green building. LEED is still not a common term, any more than is ASHRAE (American Society for Heating, Refrigeration, and Electricity). Green is not a building with ivy on the side of it or a doorway hiding in the forest. It is a very high functioning, well-performing building. That kind of education is what is going to work for them.
You can make sure your City Councilman is aware. That is a strategy we have taken – letting them know about green buildings in their districts. Let them know if there is a green building product manufacturer in their area or someone building green roofs or trading chemical-free PPG paint. Let them know that these are constituents that they are representing.
We have an advantage with having a young mayor. Like I said, people our age tend to have more of a focus on green issues. That government buy-in at the national level needs to trickle down to the state and local level.
HSR:
I think we can start closing up, but I am curious about GBA‘s financing.
Eamon Geary:
Heinz has been our main supporter for the past ten plus years, since we were operating from a tiny cubicle. We have since diversified with the Benjamin Franklin Fund. We are giving out about a million and a half in grants. We receive some money from Mellon and Hunt, which are the other two main foundations.
We also receive a small amount from the state, but we are really working on developing that. We keep having state representatives who get a hint of this green thing and want to hear us come out and give a presentation to their constituency. This is something we are trying to push back on them. You are getting all this information from us, but we are not receiving any state funding to come out and give you these presentations. It is a chicken and egg situation. We are trying to raise awareness, but at the same time we need a value to be associated with what we are doing. I consulted on three projects this week where we received absolutely no money. The only people who benefited from it were the building owners, architects and engineers that are going to get more business. We are trying to figure out how to leverage funding from these people without increasing the cost to build green.
I think it is going to continue being mainly non-profit and foundation support that we operate on. Grants are the main source of our financial support, although sponsorship is way up this year. We receive donations and provide some fee-for-service as well, although that is minimal. We have two other organizations rolling, one in Erie and one in Johnstown, which are completely voluntary steering councils. Pittsburgh is the green hub in Pennsylvania. There are only one or two green buildings in Erie and Johnstown. We are trying to spread the word out from Pittsburgh, though that is difficult because Heinz is primarily a Pittsburgh foundation. We need to continue looking for ways to diversify our funding.