Word: audubon
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...additional logging in the remaining old-growth forests, warning it could push endangered species to extinction and imperil one of the nation's most vital natural habitats. Still, the antilogging forces sensed they had advanced. "We had a chance for a major victory ending the war," said National Audubon Society vice president Brock Evans. "Instead we conquered another ridge and drove the enemy back, but it's a very shaky victory because much of the policy is vague...
...headquarters of the National Audubon Society is that and more. Extensively refurbished last year, the airy, daylight-filled office space not only uses 61% less energy and 68% less electricity than it did before the renovation -- saving an estimated $100,000 a year, but it also recycles 80% of all office waste, including 42 tons of paper annually; cools its air without ozone-depleting CFCs; and employs environmentally benign and recycled construction materials throughout -- not to mention the 300 tons of steel, 9,000 tons of masonry and 560 tons of concrete that Audubon preserved by reusing the original structure...
Innovative as it is, the Audubon building might be written off as an impractical exercise in spare-no-expense radical environmentalism, except for one thing: the society demanded that every design decision had to satisfy the kind of bottom-line scrutiny a tightwad CEO would apply. Though it cost up to 10% more to build green than to build conventionally, Audubon president Peter Berle insisted that every environmental measure taken in the $14 million project had to justify its cost within a five-year period. Says Berle: "It was an opportunity to build a structure that would both save Audubon...
Another key part of Audubon's plan was to look at construction materials in terms of their entire life cycles. Where did the raw materials come from and how were they mined, extracted or harvested? How much waste was created and how much energy required to manufacture the finished product? What will happen to the product when it is disassembled? How safe is it for the workers in the building and how safe for the planet...
...Audubon's chief scientist, Jan Beyea, was in on all these decisions. Even so, he was stunned by one result of the effort: an odorless building. "A month before we moved in, I'm walking around, and they are painting the walls and laying down the rugs and I can't smell anything," Beyea recalls. "That shows we did our job." Beyea attributes the facility's overall success to "a hundred, maybe several hundred, different little things, each of which by itself is rather insignificant...