Building and living green is beginning to go mainstream in the Richmond region. Who's ahead and who's behind the curve?

Patrick Farley is a fanatic, but only in the sense that he's out to change the world, one kilowatt at a time. Behind his Woodland Heights home, he is in the early stages of building a detached family room that will make almost every concession possible to Mother Earth.

When the little building is done, it will have plants on its roof that will collect water and work as insulation. Its walls will be constructed using Virginia-made straw bales and will be plastered with a homemade cement Farley plans to mix from the clay he has already dug up to build the foundation.

Some of the "green" features that Farley, an architect, has planned for the small building will cost him more up front, he admits, but in the long run, thanks to savings on water and energy, he expects the project to be more cost-efficient.

For Farley, his wife and their two children, this is just one of many efforts to conserve energy and use natural resources wisely.
On a cool Monday morning in late September, Farley tromps through the dew-soaked grass of his backyard, passing through a mini-orchard of fruit trees on his way to the vegetable garden that helps feed his family. He points out the rows of square, wood-framed planter boxes where a variety of green stalks and leaves are pushing up through the dark soil.

Farley identifies his small crops: romaine lettuce, spinach, radicchio, carrots, chard, broccoli, bok choy, fennel, tomatoes and butternut squash. He explains that the harvest from the yard represents his family's commitment to a way of life. "As much as we can," he says, "we're living within a closed loop."

In his yard, Farley also maintains two separate compost heaps -- one for garden trimmings and another for all of the organic waste from his kitchen -- for fertilizer. And the water needed to keep his plants living comes from several rain barrels that collect runoff from his roof. Because so much of Farley's home life and work is intertwined with his commitment to conservation, he is compelled to point out the environmental benefits and costs of almost everything around him. He is a font of statistics and formulas -- on the amount of global carbon emissions attributed to traditional Portland cement, on the amount of energy used to get one calorie of food on your plate and on the amount of treated water used solely to flush waste (a whopping 12 percent).

"I consume myself with these issues," he says.

The closed cycle that the Farleys attempt to live within is summed up in one word: sustainability.

Green Construction
The idea of sustainability is to improve on all human processes -- from transportation and housing to agriculture and manufacturing -- so that pollution is reduced and natural resources are conserved.

Karl Bren, president of Richmond-based GreenVisions Consulting, says greater awareness of sustainability in today's society is due to the fact that more people see its practical benefits and have started to look beyond the political divisions that used to pit environmentalism against commerce.

"It's not just about dirt-worshipping tree huggers," Bren says. "It's about how we live. It's about economics."

Bren and Farley are among a growing number of people in Central Virginia -- including architects, state and local officials, housing officials, business owners, and, of course, environmental activists -- who are driving public debate and action on the concept of sustainability in the Richmond region.

In recent years, with increasing energy prices spurred by global and national events, the notion of sustainability has gained mainstream appeal. Alarmist debate over the planet's future has also added urgency and attention to the cause.

One major movement sweeping the United States and steadily taking root in Virginia is "green building," an approach that has been standardized, promoted and monitored by the United States Green Building Council, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C.

The USGBC has become the principal U.S. organization for rating and certifying new buildings based on how energy efficient and environmentally sound they are. It uses a rating system known as LEED -- which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

In two years, the USGBC's local chapter, the James River Green Building Council, has grown to 99 members from a variety of fields, including building trades, education, manufacturing, public housing and finance.

The LEED program certifies buildings under one of four ratings, from its lowest level, Certified, to Platinum, its highest level. The ratings are based on building features like water and energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and the kinds of materials used.

"If you were to do a green building tour of Richmond today, there wouldn't be a whole lot on that tour yet," says Sandra Leibowitz Early, principal of Sustainable Design Consulting, a Richmond-based firm.

So far, the Richmond area has only one LEED-certified building -- Weinstein Hall at University of Richmond, which scored a rating of "Certified" -- though several innovative buildings, such as CarMax's corporate headquarters in Goochland County, are awaiting likely certification. Hanover County also recently opened the area's first green school building, Kersey Creek Elementary in Mechanicsville, which is in line to be certified; Hanover has another school in the works.

A spate of other building projects around Richmond -- at UR, Virginia Commonwealth University, the Greater Richmond Transit Company, as well as the federal courthouse under construction on Broad Street -- are also registered with the LEED program, meaning they are either under construction or are completed and awaiting certification.

Compared with Northern Virginia, Richmond is well behind the green building curve, in part because counties such as Arlington are home to new federal buildings, which are mandated by the U.S. government to be LEED-certified. Arlington, as well, has aggressively embraced LEED standards as a municipality and offers incentives for any developers who pursue the certification.

Arlington alone has six LEED-certified buildings in its municipality and 13 that are LEED-registered. By comparison, the Richmond region, including the city and surrounding counties, has one LEED-certified building and 11 registered projects.

Moseley Architects, the Richmond firm that designed Kersey Creek Elementary, has taken an active role in promoting green building locally and regionally.

Moseley president Bob Mills says he thinks the general public is likely to increase demand for green buildings as parents and students learn about the green schools that are already up and running.

The firm's strongest evidence in this direction is Third Creek Elementary School, a Statesville, N.C., LEED building designed by Moseley. Since the school's completion and opening in 2002, students' test scores have improved by 15 percent or better, a result that many green building experts attribute to the healthier environment and natural light. Also, the school has reported significant energy savings, even by as much as 33.5 percent in the 2004-2005 school year.

Bryna Dunn, Moseley's director of environmental planning and research, says that the hardest sell when it comes to green buildings is getting contractors on board.

There's a fairly significant "fear factor," she says, because LEED requires contractors to learn new processes and standards, but ultimately it gives them a tool to improve their business.

"I think it's going to help them be more competitive," Dunn says. "This is something that's going to be demanded more in the future."

Like Farley, Moseley Architects is putting its money where its mouth is. The company has purchased a building in Scott's Addition, west of the Boulevard within the city limits, and is renovating the old warehouse to become a LEED-certified building where the firm will move in the next year or so.

In Search of Sustainability
Around the Richmond region, sustainability efforts have begun to crop up in both the public and private sectors.

In early June, Richmond's mayor, L. Douglas Wilder, signed on to the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, which challenges cities to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from 1990 levels by 7 percent before 2012.

Though there is some debate about how communities will monitor and track greenhouse-gas reductions, the city's efforts are part of an expressed intention to cut costs and follow environmentally sound practices.

Through his spokesman, Linwood Norman, Wilder announced in late August that he was working with environmental groups to study the feasibility of further green policies beyond the city's existing measures. Already, Norman says, Richmond has implemented fuel-saving policies with its vehicle fleets, promoted ride-sharing, subsidized bus transportation for employees, planned the construction of more bike paths and installed more energy-efficient air conditioning and lighting in city buildings.

Demand for public transportation in the Richmond region has increased about 9 percent monthly in the past couple of years, says GRTC CEO John Lewis, which is why the bus company is making more of a conscious effort to improve fuel efficiency and expand its capability.

GRTC has begun using biodiesel fuel, he says, that includes 20 percent of soy-based diesel from a supplier in Virginia. As well, the company is studying new strategies to make public transit more feasible for commuters throughout the region, and in early 2010, GRTC plans to open its new LEED-registered headquarters and bus-maintenance center on Belt Boulevard.

"We may be one of the first, if not the first" city-supported organization to have a green building in the city, Lewis says.

The city's actions mirror the wave of sustainability policies that municipalities around the nation have already put into place and are measuring for results.

Other localities such as Chesterfield, Henrico and Hanover counties have made some first steps as well, though none has embraced anything like a broad sustainability plan.

Chesterfield was scheduled to open the doors in November to its first LEED-rated building, the Community Development and Customer Service Center, which was designed by Moseley.

Like many in the public and corporate arena, Jay Stegmaier, Chesterfield's deputy county administrator, says the building's green design allows the county to achieve a goal it already had -- saving taxpayers' money. But, he adds, "another goal we did have in mind was minimal environmental impact as well." Stegmaier expects the building's energy-efficient and water-saving features to pay for themselves within a five- to 10-year timeframe.

Meanwhile the county is also moving slowly in what one official terms a "visionary" direction.

Last year, a county advisory panel made up of county residents, officials and civic leaders -- the Committee on the Future -- recommended that Chesterfield conduct a feasibility study to plot the county's growth for the next 30 years with a focus on conservation.

Mary Kruse, the county's government-affairs analyst, says the recommendation is still being studied by the county's Board of Supervisors, but that most of the recommendations presented by the county's community panels are eventually put
into action.

"I think Chesterfield County is ready for this," she says. "It is a big undertaking."

What exactly would approval mean for the county?

It would represent, perhaps, the type of balance between economic development and conservation that's advocated by nonprofit groups such as the Virginia Sustainable Building Network (VSBN) and the Partnership for Smart Growth.

Adele MacLean, the coordinator for the Partnership for Smart Growth, says the idea of sustainable development is to consider concepts like mixed-use development, public transportation and walkable communities.

"Our main concern is that growth affects quality of life," MacLean says, adding that "growth in itself is neither bad nor good, but how we do it is all the difference."

Jerry Walker, Henrico County's energy manager, says the county has yet to formally adopt any official sustainability plan or even to consider its first LEED building. "The concept of green building, as such, is not really implemented in Henrico," he says. Nevertheless, Walker says, the county has sent him for LEED training and has hired a key support worker who will help direct potential LEED projects. He adds that Henrico adopted an energy policy in 2004 that applies to all county departments. It applies a common-sense rationale to its operations so that energy and resources are used responsibly.

One Henrico-based business, Environmental Solutions Inc., has spent more than 15 years turning various forms of waste -- which the company calls instead "byproduct" -- into building materials and fertilizer.

Brenda Robinson, president of Environmental Solutions, says her company, which she co-founded with her late husband, Phil, was built primarily on a business opportunity, not environmentalism, per se.

The company concentrated on creating building blocks and paving material from various kinds of ash left over after different manufacturing processes. Eventually, the company expanded its product line with a fertilizer derived from paper sludge.

"I would say that we were probably pioneers in the beneficial use of waste," she says, adding, "Sustainability was not something a lot of people were thinking about -- we were probably about 10 years ahead of the market."

Her company's annual revenue has grown from $50,000 to $10 million, and now she and Harry Gregori, the firm's vice president, are opening a new industrial park in Chester committed exclusively
to sustainability.

The Sustainability Park, Robinson says, lives up to its name. It's a former tobacco-processing plant that Robinson and Gregori are turning into an industrial park for businesses that deal in recycling and re-use of raw materials. Robinson says that all of the existing equipment and facilities will be used as-is, resold or recycled. Practically nothing will be thrown away.

Gregori adds that the company was even able to retain employees from the closed tobacco plant to help run the 143-acre facility, a fact that causes Robinson to remark with a laugh, "We're recycling everything!"

Making Smaller Footprints
Like fellow sustainability advocate Patrick Farley, Karl Bren looks closely at his own habits and how they affect the environment. One measurement he points to is the "carbon footprint" that each person creates. It's measured in pounds per year, and the weight of carbon emissions for the average person is 15,000 pounds -- about as heavy as seven cars.

Bren has calculated his own carbon footprint by examining habits such as his car usage, how often he takes an airline flight and his home's energy usage, among other factors.

"Mine is 25,000 pounds of carbon annually," he says with an ironic laugh. "And I drive a Prius," which is a low-emissions hybrid car.

Bren makes this point because he says the first step toward sustainability for any group or individual is learning where to change habits. To offset his own impact, he says, he has opted to use a program through his electric utility, Dominion, which allows him to purchase 10 percent of his home's electricity from renewable resources. Dominion, in turn, purchases some of its energy from renewable energy providers such as a wind farm. Though it costs a little more, Bren says -- about $60 more a year -- it signals to energy providers that consumers care about what resources they're using to power their homes.

Farley, meanwhile, has spent years trying to whittle down habits that burn fossil fuels and create unnecessary waste, he says.

For example, except when the weather is an issue, Farley tries to ride his bike to work at his downtown office three to four days a week.

His motivation, he says, is that he's concerned deeply about the future, especially his children's.

"Now I see the world through the eyes of a parent," he says. "And I think about the world that we're leaving them. At the end of the day that's ultimately what this discussion is about."