I have been traveling around the country lately speaking to a wide variety of groups on the topic of green buildings and the impact of good Cost/Benefit Analysis. I am totally biased on the subject since I spend so much time trying to develop tools, techniques and methodology around the issue. But I have begun hearing a lot of the same comments. “There are limited financial resources for green on this project,” “"We want to do green, but the budget doesn't provide for it”. My favorite happened last week in Charlotte, “We need to deploy capital at these issues in a very targeted way to receive the proper return on investment.” This comment has stuck in my head ever since. The deployment of capital at such a fiscally focused time is the life’s blood of this movement.

There are many issues to consider when building or renovating a high performance building. Cost of construction, cost of capital, cost of design and engineering, life cycle costs, resource escalation and utility inflation are all issues that we have to consider on projects. We haven’t even gotten to the more detail specific elements such as how much insulation, how much glazing, what type of glazing and what manufacture of glazing. We are getting so much information into this industry from so many different directions, that sometimes we are at conflict with each other. More glazing more daylighting, more daylighting more thermal gain or loss. So do we want free light to save some lighting energy but spend more on heating and cooling? What about using geothermal heating and cooling, sure, that sounds good. How much asks the owner? Let’s break it down:

• What about the cost of the glazing that has better insulation and better light transmittance?
• Does that mean we don't do the geothermal? (Remember the owner wants to deploy their capital.)
• What about Bike Racks, FSC wood systems furniture and the newest level certified chair?

The point of this contrived example is that many project teams are being faced with pressure from many directions on projects. Fiscal has always been there, but this time it is different. The amount of interrelated decisions necessary for a proper evaluation take a considerable amount of time. Time is money in the design and engineering professions. Manufacturers are pouring both real green and faux green solutions into this marketplace since green seems to be the only kind of project still alive in the marketplace. The green rating system world is filled with more and more rating systems coming into the marketplace every month. The professionals are trying to balance learning all of these systems with staying on top of their credentials and servicing their clients.

During the past several months I have had the opportunity to ask this question to groups of design and building professionals: “How many of you have replaced all the incandescent bulbs in your homes with either all CFL or LED bulbs.&rdquo: This question has gone out to groups of 10 and 300 for a total informal survey count of about 1500 people. Each time about 20% of the group acknowledged having done so. I believe that this act is the easiest on the wallet and is possibly the single most impactful to planet, and takes less than an afternoon to complete. I always ask the audience members why they haven't done it. I get all kinds of answers. But then I tell the audience that they can save up to $3000.00 over the next 7 years with the CFLs that cost about $150 for an average house and they can save over $10,000 over the next 15 years with the LEDs that cost about $2000 for an average house. Most people say they will do it that weekend. I know there are issues with the CFLs and even the production of LEDs isn't the cleanest process.

But if we can’t convince professionals in this industry to do the simplest element themselves, how likely it is that we will accomplish the more expensive and complex benefit drivers? I think the industry should celebrate all the positive movements we can all make on every decision instead of getting into arguments over which rating system is best, which credits are best, which products are best. While we are arguing over best, we could be implementing.