Marc Stoiber – Founder, Change Advertising

photo by Jaime Kowal

What book is on your bedside table?
The Haunted Land by Tina Rosenberg (Vintage Books, $20)
How did you come across the book?
In 1998, I was supposed to shoot a campaign of commercials in Russia. I wanted as much background on the place as possible. Haunted Land looked like it had an interesting perspective on the whole modern Russia thang.
Page-turner or doorstop?
Indie award. Think it’s going to be a sleeper, but turns out to be an absolute page-turner. Not the sort of thing you expect from a journalistic exposé of Eastern European post-communism trials.
Would you put it on your Desert Island list?
Nope. But I’d put it in my list of “must reads” for folks contemplating how sustainability will change the world. An amazing study in the human psyche and its ability to bend to new realities.
How would you describe the book in one word?
Kafka.
If you had to design a poster for the book, what would it look like?
A big black balloon with a kid’s hand holding a pin next to it.
What’s the main idea/theme of this book?
It's a Pulitzer Prize-winning piece of journalism that documents how people came to grips with guilt, etc. after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Normally, this sort of stuff is dry as dirt, but Rosenberg writes thoughtfully and in a way that makes you appreciate the twisted humanity behind the faceless monolith of communism.
List three new words you learned in the book.
Lustrace. Stino. And, of course, vodka.
Who would you recommend the book to?
People who have been reading too many books on business and sustainability and can’t stand the depressing lectures.
What’s the paragraph re-read factor, on a scale of 1-10?
The paragraphs are easy to understand and riveting. So I guess a 1.

Answers and even more questions

by ALEX WILSON

Quite often, when people think of green building, what comes to mind is the use of recycled-content building materials—insulation made from recycled newspaper, floor tiles made out of ground-up light bulbs, and so forth.

Materials are indeed an important component of green construction, but this way of building goes much further.

Green building addresses the relationship between a building and the land on which it sits; how the structure might help to foster a sense of community or reduce the need for automobile use by its occupants; how to minimize energy use in the building (energy consumption being one of the largest environmental impacts of any building); and how to create the healthiest possible living space. These priorities, from a broad environmental standpoint, are usually far more important than whether or not the floor tiles in the entry hall are made out of recycled glass.

A Short History of Green Building

Green building can trace its origin, in part, to builders of solar homes during the 1970s and ’80s. Since solar energy is a clean, renewable energy source, designing and building homes to make use of solar was a way to reduce impacts on the environment, creating homes that required less fossil fuel or electricity.

These designers and builders began to realize, however, that their focus was too narrow, that reducing conventional energy use was just one part of a much bigger picture of resource efficiency and healthy building. Sure, those solar pioneers could build a house that used solar energy to keep its occupants toasty on cold winter nights, thus saving money and helping the environment at the same time. But what about where these houses were being built? What about their durability? What about the materials used in construction? Was the wood coming from clear-cut old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest? What about the alarming increases in asthma among children? What about ozone depletion? And what about comfort?

Environmentally aware designers and builders began to broaden their focus. They recognized that North America’s buildings accounted for a huge percentage of its energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, ozone depletion, resource use, and health problems. And instead of simply being part of the problem, these pioneers wanted to be part of the solution.

Homebuyers and commercial building owners are also encouraging the green building movement. People want to live or work in buildings that are healthier and better for the environment. In commercial buildings, research shows that people working in green buildings (with features like natural daylighting, healthy air, and operable windows) are more productive; they get more done in less time, whether manufacturing widgets or processing insurance forms. Because the labour costs of running a business dwarf the cost of operating a building, improving the productivity of workers can yield tremendous financial returns.

Similar studies are showing that students learn faster in classrooms that have natural daylighting. A 1999 study of classrooms in the San Juan Capistrano School System in southern California, for example, found that learning progressed 20% faster in math skills and 26% faster in verbal skills in classrooms with the most natural daylighting, compared to classrooms with the least daylighting.

While much of the green building movement is very new, there are also aspects that have been around for a long time. Landscape architects in the American Midwest are studying how Native Americans managed the tall-grass prairies using fire, and are using those practices at some large corporate office parks. Ideas from pioneering individuals—such as Frederick Law Olmstead, 19th-century designer of New York City’s Central Park, Frank Lloyd Wright in the early 1900s, and landscape architect Ian McHarg beginning in the 1950s—are referenced widely in the green building field today.

Green building is still in its infancy. Not only does the building industry not yet have all the answers about how to build green, it often doesn’t even know the right questions to ask. There have been tremendous strides made since the early 1990s in understanding the environmental impacts associated with building, but we still have a very long way to go.

Excerpted with permission from Your Green Home: A Guide to Planning a Healthy, Environmentally Friendly New Home by Alex Wilson (New Society Publishers, 2006). Publisher’s website: newsociety.com.