Page 125 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

104 CHAPTER 3

You don’t have to be an environmental nonprofit to incorporate sustainable prac-
tices, and you don’t have to be as big as Wal-Mart to have a far-reaching impact in cre-
ating a more sustainable future for the planet and for generations to come. What it
takes is an authentic commitment to approach business decisions with a different
mindset—one that considers a triple bottom line. The first step is establishing what
sustainability means to your organization. The next step is determining what the
appropriate metrics are. After all, how can you measure success if you have nothing
to compare it to? Small steps can go a long way—get the framework in place and then
look to rapidly expand and grow upon early successes. Continue to push the bound-
aries, and most importantly, re-evaluate where you are and where you came from.
Sustainability is a dynamic concept. You can only determine where you are going by
knowing where you have been.

Putting a Price Tag on All These Efforts

SO WHAT DOES ALL OF THIS COST?
In trying to be conservative, we estimate that about 5 percent of a sustainability asso-
ciate’s time is devoted to auditing the company’s overall environmental footprint and
overseeing various programs that help reduce that footprint. This means that 5 percent
of overall opportunity cost for revenue generation is lost to planning and implement-

ears
Y Years 0 1 2 3
REVENUES/SAVINGS
REVENUES/SA VINGS
1,000
1,000
Energy
Savings
Energy Savings 1,000 1,000 1,000
1,000
500
ater
500
500
Water SavingsSavings 500 500 500
1,800
Soda reduction program
Soda r eduction pr ogram 1,800 1,800 1,800
1,800
1,800
3,300
Sub-total Revenues/Savings 3,300 3,300 3,300
3,300
Sub-total Revenues/Savings
3,300
COSTS
COSTS
Pur chase of gr een (1,600) (1,600) (1,600)
(1,600)
(1,600)
Purchase of green tagstags
(1,600)
(4,000)
(4,000)
(4,000)
Tree puree purchases forchases for carbon sequestrationcarbon sequestration (4,000) (4,000) (4,000)
Purchase of CFLs for the communitycommunity (3,000) (6,000) (5,000)
the
(5,000)
(3,000)
(6,000)
for
Pur
chase
CFLs
of
etr
r
(1,500)
Lighting retrofits (1,500)
Lighting
ofits
aerators
(15)
Low-flow
Low-flow aerators (15)
LEED expenses for Savannah office (39,000)
(39,000)
LEED
expenses
office
for
Savannah
for
Birmingham
office
LEED expenses for Birmingham office (20,000)
LEED
expenses
(20,000)
Value of time of sustainability associatealue of time of sustainability associate (9,375) (10,781) (12,398)
(12,398)
(10,781)
(9,375)
(78,490)
(22,998)
Sub-total Costs (78,490) (22,381) (22,998)
Sub-total
(22,381)
Costs
(19,698)
(75,190)
(19,081)
Total Cashflowotal Cashflow 0 (75,190) (19,081) (19,698)
1.000
Discount
0.751
Discount Factor 1.000 0.909 0.826 0.751
0.909
Factor
0.826
PV Cashflow 0 (68,355) (15,770) (14,800)
PV
(68,355)
(15,770)
Cashflow
(14,800)
(203,828)
NPV
NPV (203,828)
Figure 3.5 Costs and benefits of greening a company’s operations.