Page 188 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

166 CHAPTER 5

the play, that they’re lost. And Henslowe, who has been a complete nervous Nelly
throughout, is suddenly and absolutely calm, and he tells Shakespeare that everything
will turn out well. Shakespeare wants to know how. Henslowe admits he doesn’t know.
But Henslowe is right. It all turns out well. It’s the magic of theater. This so-called
magic has also played out at Abercorn Common. Early on in the project, our staff
determined to make it and every other project going forward a green development. We
were green ourselves in our experience with LEED, having delivered only one prior
project to LEED criteria. It’s hard to remember that now, six or seven years later, but
we really had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. That may seem foolhardy,
but maybe it’s the magic of green.
I mean that in both senses of green, which are actually intertwined. There has, his-
torically, been a certain magic associated with our green orientation, of doing well
financially by taking the ethical stance of being better stewards of our land and our
community. That has never been the overt intent. As a company, we never made the
decision to do the right thing in order to be successful. It has simply worked out that
way. Things have turned out well.
I think a partial explanation is, in fact, that we are often green when it comes to our
approach to development challenges. As un-businesslike as it probably sounds, some-
times it pays to approach a development project with fresh eyes, eyes that may not see
all the reasons why a new and different approach won’t work. And I do think there is
something to be said for stepping beyond the bounds of the known, in the interest of
furthering a few things that need to go right and to promote smarter, better develop-
ment practices. Our company finds itself in that same situation today, having signed
on to the 2030 Challenge, which calls for dramatic reductions in carbon emissions
from all of our development projects from this date forward. We don’t know (yet) how
we will deliver on that commitment. We simply know it needs to be done.

NOTES
1 David W. Orr, The Nature of Design: Ecology, Culture, and Human Intention (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 203.
2 Jason F. McLennan, The Philosophy of Sustainable Design: The Future of Architecture
(Kansas City, Mo.: Ecotone Publishing, 2004), p. 80.
3 Lawrence S. Earley, Looking for Longleaf: The Fall and Rise of an American Forest (Chapel
Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004), p. 2.
4 Timothy Beatley and Kristy Manning, The Ecology of Place: Planning for Environment,
Economy, and Community (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1997), p. 157.
5 Jason F. McLennan, The Philosophy of Sustainable Design: The Future of Architecture
(Kansas City, Mo.: Ecotone Publishing, 2004), p. 80.