Green or Green Wash? Lessons from building North America’s greenest hotel in Toronto - MaRS Best Practices
2 years ago
00:00
4818
More
51. Green or Green Wash? Lessons from building North A…
2 years ago
Tom Rand, Cleantech Practice Lead at MaRS Discovery District, inventor of the Green Bond, previous entrepreneur and successful Venture Capitalist talks about his journey to build "the continent’s greenest hotel" - Planet Traveler.
Rand sees the world through green-colored glasses. There is too little time and too much at stake to invest in “green” technologies that do not succeed in effecting a substantive reduction in carbon emissions. Low carbon technologies represent a third-industrial revolution that Rand believes must take place. And soon.
In pursuing the goal of building the greenest hotel, Rand didn’t waste time quibbling over payback periods on geothermal heat exchangers, or spend months negotiating with government agencies to obtain retrofit grants. In fact, Rand and his partner are making this project work without the help of any grants or subsidies as an example to others that the adoption of green technologies isn’t prohibitively expensive. Day-to-day building operations are responsible for 40 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions: a huge market. And greening buildings are the low-hanging fruit of carbon emissions reduction, ripe for the adoption of new green technologies.
Rand talks about City cooperation, payback periods, technology and financing options and how to measure the cost savings of green technologies.
Rand sees the world through green-colored glasses. There is too little time and too much at stake to invest in “green” technologies that do not succeed in effecting a substantive reduction in carbon emissions. Low carbon technologies represent a third-industrial revolution that Rand believes must take place. And soon.
In pursuing the goal of building the greenest hotel, Rand didn’t waste time quibbling over payback periods on geothermal heat exchangers, or spend months negotiating with government agencies to obtain retrofit grants. In fact, Rand and his partner are making this project work without the help of any grants or subsidies as an example to others that the adoption of green technologies isn’t prohibitively expensive. Day-to-day building operations are responsible for 40 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions: a huge market. And greening buildings are the low-hanging fruit of carbon emissions reduction, ripe for the adoption of new green technologies.
Rand talks about City cooperation, payback periods, technology and financing options and how to measure the cost savings of green technologies.
MP4
01:20:18
Statistics
| Date | Plays | Likes | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Totals | 1,065 | 1 | 1 |
| Feb 14th | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 13th | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 12th | 6 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 11th | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 10th | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 9th | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 8th | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Prev week
-
Vimeo: About / Blog / Developers / Jobs /
Community Guidelines /
Help Center / Video School / Music Store / Site Map
/ Vimeo
or 
-
Legal: TM + ©2012 Vimeo, LLC. All rights reserved. / Terms of Service / Privacy Statement / Copyright
Another point to consider is that the business case presented is one with no existing infrastructure. With new installations, the total cost of solution is lower (e.g. new lights are needed anyways). Of course, sunk cost should not be a factor, but the TCO of cleantech is so new that owners will undoubtedly compare it with the original investment.
I agree that the case sounds compelling, but there are other considerations. For instance, what is the construction delay when scaling up to condos and high rise business buildings?
Delays will be inevitable as builders now need to coordinate with a new supplier (e.g. solar panel, etc) and a new process (e.g. permit with government, etc). Some smart metres, solar circuits, etc, may have a level of delicacy that they could not be left outside unprotected next to the bags of unmixed cement and stack of steel beams; hence, adding additional logistics challenges.
Delays matter because of the time value of money in real estate due to huge upfront cost. The business case for existing buildings will be different than this one. The decision is not whether to go green, but rather, should owners add another 6-10 years to the project life or extend the mortgage for another 6-10 years. The earlier the building owner commits to greening the building, the more savings they reap. The opposite is also true: the longer they procrastinate, the less savings there are for them.
Ultimately, the decision depends on the purpose of the building and the intent of the owner (i.e. to flip it for a quick return, or to retrofit a whole block as a set example for others to follow, etc).