Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Beth Duckles
Dissertation Proposal
January 2007
"If decision makers can get the framework right, the future of humanity will be secured by
thousands of mundane decisions: how many babies people have, where they graze their cattle,
how they insulate their houses. It is usually in mundane matters that the most profound
advances are made."
- "The Climax of Humanity" (Musser 2005)
Introduction
Many decisions go into the creation of a new building, from the type of insulation, the
number of skylights, whether to use single or double paned windows, and what type of
light bulbs would be best. Yet these decisions are not typically regarded as radical or
even particularly interesting details. Clients are focused on a building that will meet
their needs without going over budget. Architects are interested in creating a name for
themselves and making a building that while functional is also artistic, edgy and unique
(Cuff 1991). Builders wish to construct a sound building by the deadline. Decisions on
light bulbs barely register as important in the larger scheme of the building process.
Yet it is exactly these mundane details that are coming center stage in the growing
movement of green building. Proponents suggest that each of these decisions can have
a profound effect on the relationship that the building has with the natural world. By
changing the lighting scheme in a building, not only can clients save energy and money,
not only can architects use their skills to create more dramatic and interesting
daylighting schemes but the world as a whole can be positively affected and changed
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for the better. Proponents believe that these small changes will affect the environment
by creating less greenhouse gasses and other toxic waste products and by creating more
This change within the building industry has been rapid and ideologically based. One
way to examine the issue is to look at how the ideals of the movement found in the
Green builders have created ideological mechanisms to make it possible for profit
motive to coexist with the ideology of saving the environment and helping humanity.
For instance, the idea of the triple bottom line where a company focuses on profit, social
good and environmental good is a concept that helps for profit clients to be more at ease
The dissemination of the green building ideology into the mainstream is also changing
the market. It is changing the types of buildings consumers want, the materials that
builders use and the way in which architects design and think about buildings. It is this
shift in ideology that is creating a change in the market, though it is still unclear
As the growth of green building becomes more and more apparent, it is clear that the
environment will not be the only entity affected. The construction industry is being
transformed as a result of the increased interest on every level. Yet the mechanisms for
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the creation of this transformation have not been explored. What does it mean to shift
and change a marketplace based on difficult to define concepts and ideals such as
"green" or "sustainable"? The central focus of this dissertation will be to examine the
way in which the actors within a quickly shifting market maintain, implement or alter
the ideals of sustainability and environmentalism in the face of established rules, norms,
To explore the role of the architect, the builder, the client and the supplier, in a quickly
expanding and embedded markets this dissertation will meet at the intersection of three
literatures: social movements, organizational change and economic sociology. But first
Green Building
The green building movement can be found in its earliest forms within the context of
the environmental movement, where stewardship of the natural world is central. The
ideal of living in harmony with the environment and doing no harm to the world can be
Green building echoes the roots of the conservation movement in its struggle to address
humanity's needs while also focusing on the degradation of the environment. How
does a movement ask a species that has already exploited its environment to stop doing
so? Sale writes that there are two key perspectives in the conservation movement:
biocentric conservation, that acknowledges humans as one animal among many thus
upholding the rights of other animals and lands, and the anthropocentric viewpoint, in
which materials in the natural world are seen as resources which must be conserved
and used wisely in the interest of humanity (Sale 1993). As the movement has grown,
one key question for green builders has been to make conservation a viable and self-
interested option so that the actors within the market seek out conservation for their
own benefit.
Proponents of green building have begun to intertwine the motives of capitalism with
order to better sustain long term growth and profit (Hawken et al. 1999). By doing so,
they encourage consumers to see long term cost savings rather than focusing on the
generally higher up-front costs of building green. Lovins (2005) says "Using energy
more efficiently offers an economic bonanza – not because of the benefits of stopping
global warming but because saving fossil fuel is a lot cheaper than buying it." By
framing the argument in terms of long-term savings in the form of lowered operating
costs, energy savings and building maintenance, a particular subset of builders are
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attracted to green buildings. Owner built and operated buildings such as corporate
headquarters are much more likely to be built green compared to shorter term tenant
buildings such as shopping centers because the argument for long term savings is more
salient. There has been, however, a movement to make green building more appealing
The response has been a rapid growth of the green building sector and the subsequent
expansion into the corporate community. Though the list changes daily, some of those
who have built or are constructing sustainable buildings include Target, Wal-Mart,
Home Depot, Lowes, Toyota, Honda, General Motors, Ford, Chipotle and Patagonia.
Even the soon to be built Major League Ballparks in Minneapolis and Washington DC
are slated to go green (Greve 2006). Schools are taking up the challenge of green
building as well; Harvard University for instance has a total of 16 LEED certified
projects (Sharp 2006) and K-12 schools are increasingly going green. One news outlet
reported that the change in the market share of green buildings has gone from 0.7
Yet are energy cost savings the simple answer to the creation of this market or is there
more to the story? March and Simon suggest that bounded rationality creates
satisficing where actors make decisions within the confines of the information and
knowledge they already have (March and Simon 1958). Given that lower energy costs
in the long term are difficult to calculate with any certainty and executives making the
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decisions will be long gone when those benefits are realized – ideology may play an
I argue that green building is a case in which there has been a relatively rapid
ideological shift that begins within the environmental movement and has moved into
what is a traditionally conservative industry. This raises the question, who drives the
change? The supply side or demand side? In this case the answer is not clear.
However, I suggest this shift has unique implications for each actor: architects, builders,
corporate clients and suppliers. As these actors respond to the changes in the market,
there is an opportunity to examine not only market change, but the mechanisms by
which the ideology of a movement becomes integrated into the marketplace. The
central focus of this dissertation will be to examine the way in which the actors within a
environmentalism in the face of industry norms, rules and traditions and in the process
More concretely, I propose to study how this all plays out in the way new institutional
standards emerge as evident in the creation of the LEED building certification system,
To create a system that standardizes green building in the United States, the US Green
system called Leadership in Energy and Environment Design or LEED. This rating
2000). Though there are other measures of green building such as Green Globes in the
system has since it's inception in 2000 become dominant in the United States.
Since 2000, the LEED rating system has expanded to include not just the original project
of new commercial construction and major renovation projects (LEED-NC), but also
CI), core and shell development projects (LEED-CS) and the pilot programs LEED for
homes and LEED for neighborhood development (LEED Rating System). The number
of LEED certified new commercial construction buildings has reached 578 (as of
October 2, 2006).
The LEED standards were created with a consensus decision-making process that was
designed to make the process fair and balanced. The key elements of the process
rating systems; and a fair and open appeals process (LEED Development
Process).
The process seems specifically designed to include members of all sectors of the
industry and other interested stakeholders. Yet there have been some contested arenas
in LEED, including how to integrate life cycle cost assessments into the rating system
(Trusty and Horst 2002), local conditions for building green and preferential treatment
Those building LEED buildings in different parts of the country face different
circumstances, thus some LEED prescriptions advantage some regions over others. In a
2004 interview, the USGBC Executive Director, Rick Fedrizzi comments that "The future
of LEED, which you'll probably see in the next couple years, is to take a regional
approach" (Koch 2004). Fieldwork suggests that this is in response to the complaint
among some builders and architects that certain areas of the country are advantaged in
obtaining LEED points because they are able to get more materials locally than others 1 .
For instance, an architect in Alaska said it would be impossible for any building in their
state to achieve the highest rating, LEED - Platinum, because there are no locally
available materials that would fit the LEED rating criteria. Some architects in the
southwestern United States argue that the LEED rating system does not give a high
enough rating to the conservation of water given the issues and difficulties that face that
region.
1 It may be helpful to note that some of the points for LEED certification are assigned based on the
percentage of materials used that are obtained within a 500 mile radius of the building site. This is done
to encourage builders to use local materials when possible and to cut down on the emissions required to
transport materials to the site.
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as well. During preliminary fieldwork, some respondents commented that the concrete
placed on storm water runoff management in the point system. Because concrete as a
building material can be used not only for the building structure, parking lots and the
storm water management systems, the single industry can be involved in three separate
LEED categories. Thus the concrete industry may be preferred as the building team
(architect, client and builder) seeks LEED status for their building.
Espeland and Steven's (1998) work on the process of commensuration is useful to the
discussion at hand. They advocate a rigorous analysis of the way in which qualities and
ideals are translated into a common metric. They contend that this social creation of a
quantifiable value allows for a quicker comparison and representation of ideas that
simplifies and creates a discourse around complex ideas. Seen in this framework, the
creation and negotiation of the LEED rating system is a way in which green builders are
able to integrate the ideals of sustainability into the fabric of a variety of institutions
and difficult concept is translated into a number through the LEED rating system.
Beyond just the creation of a metric, the LEED building rating system is also a contested
space for those who are suppliers to the industry as they vie among themselves for the
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distinctions that allow their sub-industry and innovations to become more attractive to
not only defines (with some challenges) the terrain of a broad and difficult to quantify
concept but it also can offer a sense of how the "green" ideology has changed over time
and what actors have an advantage at any given point in time. The LEED system has
gone through several iterations in its new construction rating (LEED-NC) and the
process seems designed to shift as the industry changes and grows further engaging
The struggle to define the concept of green building and the resulting measures created
by the US Green Building Council commensurates the concept in such a way that is
flexible enough to shift as the population grows, and yet also allows for concrete
Creating measures that allow for and arguably encourage change is a unique attribute
of this movement.
Fligstein and Dauter point out that some who look at the markets suggest that while
there is a difference between stabilizing and starting projects the general tendency of a
market is towards stability. Others suggest that market change is a fluid and
continuous process that is required in order to be effective with in the market. To find a
middle ground, Fligstein and Dauter suggest that there must be a clearer explanation of
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the nature of change within the marketplace in order to more concretely identify when
a shift is large enough to constitute a change within the market versus an evolution of
It is for this reason that I draw on the evolutionary thinking of Aldrich and Ruef (2006:
to cause a break with previous forms." The result of the LEED certification process is
relatively new form and yet integrated into the existing construction population.
I consider green building a part of an embedded market, one that exists within the
larger building and construction industry as a relatively separate entity but which also
seeks to change that industry by becoming more entrenched within that larger market.
This implies that some architects and builders who focus on green building are in firms
that may not fully embrace the concept. Clients may seek green building but also be
forced to spend significant energy to justify the choice of a green building to their
tiered system drawing from resource partitioning (Carroll 1985). Some suppliers
market to both general building teams and green building teams becoming generalists.
Others suppliers rely solely on revenue from products that are entirely found in green
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buildings and thus they become specialists in the field and subsumed by the green
building market without ties to others in the larger construction and building industry.
Understanding how this embedded market functions is a key question for this
dissertation. While previous research has been conducted on the construction industry
as a whole (see Stinchcombe 1959, Eccles 1981a, Eccles 1981b and Constantino 2001)
there has been little work done on the green building industry as a whole.
Social Movements
The social movements literature has focused on institutions that have a strong
ideological component. Resource mobilization theory has long been fascinated by the
question of social movement outcomes and how the social movement creates these
outcomes. Outcomes in the form of policy changes are a key measure of social
movement failure or success and much research has looked at this question (such as
Amenta et al. 1992). Yet as Giugni (1998) points out, the political process model makes
the assumption that the social movement has as its focus the changing of a political
institution such as laws, regulations etc. While this is key to understanding the central
social movements of our time such as the civil rights movement and the women's
suffrage movement, this may not be the desired outcome of all movements.
Appendix C shows a current snapshot of the local and state governments as well as
federal agencies that have created policies using the LEED building standards. It is
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clear that policy has been affected by the growth of green building and is a key part of
the story, particularly due to the inclusion of LEED standards for government
buildings. Yet it would be difficult to say that the creation of policy itself was the
outcome intended by the movement. Instead, policy changes help to smooth the way
for more building and make it easier and more preferable to choose green building. In
other words, the salient outcome for this movement is the creation of more green
buildings. Similarly, the women's movement had as its outcome a desire for the equal
treatment of women and the civil rights movement aims at a better life for minorities.
Green building is unique in that its roots and its early years are firmly entrenched in the
environmental movement, and much of the rhetoric and ideals come from that history.
Yet the movement has a unique and measurable outcome – the number of green
buildings - that is not focused on political mobilization. And though the movement
may involve itself in some political action, it is secondary to the changes desired within
the building, design and construction sector. The changes proposed by green building
Changes that are to be found within the scope of a particular institution, a type of
A second goal of this dissertation is to understand the institutional shifts within the
market as a unique social movement outcome. As the movement has become more
institutionalized, the movement outcomes are now less ideological and more concrete
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while still clearly tracing its ideology back to the social movement itself. This research
works from an understanding that the topic of green building falls at the cusp between
the enactment of the ideals and ideology of the environmental social movement and the
The social movement literature is well suited to discuss tactics, frames and networks
within a movement. The strengths of this literature will be used in an analysis of the
Morality in the market has been studied in regards to concepts such as fairness and
loyalty in the labor market (Tilly 1994) , altruistic gifts of human blood and organ
donation (Healy 2006) and trust (among others Cook, 2001 (2001); (Sabel 1993)). Healy's
contribution was to uncover the institutional effects on the procurement of organ, tissue
and blood (2006). However, the question remains: how much does morality influence
market behavior?
Great care has been taken by green builders to convey that they are not averse to
helping their clients increase their profit or even making a profit themselves.
Companies who supply the industry make it plain that they are not averse to making a
profit either. It is clear that profit is a central part of the story, but how much of the
story? One architect who attended GreenBuild suggested that the best way to get a
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client to "go green" was to call the building a "high performance" building rather than
calling it ecologically friendly, sustainable or even energy efficient. This suggests that
there are mechanisms at play to reframe the ecological motive as a profit motive.
One way in which builders encourage environmentally friendly building is through the
inclusion of life cycle cost analyses in the design process. The Life Cycle Assessment
(LCA) helps the builder analyze the course of different building systems over the life of
the building (Trusty and Horst 2002). This allows both the builder and the client to see
the potential for long-term savings and the impact on the environment in a measured
A method of appealing to the profit motive while also espousing ecologically sound
principles is the concept of the "triple bottom line" where an organization focuses not
just on profit but also on their company's social and environmental impact. The ideal is
that organizations involved in green building are interested in all three rather than
exclusively profit at the expense of social or environmental good. To integrate this into
the construction of buildings, Life Cycle Assessments are adjusted to include each of
these motives. Potential clients can see that not only can they save money on the long
term operating costs, but they also have measures in place to see the reduction of
emissions into the environment, the change in the "carbon footprint" of the building and
the reliance on local community features such as local suppliers and mass transit. The
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triple bottom line allows the for profit organization to "sector bend" (Dees and
Anderson 2004)
One place in which we can see "sector bending" is in the creation of new industries
where "hybrid organizations [are] looking to harness market forces for social good."
(Dees and Anderson 2004: 55). The authors suggest there are some positive features to
this kind of integrative marketplace. Among them the capacity to offer resources more
effectively, the capacity to find effective solutions to problems by offering solutions that
answer business problems while attending to the social good, improving accountability
structures and strengthening the finances of the social sector. While they caution
against a variety of difficulties in such integration, their cautions fall largely into the
area of concern for the viability of nonprofit involvement. The assumption is that for-
profit organizations will find this hybrid organization attractive provided that it helps
The question of motive remains. To what extent are these socially and environmentally
friendly practices simply about a further profit motive through positive public relations
or are there additional rationales? And further, do the values that create a triple bottom
line differ based on the organizational form? Are governmental and nonprofit
organizations interpreting the triple bottom line in a similar manner as for profits are?
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With the increase in growth and the growing institutionalization of the process of green
the environmental movement. This dissertation asks the question: How do actors, who
are the products of a social movement, sustain their ideology as the ideas become more
To address this question, I will look at three key sets of actors in the building process
and ask how the ideology has shifted as the movement becomes more mainstream. To
look at the professionals: builders and architects, the clients and suppliers to the
industry will give us a sense of the shifts and changes that this industry is facing and
The study will focus on buildings, professionals and clients who are located in the state
of California. There are several reasons to do this. First of all, California has the highest
number of LEED buildings of any state (see Appendix D) and is one of the key places in
the country where green building has grown extensively both in terms of number of
certainly not the only place that such changes have happened in the United States, it is a
central location for green building activity and a place where some of the innovations in
There are also enough green buildings in California to provide a reasonable variety to
analyze. As of October 2, 2006 there were 50 LEED certified buildings in California and
among those buildings there were a variety of building usages and client types.
for public order and safety such as jails and courthouses (n=7), laboratories (n=4),
buildings for higher education (n=3), industry (n=3), libraries (n=3), community use
(n=1), Interpretive centers (museum or visitors center) (n=1) and recreation (n=1). Since
builders and architects tend to specialize in particular types of buildings such variety
will offer a chance to examine the different motives of a variety of architectural firms
There are a variety of client types who build green buildings in California. Among the
50 currently certified LEED buildings, sixteen are owned by for profit corporations,
fourteen belong to local government and eight are owned by nonprofits. State and
federal governments also own a combined total of five more buildings and the rest are
California is also unique in that its natural environment is varied among the southern
deserts, central agricultural valley, northern forests, the coastal region and the
mountains. The different biomes are important for green building because they dictate
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the type of materials locally available, influence the siting of the building, the HVAC
systems needed and the options available for interfacing with the natural world. While
studying California would not necessarily make the study generalizable to the rest of
the United States, this work may still inform a variety of different regions given the
Finally, the choice of California allows us to control for state policy differences. The
will likely encourage further growth in the industry and foster an environment for even
more local policy changes. This makes it an ideal place for the study of the growth of
To address how have builders and architects have adapted their professional identities
to incorporate green building, I will begin this project by doing participant observation
while becoming a LEED certified professional. This will involve participation in a day-
long course on green building led by a representative from the US Green Building
2To gain a better sense of Life Cycle Assessment, I may also take distance-learning course offered by the
Harvard School of Public Health (URL: http://www.sciencenetwork.com/lca/index.cfm). This will not
be involved in the participant observation given that it is an online course, but it will help me to become
more knowledgeable about the field.
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There are at least two clear reasons to participate in the process of becoming a LEED
AP. To begin with, the detailed and specific knowledge of the LEED certification
process and standards will help me immeasurably in my ability to converse with and
understand the newly growing field. By learning the language and background that the
professionals in the industry have I will also gain better access to the US Green Building
Council materials and web site and further my engagement with the building
community.
Second, understanding how the ideals of the movement are conveyed to professionals
can only be learned by participating in and reviewing the educational materials that are
available to those who become LEED professionals. While it is possible that the
materials could be obtained separately it would not have the same impact as taking a
course and learning the material in the same way that a professional would.
Additionally, this knowledge will allow me greater ease in creating connections with
and how the sustainability ideas are transferred to professionals, I will also interview a
certified professionals and who practice in the state of California. The purpose of these
interviews is to gain a clearer sense of the way in which professionals become interested
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and involved in the sub industry of green building. Please see Appendix E for the
needed. Interviews will last approximately one hour and will be tape recorded for
accuracy (provided that the interviewee consents). Interviewees will be solicited using
the California chapter of the USGBC website, listserv and contacts and the Emerging
Green Builders (EGB) groups in California. This will be a snowball sample, early
interviewees will be asked to suggest architects or builders in a different firm that they
Approximately half of the builders and architects surveyed will be younger architects
and builders (having practiced architecture or building from 1-5 years) while the other
half of the sample will be "established" green builders having been in the business for
over five years. Fieldwork at the US Green Building Council's conference GreenBuild
gave evidence that there are two "waves" of practitioners who do green building. First,
the older and more established architects and builders who have been working in the
green building field prior to the creation of LEED and the younger "emerging" group of
builders. Some respondents commented that there is a significant difference in the way
in which each of these groups approaches green building. This suggests that there may
Additionally the respondents will be varied on the basis of their status as either an
architect or a builder. These two fields are unique and have different motives for their
participation. Thus interviews will attempt to reach between 5 –7 interviewees who are
in each group of emerging green architects, emerging green builders, established green
What is the relationship between organizational consumers of green buildings and the
green building industry? What influence do the organizational consumers have on the
creation of a niche market? While the marketing literature has discussed the so-called
consumption, less has been written about why and how firms and organizations make
the decision to build green buildings. Commercial buildings are a key consumer of this
new form of building and it is not clear if there is a "culture of green consumption" for
In this section, I will look at the data on already built LEED buildings in California and
the type of organizations that were involved in their construction as well as the clients
who own the building. I hope to become clear about the extent to which for profits,
nonprofits and government agencies are involved in the production of these buildings
Care will be taken to clearly understand the green regulations in the state of California
and within the cities that house the buildings. While local green regulations typically
do not dictate green building in a region, there is clearly a relationship between local
regulations that encourage building and green building. Particularly for smaller or
green building.
To examine how different green building consumers came to the decision to build green
I will do in depth interviews with key decision makers at organizations that have built
LEED certified buildings in California in three distinct sectors, government agencies, for
profit firms and nonprofit firms. 3 These interviews will focus on the reasons for green
building for different types of consumers (for profit firms, government agencies,
Given previous research, we would expect that with a for profit motive, firms would be
more likely to build green buildings if they would see a benefit for their organization in
terms of public relations, if the Life Cycle Analysis marked a significant savings or if
3 Educational institutions would be another key part of the organizational population that the USGBC has
certified since the inception of the program. However, for the purposes of this study we are narrowing
the focus to for profit/nonprofit/governmental differences. There are some issues that are specific to
schools in addition to the differences facing K-12 public schools and colleges/universities, particularly
justifying the cost of certification to the community and the distinction between certification and
compliance. Because some of these issues are currently being addressed by a USGBC panel focused on
creating a unique certification program for schools it seems wise to wait until that process has finished
before studying this area of green building.
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we might assume that the long term cost benefits from the Life Cycle Analysis would be
the rationale for their involvement, in particular if maintenance costs were significantly
reduced. Finally, for nonprofits, we can assume that there would be a more ideological
This phase of the study will involve interviews with as many LEED building consumers
buildings in the state of California. More buildings are likely to be built during the
course of the research. Thus this represents a minimum of the number of the
interviewed via the phone if time does not permit a face-to-face interview.
This data is ideal for using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (Ragin 1987) because it is
a small sample, yet information about each building and organization will be detailed.
This analysis of the interview data will allow for an understanding of the paths that
organizations take in their rationale for green building and how they vary by
organizational form.
4A different option would be to take a sample of around 50 buildings in California that are LEED-NC
(New Construction), LEED-CI (Commerical Interiors), LEED-EB (Existing Building Maintenance and
Operations) and LEED-CS (Core and Shell) but it seemed to add a level of complexity in comparison.
Confining the study to new construction does limit the type of organization involved by excluding those
organizations that cannot be owner occupants, but it would reduce the complexity in comparison across
type of building certification in addition to other variables.
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In what way do the supplying organizations adapt their organizational identity in order
to fit into the ideology of the movement and thus become a part of a niche market?
There is some evidence to suggest that those supplying green building products to the
issues, given resource partitioning theory we might assume that these organizations
would be specifically focused solely on the green building market. But is it then true
that generalists within the supplying industry are not building green for economic
reasons? Are the generalists focused primarily on the profit motive and the
diversification of their revenue streams or are they adopting a discourse around green
building as well?
Using data from Building Green Inc,'s GreenSpec database (Green Building Products
2006) and lists of vendors and prospective vendors for the GreenBuild Conference, I
will compile a population of green building industry suppliers and take a random
sample of those in the industry. Vendors will be surveyed to ask questions about the
beginning of their company, the changes they've seen in the growth of their company
over the past seven years (period of time when the LEED system has been in place), the
product lines they are marketing directly towards the Green building community, and
their interest in lobbying or influencing the USGBC in order to change the LEED
system. This will allow me to gain a sense of the supplier's role in the contested space
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that the LEED system has created. See Appendix G for a preliminary survey
instrument. The instrument will be further refined as phases one and two are
completed so that the information learned from those phases can be integrated into the
survey.
One analysis to be performed is to explore the relationship between the LEED scoring
system and the industry that can affect each point. By looking at the changes in the
LEED system over time and the points which a building could earn based on the
industry product, we can examine how much change LEED would likely affect the field
and test to see if it is true. In other words, as LEED is shifts towards particular types of
innovations or materials, does that supplying industry grow? Is the relative weighting
of the scoring system consistent with the changes in the industry? Do those in the
industry note the weighting and consider it fair/unfair because of the scoring? To what
Research Significance
mechanisms that affect key actors within the industry and examine how that ideology
becomes institutionalized. This has implications for any social movement, which seeks
to integrate itself into the workings of social institutions in addition to the study of
Green building is an interesting case because it entails not only the emergence of a new
market but also the integration of business principles with the motives of
Finally, the role of the government as a client in this field rather than solely or even
primarily as a regulator of the market is unusual and bears further inquiry. To look at
the rationale for governmental green building in comparison to for profit and nonprofit
organizations may help in understanding the variety of reasons for the growth of the
marketplace and may give us a sense of how to interpret the government as a lead
consumer.
Duckles - 28
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Appendix A
I. Introduction
VI. Conclusion
VII. Appendices
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Dissertation Timeline
Time Start Time Finish
Proposal Defense January 2007
Phase 1: Participant February 2007 April 2007
Observation
Phase 1: Recruitment and March 2007 Summer 2007
Interviews:
Builders/Architects
Phase 2: Recruitment and Summer 2007 Summer 2007
Interviews:
Org Consumers
Phase 3: Data Gathering: Spring 2007 Fall 2007
Suppliers
Phase 3: Supplier Survey Fall 2007 December 2007
Analysis of Qualitative March 2007 Fall 2007
Data
Analysis of Supplier Fall 2007 Spring 2008
Survey
Dissertation Writing Summer 2007 Spring 2008
Publication of Research Summer 2007 Fall 2008
Dissertation Defense May 2008
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According to www.govpro.com, the following federal, state and local groups have "passed
legislation, executive orders, ordinances, policies, or other incentives for buildings to meet
LEED criteria."
# of LEED
State Certified Buildings
California 50
Pennsylvania 39
Washington 36
Oregon 32
Michigan 28
Massachusetts 20
Georgia 19
Texas 18
Colorado 17
New York 17
Illiniois 16
Virginia 12
Arizona 11
Ohio 11
Florida 10
North Carolina 10
Maryland 9
Utah 8
Missouri 7
New Jersey 7
South Carolina 7
Maine 6
Wisconsin 6
Arkansas 5
Tennesee 5
*Information gathered from USGBC and is accurate as of October 1, 2006
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LEED AP
- Tell me how you decided to become a LEED AP.
- How many of the other people in your office/company are also LEED AP's?
- How many buildings has your company/firm built that are LEED certified?
Compliant?
- How many buildings have you participated in the building of that are LEED certified?
Compliant?
- Where/how do you learn the most about green building techniques/methods?
- Have you used any techniques, ideas, methods or materials that you learned about
either from the LEED training or from the USGBC in buildings that are not LEED
certified? What?
- How do you convince a potential client to "go green"?
- Do you use Life Cycle Assessments to help convince your clients? How does that
work?
- Has becoming a LEED AP changed the way that you do your work?
- Does the LEED criteria fit your idea of a green building? Is it a good measurement of
green buildings?
- Does the USGBC represent you?
- Tell me what you think of the "triple bottom line"?
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Organization
- When did your company come into business?
- Are you a subsidiary of another company?
- How many people does your company employ?
- Where do you find the raw materials for your product?