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Doctoral Dissertation Research

The Green Building Industry in California: From Ideology to Buildings
Beth M. Duckles

Project Description
Proponents of ecologically sound building design are effusive in their desire to change the world
by integrating buildings with the natural world, altering the manufacturing process to reduce waste and
recycle goods and to make a profit while doing it (Hawken et al. 1999). William McDonough, a well-
known green architect proposes a radical shift in industry where corporations take each item and each
process into account from the beginning of its existence until the end. The so called "cradle to cradle"
manufacturing would require that companies pay attention to each action and examine the environmental
impact as the process occurs (McDonough and Braungart 2002). By re-envisioning manufacturing and
capitalism these authors suggest that we can change the world and make a better life not only for humans
but also for the natural world. A key component of that vision is green building, or building commercial
and residential buildings that reduce the level of carbon dioxide emissions, use more sustainable materials
and are in more integrated into their natural environment.
While research has explored the challenges builders face in designing or constructing energy
efficient or environmentally sustainable new commercial buildings (Lutzenhiser et al. 2001), less
attention has been paid to the reasons why buildings are built sustainably. The increasingly visible green
market suggests that there is a need to examine more closely the mechanisms that account for the
emergence of an embedded market. The shift within the construction market 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 clear that there is a relationship between the sustainable ideology and these
market changes, however it is still unclear whether this ideological shift is demand or supply driven.
Simply put, the mechanisms behind this transformation have not been explored. How does an
industry adapt to new concepts and ideals that undermine some of the basic assumptions that underlie
'business as usual'? What does it mean to 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 promote, attack, implement or alter the ideals of
sustainability and environmentalism in the face of established rules, norms, and traditions, i.e.,
institutions. To explore the role of the architect, the builder, the client and the supplier, in a quickly
expanding and embedded market, this dissertation will meet at the intersection of three literatures: social
movements, organizational change and economic sociology. In this way we will address the emergence
of an embedded market, gain an understanding of the institutional shifts as a social movement outcome
and discuss the relationship between the profit motive and the motive for organizations to be socially and
environmentally responsible.

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 seen in the core beliefs of green
building. Green building or ecological design can be seen as a natural extension of ecological principles,
or "applied ecology" where the architects and builders work to create a more interdependent relationship
between humans and their environment through buildings (Wines 2000, Zeiher 1996). Yeang writes
"Ecological design requires the architect to regard and to understand the environment as a functioning
natural system and to recognize the dependence of the built environment on it." (1999)
Involved in the ideals behind green building is the quandary of human existence at the expense of
the natural world. Wines writes that one of the tasks of those involved in green building is "to address the
deeper philosophical conflicts surrounding the issue of whether we really deserve the luxury of this
existence, given our appalling track record of environmental abuse." (Wines 2000). Green building

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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.
To this end, proponents of green building have begun to intertwine the motives of capitalism with
sustainability. The idea of "natural capitalism" implies a progression from the exploitation of resources to
a post industrial management of available resources in 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 attracted to green buildings 1 .
The past decade has shown a remarkable growth of the green building sector. 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 (Greve
2006, Wednt 2006). The soon to be built Major League Ballparks in Minneapolis and Washington DC
are slated to go green (Greve 2006). The US General Services Administration has decided that new
federal buildings must be built green (Fields 2006). One news outlet reported that the change in the
market share of green buildings has gone from 0.7 percent in 2000 to 5 percent in 2006 (Greve 2006).
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 encourages 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 decisions will be long gone when those benefits are realized – ideology may play
an important role in creating this market.
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 whether or not intentionally driven by a social
movement, it has significantly altered 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 also 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 quickly shifting market maintain or alter the ideals of sustainability and environmentalism in the
face of industry norms, rules and traditions and in the process bring about institutional change within this
industry. More concretely, I propose to study how the environmental ideals are commensurated as new
institutional standards emerge through the creation of the LEED building certification system, created by
the US Green Building Council.

1Owner built and operated buildings such as corporate headquarters are much more likely to be built green
compared to shorter term tenant buildings because the argument for long term savings is more salient. There has
been, a movement to make green building more appealing to those who do not reside in owner operated buildings.

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The US Green Building Council and LEED Certification System

To create a system that standardizes green building in the United States, the US Green Building
Council, in partnership with a number of stakeholders developed a rating system called Leadership in
Energy and Environment Design or LEED. This rating system is "creating a common understanding of
what it means to build green" (Gordon 2000). Though there are other measures of green building such as
Green Globes in the United States (www.greengglobes.com) and different standards in Europe, the LEED
system has since it's inception in 2000 become dominant in the United States and has been used as a
model for the Canadian Green Building Council. Additionally LEED building certifications have been
adopted 2 as a standard by a number of federal agencies including the US Army, Navy and Air Force, the
US General Services Agency, the US Department of Energy, the US Department of State, the US
Department of Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency. There are at least eighteen states with
initiatives or other incentives to participate in LEED certification and a wide variety of counties and local
governments have created similar policy measures (Case 2006).
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 existing building operations
and maintenance (LEED-EB), commercial interiors (LEED-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 3
(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. According to the USGBC website LEED development will be:
"A balanced and transparent committee structure; Technical Advisory Groups to ensure scientific
consistency and rigor; opportunities for stakeholder comment and review; member ballot of new
rating systems and certain changes to existing rating systems; and a fair and open appeals
process." (LEED Development Process)
The process seems designed to include members of all sectors of the industry. However, there have been
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, the Forest Stewardship Council's
Certification program as a measure of sustainable timber harvesting (Edgerton 2006) and preferential
treatment towards some industries in regards to the number of points allocated.
Builders of LEED buildings in different parts of the country face unique circumstances and
environments for building, this has lead some to suggest that LEED mandates advantage some regions
over others. In a 2004 interview, the USGBC Executive Director, Rick Fedrizzi comments, "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 4 . 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. Architects in the southwestern United States during
pretest interviews 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.
Certain materials or technological advancements may be advantaged in the rating system. During
preliminary fieldwork, respondents commented that the concrete industry is unfairly advantaged in LEED

2
Many state and local governments who have adopted LEED as a standard have accepted any future iterations of
LEED as the USGBC determine them. This makes the USGBC a central figure in defining and disseminating the
definition and measurement of green building.
3
As of October 2, 2006 per data gathered from the USGBC.
4
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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point allocation because of the importance placed on storm water runoff management in the point system.
Concrete as a building material can be used not only for the building structure, parking lots and the storm
water management systems. This creates the potential for a single industry to be involved in three
separate LEED categories for one building which advantages that industry as a building team (architect,
client and builder) seeks the most cost effective route towards LEED status for their building.
Other work has examined certification as a social process. Research on the apparel and forest
products industries has suggested that the state may create certification processes in response to social
movements and institutional isomorphism (Bartley 2003). Espeland and Steven's (1998) work on the
process of commensuration advocates 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
from builders, to architects to consumers. In other words, sustainability as a complex and difficult
concept is translated into a number through the LEED rating system.
Beyond the creation of a metric, the LEED building rating system is also a key contested space
for suppliers to the industry as they vie among themselves for the distinctions that allow their sub-
industry and innovations to become more attractive to builders seeking LEED certification. The
contested commensuration of green building 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 new rating systems are
being introduced yearly for varying types of buildings.
Though the LEED rating process is designed to shift as the industry changes and grows, there is a
need to further engage in a discussion about issues of agency in a quickly emerging and potentially
powerful embedded market. I contend that the growing reliance on these standards by governmental
agencies, organizational consumers and state and local governments makes this a vital area of study. To
what extent does the measurement of sustainable buildings create the market versus the dissemination of a
sustainable ideology pull the market in a green direction. Posing the question as a counterfactual: if the
US Green Building council and LEED certification did not exist, would the buildings we now call LEED
certified have been built in the same manner they were built?

The Emergence of Markets and Industries

Fligstein and Dauter (Forthcoming) point out that some who look 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. To find a middle ground, Fligstein and Dauter suggest that there must be a clearer
explanation of 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 a simple market.
Aldrich and Ruef (2006: 182), define the creation of a new organizational population as
"whenever observers see culture or material practices within a pioneering organization as sufficiently
novel to cause a break with previous forms." The result of the LEED certification process is the creation
of an organizational population of professionals, their firms, client organizations and supplier
organizations that is both distinguished sufficiently to be a relatively new form and yet integrated into the
existing construction population in such manner that does not allow for complete separation.
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 or who do so simply as a
means to gain more clients. Clients may seek green building for similar reasons such as "greenwashing"
their public image. Yet clients are in the unique position of spending significant energy to justify the

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choice of a green building to their organizational stakeholders, particularly when the cost of green
building is generally higher than a similar traditional building. The question exists; do these changes
make a difference for the environment or for the organization? Is it possible to positively impact both
equally or is the ideal of the dual or even triple bottom line simply a marketing tactic?
An embedded market for suppliers suggests a two-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 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.
The first goal of this dissertation is to understand how this embedded market emerges and the
roles of both generalists and specialists within the market. 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 less work focusing on the emergence of markets within industries or on
green building as an embedded market.

Social Movements
The social movements literature has focused on institutions and organizations 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. McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly (2001) have come under increasing scrutiny for
defining a social movement as necessarily targeting the state (Cress and Myers 2007). While focus on the
state as a social movement outcome 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.
As an increasing number of local, state and federal agencies are adopting LEED standards, it is
clear that policy has been affected by the growth of green building and is a key part of the story. 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.
The roots of green building are firmly entrenched in the environmental movement, and much of
the rhetoric and ideals come from that tradition. Environmental activists have not directly targeted the
building industry and proponents of green building have not focused on state changes explicitly as an
outcome. But the green builders do have a unique and measurable outcome – the number of green
buildings. 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 proponents are designed and oriented towards a transformation of the market, and these changes
are ideological in nature.
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 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 institutionalization of those ideals within a newly emerging sector.
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 green building sector.

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Profit Motive and the Triple Bottom Line

Morality in the market has been studied in regards to concepts such as fairness and loyalty in the
labor market (Tilly 1994), gifts of human blood and organ donation (Healy 2006) and trust (among others
Cook, 2001 and Sabel 1993). However, the question remains: how much does morality influence market
behavior? The issue is central to the debates surrounding corporate social responsibility.
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, the US Green Building
Council's annual conference, suggested that the best way to get a 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 and quantifiable way.
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 triple bottom line allows the for profit organization to "sector bend"
(Dees and Anderson 2004)
A place where 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
there is 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, and the
chance of 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 their bottom line.
The question of motive remains. Thus the third question that drives this dissertation is: to what
extent are these socially and environmentally responsive parties motivated by profit at the exclusion of
other motives. In other words, is the motivation for an organization to engage in socially and
environmentally friendly practices simply due to 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?

Data and Methods:

To address these three questions, 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 make our discussion
more concrete we will focus attention on LEED. We will ask about whose interests LEED serves, how it
came about, the roles the USGBC, suppliers and other key actors played in the implementation of the
LEED program, the role of profit and ideology in the program's formation, and it's effect on stakeholders

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in the industry. To study the 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 how these actors are responding.
The study will focus on buildings, professionals and clients who are located in the state of
California. There are several reasons to focus on California. First, California has the highest number of
LEED buildings of any state 5 and is one of the key places in the country where green building has grown
extensively both in terms of number of buildings and in terms of interest in green building in policy
measures. There are also sufficient green buildings in California to provide a reasonable variety to
analyze 6 . Since builders and architects tend to specialize in particular types of buildings such variety will
offer a chance to examine the motives of a variety of architectural firms focusing on building different
types of buildings. There are also a variety of client types who build green buildings in California.
Among the fifty currently certified LEED buildings, sixteen are owned by for profit corporations,
fourteen belong to local government and eight are owned by nonprofits 7 . The relative variety of
organizational consumers is useful for this type of study.
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 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 diversity of environments
in the state. Finally, the choice of California allows us to control for state policy differences. The current
governor of California has proposed sweeping changes in regulations to encourage sustainable practices
in building as well as other areas. Favorable attention 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 this industry and highlights the role of policy.

Phase One: Builders/Architects

To examine how 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 or a LEED AP. This will involve participation in a day-long course on green
building led by a representative from the US Green Building Council and taking an exam to certify my
knowledge 8 .
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. This knowledge will also allow me greater ease in creating connections
with potential subjects and in having a command of the language of the industry.
To further understand the process of professionalization in the green building industry and how
the sustainability ideals are transferred to professionals, I will also interview a non-representative sample

5
Data on LEED buildings gathered from the USGBC and are current as of October 2, 2006.
6 Of the fifty LEED certified buildings in California there are a variety of building usages and client types.
Buildings include commercial buildings (n=11), multi-use buildings (n=8), buildings 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).
7 State and federal governments also own a combined total of five more buildings and the rest are either not

specified or owned by an individual.

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of 28 builders and architects who have become LEED 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 and involved in the embedded industry of green building and the impact of that
specialization on their career. See the supplemental materials for the preliminary interview schedule.
These interviews will be conducted in person as much as possible or on the phone as 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, email
listserve, personal 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 believe could be useful to the study.
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 worked 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
group approaches green building. This suggests that there may be variation in the underlying ideology
and beliefs behind the practices of each cohort. Respondents will be varied on the basis of their status as
either an architect or a builder as there is a clear difference in the roles of each professional despite the
uniform certification process for both types of professionals as a LEED AP. These two fields are unique
and may have different motives for their participation as well as differing outcomes based on their
participation. Interviews will reach seven interviewees who are in each group of emerging green
architects, emerging green builders, established green architects and established green builders for a total
of 28 interviews.
To analyze this data I will record, transcribe and code the interviews using the software package
Atlas.ti, a program I have used extensively in previous work (Duckles, Galaskiewicz and Fogarty 2005).
My aim in this analysis is to discern how the ideology of green building has become a part of the work
and careers of builders and architects. There may be patterns in narratives that explain the emergence of
ecological or sustainable thinking in their professional identities. To explore this, I will draw from work
on narratives and identity (Franzosi 1998, Somers 1994) in particular focusing on the use of such
narratives for understanding the institutional or organizational identities (Czarniwska 1997, Gioia et al.
2000, Stevenson and Greenberg, 1998).

Phase Two: Organizational Consumers

While some have discussed the so-called "Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability" (LOHAS)
consumer as a driving force in green consumption (Ray and Anderson 2001), 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 organizational consumers as well.
To examine these questions, I will look at the construction of LEED certified buildings in
California and the building owners. One reason for defining the population in this manner is that by using
LEED certification, the sample of organizational consumers will have committed significantly to the
process of green building. This allows for a more through analysis of the process and rationale for green
building from the consumer perspective. Organizational consumers who simply wish to "greenwash"
their organization are less likely to go to the expense and trouble of LEED certification and thus would
not be included in this sample. Because of organizational variation, this sample will also allow an
analysis of the extent to which for profits, nonprofits and government agencies are involved in the
production of these buildings, how each organizational type legitimates the extra expense to their
different stakeholders and what their rationale is for involvement in green building practices.

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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. For smaller or nonprofit organizational consumers this may be key to their ability to be
involved in green building. For governments (local, state or federal), I will examine the policies that
make it possible for these buildings to be built. 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 they
have an organizational focus on environmental issues. For government agencies, 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 focus to their reasons for 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. 9 These
interviews will focus on the reasons for green building for different types of consumers (for profit firms,
government agencies, nonprofits with a focus on green issues). For each organization I will employ the
aid of existing contacts with architects and builders for each building to determine appropriate
organizational actors to interview. This phase of the study will involve interviews with as many
California LEED building consumers as possible 10 . Though there are currently approximately 50 LEED-
NC certified 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 organizations to be studied.
This data is ideal for using a modified form of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) that I
have derived from Ragin's (1987) work (Duckles, Hager and Galaskiewicz 2005). While the sample is
relatively small, the information to be gathered will be detailed and qualitatively rich. This analysis of the
interview data will allow for an understanding of the paths that organizations take in their rationale and
process of creating green buildings and how these vary by organizational form. After transcribing the
interview narratives, I will be able to analyze the narratives with an eye to the process of creating a green
building using a modified QCA focused on process narratives. This method combines the substantive
understanding and depth of qualitative narrative research with the quantitative rigor of QCA. Drawing
from Heise's (1989) methods I will map the narratives to create an event structure diagram that can then
be analyzed using a modified QCA that explores the paths towards successful green building. In this way
we can see what different narrative arcs come from each organizational type with the advantage of
analyzing the temporal ordering of the narratives derived from the event structure analyses.

Phase Three: Suppliers

There is some evidence to suggest that those supplying green building products to the industry
frame their organization's work as a means to solve environmental problems (Chen 2001). If the
organizations are specialists focusing on solving environmental 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

9
Educational institutions would be another key part of the organizational population that the USGBC has certified
since the inception of the program. However, this study will narrow the focus to for profit/nonprofit/governmental
differences. There are issues that are specific to schools, particularly justifying the cost of certification to the
community and the distinction between certification and compliance. Because this is being addressed by a USGBC
panel that is creating a new program for schools it is wise to wait until that process has finished before studying this.
10
While some might suggest taking a sample of 50 buildings in California that are LEED-NC (New Construction),
LEED-CI, LEED-EB and LEED-CS, I argue that the diversity would make analysis less coherent. Confining the
study to new construction does limit the type of organization involved by excluding those organizations that cannot
be owner occupants, but it reduces the complexity in comparison across type of building certification.

Duckles - 9
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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?
I will draw my sample of suppliers from the fifty existing LEED certified buildings in California
and gather a list of suppliers to each building site. This information will be gathered from publicly
available building permits, builders, architects and the clients themselves. Suppliers data will also be
gathered using Building Green Inc,'s GreenSpec database (Wilson and Piepkorn 2006). This sampling
frame will offer a reasonable variety of types of vendors, from roofing systems to flooring and finishing
because the sample will be focused on contributors to existing products. Though this will bias the sample
towards more established suppliers, it will give a more complete picture of those suppliers in the industry
who have been involved in at least one fully green project.
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 that the LEED
system has created. See supplemental materials 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 extent do suppliers then act to try to
change the scoring system? To do this I will again employ Qualitative Comparative Analysis because of
its capacity to rigorously evaluate smaller sized samples (Ragin 1987).

Research Significance
Gaining an understanding of the formation of a market embedded within the larger commercial
construction industry will contribute to the research on the growth and creation of markets. Examining
how a market shifts in response to ideological origins, will give us a sense of the mechanisms that affect
key actors within the industry and examine how that social movement ideology becomes institutionalized.
This has implications for the social movements literature as a study of social movement outcomes that do
not target the state. Additionally this has direct application for a social movement that seeks to integrate
itself into the workings of social institutions as well as the study of change within social institutions
themselves. Finally, green building is a case that involves the integration of business principles with the
motives of environmental and sustainable ideologies. In this way it is a fascinating starting point for
exploring the emergence of socially responsible and ecologically responsive organizations and will add to
the literature of sector bending organizations and corporate social responsibility.

Timeline
Participant observation and the recruitment of subjects will begin in the spring of 2007 and will be
completed by the summer of 2007. The first phase of interviews of builders and architects will begin in
July of 2007 and will continue into the fall. Concurrently, I will interview organizational consumers. The
third phase of surveying suppliers will begin in September will be completed by the end of the year.
Analysis of qualitative data as well as the survey will begin as soon as data is collected. I expect to finish
the dissertation in the summer of 2008 and present results at that time at the American Sociological
Association meetings.

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