About EcoFuse

As a founder of GreenRenter and an all-around sustainability enthusiast, I'm always searching the web for interesting sites. I found EcoFuse on Facebook, of all places.

EcoFuse is a relatively new website founded by a husband and wife team that, in their words, "wanted to do 'more' than
just recycle and conserve." EcoFuse provides users links to current enviro news, helpful partner sites (like GreenRenter!), and simple tips to reducing waste and carbon emissions in our own daily lives. And, in a nod to the supreme excellence of the Pacific Northwest, the founders recently relocated to the great state of Washington!

Last time I checked the site the tip-o-the-day was about reducing junk mail. And who doesn't want to do that?

Start-up challenges

When I asked EcoFuse founder Nick about the biggest challenge he and his wife faced in founding the site, he answered with what might be the most common problem plaguing all of us start-ups: "attracting and retaining users."

He offered some great tips to winning the competition for eyeballs:

• Keep your message consistent
• Fight spam in order to provide users the content they want
• Give everyone a voice

But what can I do now?

Given that EcoFuse aims to help all of us make small but important changes in our lives, I asked Nick what he wishes each of his viewers would do tomorrow that we didn't do today. It's an easy one folks:

"Recycle!!! It's SO easy and important! Gosh, if everyone did it, can you imagine the possibilities?"

Sometimes it seems the green building industry is fixated on finishes - bamboo floors, concrete counter tops, recycled glass tile. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with obsessing over materials - except when it clouds our judgement about what it means to be green. In the green building boom we've experienced up to now, the greening of existing buildings has taken a back seat to new projects, with their shiny finishes and clean lines. And the greening of demolition - the very last stage in a building's life-cycle? Not even on the map.

That's starting to change. More "deconstruction" experts, as they like to be called, are starting to offer their services and the national news media is taking note. A recent article in Forbes highlighted the work of David A. Bennink, who's currently deconstructing homes in New Orleans.

The Oregonian reports on the law which requires that recycling be provided to all multifamily residents. GreenRenter is mentioned as a resource.

Great news!  

The Oregon State Plumbing Board last Friday passed new
standards that will allow homeowners to install systems that reuse wastewater
for flushing toilets. The board also created a statewide standard for rainwater
harvesting in residential and commercial buildings.

The new ruling for alternate methods will make it easier
for building owners to save water and will ultimately help the state meet its
goals for energy savings and water conservation through new green building
standards, said Mark Long, administrator of the state Building Codes Division,
which oversees the Plumbing Board.

The following from http://www.buildinggreen.com demonstrates the value of going green.

"Buildings that carry LEED or Energy Star certifications have higher occupancy rates and lease for more dollars per square foot than their peers, according to the CoStar Group, a company that provides information services to the commercial real estate industry. CoStar tapped into its database covering billions of square feet of commercial buildings for a study released in March 2008. CoStar’s summation of the study, which noted consistently better financial metrics for green buildings, argues that, “Non-green buildings are going to become obsolete. As described, however, the study shows a correlation between higher value and green labels, but it lacks evidence that LEED and Energy Star are the cause of that increased value. These results could just be reflecting the tendency for higher-value properties to pursue certification. Either way, however, it shows that the commercial real estate market associates green performance with value."

Two
recently released studies validate that third party certified buildings, like LEED, outperform their conventional
counterparts across a wide variety of metrics, including energy savings,
occupancy rates, sale price and rental rates.

According to the CoStar study, LEED
buildings command rent premiums of $11.24 per square foot over their non-LEED
peers and have 3.8 percent higher occupancy. Rental rates in ENERGY STAR
buildings represent a $2.38 per square foot premium over comparable non- ENERGY
STAR buildings and have 3.6 percent higher occupancy.

Find the studies at http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=77#usgbc_publications.

And, http://www.costar.com/News/Article.aspx?id=D968F1E0DCF73712B03A099E0E99C679.

We are being picked up by bloggers around the country, but SeeingGreen is local. It's a nice write up and a great blog.

In April the American Institute of Architects announced their "Top Ten Green Projects" for the year. A multifamily condominium project in Boston is one of the winners proving green building in the multifamily sector is achievable.  Macallen Building Condominiums

What stands out for me is a local project that steals it's thunder. Mississippi Avenue Lofts is state of art using 40% (or more) less water and energy than a conventional project of it's size. It's already a LEED Gold standard and the developers are diligently working toward Platinum. There are more innovative green features on this site than I could list here -- really, it's amazing.  You can't visit the lofts yet, but the website is designed with extreme transparency in the building process. It's an excellent learning tool for anyone interested in cutting edge green technologies in the mixed-use sector.  www.mississippiavenuelofts.com

Sustainable development is about more than just supporting the triple bottom line. It's about transparency, collaboration and shared knowledge. It's about moving us all forward while still making a profit for ourselves, our families and our coworkers. The developers of this project really sustainability. They are just one of the many reasons why I'm so proud to live and work in Portland.  

We added a new feature today making it easy to share green buildings with other social sites like Delicious and Flickr, in addition to emailing your friends. On a building detail page, simply look for the "Share" tool bar on the right side of the page.

We had the honor of being covered by one of Portland's leading bloggers, Rick Turoczy of Silicon Florist. He writes

So, the next time you’re seeking a new humble abode or some new digs for your new gig, you might want to saunter over to GreenRenter to do the proper Portland thing by going green.

Read the full article and don't forget to vote for us on Oregon Reddit.