9 Sustainability

THE PROBLEM:   It's a carbon orgy, Residential construction is an environmental mess. Commercial is slightly better, yet industrial construction is great because 90% of materials are permanent and recyclable, leaving little carbon footprint.  THE SOLUTION: Our approach and design objectives create the best possible environmental solution for housing, The way of the future is an Hi-Tect ecosystem. You need to read everything here.


The sustainability story by Jim Poirier

As a Canadian, my vanity was shocked to learn that although gas fracking and the Alberta sands were presented as 'national wealth creators', it only supplied 2% of Canada's GNP in 2013, creating far fewer jobs than what could have been delivered by mass-transit development or infrastructure rebuilding with energy-saving goals. Had we chosen these alternatives, we agree with Naomi Klein that our reliance on fossil fuel would have diminished while the average citizen would have been better off. I could then have proudly trumpeted these results in California where we work.

For myself, I have been hell-bent on the carbon project since 1987 when the UN accepted the proof that climate was really affected by our co2 emissions. At that time our organization did not exist and I was building a 15,000 ft2 ski lodge for a coop of scientists and technicians at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, most of them nuclear or molecular physicists that had formed a ski club in the Pajarito Mountains north of the city.

They wanted a passive solar building that was friendly to the environment. Impressed by our plant and by a Popular Science article describing our fabrication methods of energy efficient panels,   they had chosen our firm's bid. 

click on photo to read text

They loved the preliminary proposal, however they expressed concern that the wall and roof panels to be produced in our factory contained the carbon-derived polyurethane rigid foam, the same high-efficiency insulation that is used in all home freezers and refrigerators. Of course we were totally dependant on that core material to provide the necessary structural strength to our sandwich panels. These were cooked on the giant and costly injection press I had built for that purpose. My spirits were low until something dawned on me, an idea that won the day with our scientific client. Here is the picture of that finished ski lodge taken years later (See Google Earth by either clicking here or on the thumbnail at lower right).

And here are the numbers and other conservation advantage I submitted to them.

click on photo to see in a Google map.