The Low Down On Green Living
February 24th, 2009
The 10 Dumbest Green Buildings on Earth
Stumble it!
Written by Alex Felsinger, courtesy of Green Building Elements.com
While any structure built in a way that lessens its footprint is welcomed, some of the buildings that people try to turn green simply make no sense.
LEED certification, in all its greatness, does not take the building’s intended purpose into account; this leaves us with some hilarious, unabashedly self-contradicting buildings. Here are the ten of the most laughable green buildings:
1. BP’s Helios House Gas Station - Los Angeles, Cal.
Yes, there is an LEED-certified gas station. It’s actually a nice building, complete with rainwater collection, solar panels, recycled building materials, and LED lighting. However, don’t think you’ll be able to refuel with biodiesel or charge up your electric car—they’re only in the petroleum-dealing business. How green of them, right?
2. Justin Timberlake’s Golf Course/Lodge - Woodstock, Tenn.
So Justin Timberlake decided that he wants to buy a golf course and fix it up with an LEED-certified lodge. While it’s an improvement compared to most other golf courses, the fact remains that maintaining a golf course takes chemicals and lots of water. In the United States alone, golf courses total more than 1.7 million acres and consume around 4 billion gallons of water every day. How does a green lodge counteract the water used to maintain the course? Justin, if you really want to be green, you should have turned it into a wildlife sanctuary instead.
3. Nestle Pure Life Water Bottling Plant - Boiling Springs, Tenn.
While this isn’t the only LEED-certified water bottling plant, it’s listed for having the most greenwashed name. Ozarka, Arrowhead, Ice Mountain, and Deer Park water bottling plants also have LEED certifications of some sort, but they couldn’t compete with Pure Life in the name department. If anyone needs a reminder of why bottling water is a bad idea, here are five reasons to ditch the bottle. Oh, and Nestle as a whole won’t be getting an award for their treatment of the planet and its people any time soon.
4. Logan Airport Terminal A - Boston, Mass.
Activists in England have put their freedom on the line protesting against a third runway at the enormous Heathrow Airport; do you think they’d be more satisfied with the runway if the airport terminal was LEED certified, with solar panels and the whole bit? You’d be right to assume they wouldn’t, because whether they take off from a green building or not, airplanes are still one of the top causes of global warming.
5. Toyota Car Dealership - Rockwall, Tex.
While Toyota is almost synonymous with green when it comes to cars, in reality they’re not much better than any other car company. They have a full line of vehicles, including four-wheel-drive SUV’s, some of which are 8-cylinder. In fact, their entire fleet’s average gas mileage is worse than Chevrolet’s. Perhaps they should clean up their cars before trying to green their dealerships?
6. Antilia Tower - Mumbai, India
While this probably will not be LEED certified, it has been often mentioned as being one of the greenest building concepts on the planet. While it does look beautiful and will act as a giant carbon sink in the middle of the city, there’s a major problem: it will be the home of one family. No matter how green this building is, that is a complete waste of space in a city known for its overcrowding.
7. Civic Center Parking Garage - Santa Monica, Cal.
The only green parking garage I want to see would be located at a train or bus station for people to drop off their cars to finish their commute on mass transit. To quote every politician involved in the 2008 campaign, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”
8. Vacation Home Development - Las Vegas, Nev.
You only need one house, people! Granted that seven of these eight homes are 1/12 shares, these homes are being built in a desert (Las Vegas) and if anyone needs a water-capture system, it’s people who live there year-around. Simply due to their excess, vacation homes may be the least environmentally-friendly structures on earth.
9. Spaceport America - New Mexico
Another case of the rich attempting to make the rest of us think they’re doing the world a favor. Recreational space travel, at least with the current technology, is a huge and unnecessary carbon polluter. But hey, the spaceport will be LEED certified, so everything’s going to be fine, right?
10. Every Fancy New Building - Dubai, United Arab Emirates
I know, I know — I cheated on this one. I couldn’t pick just one since they’re all ridiculous for the same reason. The government is intent on making Dubai one of the biggest, most gaudy places on earth. Perhaps to compensate for unending excess, they’ve mandated that all new buildings must have specific eco-minded properties, but when you take all of it in at once, you know it’s nothing but a giant waste of resources.
Image Credits: (All Flickr under CC License) Top from J. Phil on Flickr. 1. danperry.com on Flickr 2. BP 3. Macon County, TN 4. MileageNYC on Flickr 5. Dushaun on Flickr 6. Concept illustration 7. City of Santa Monica 8. Emre Ersahin 9. Spaceport America 10. utpal. on FlickrPopularity: 7% [?]
Comments
Tjitske
February 24th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Its all a huge nonsense…. I hope LEED soon include the purpose of a builiding otherwise none of it will ever make sense….
jwehling
February 24th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
We live in a world where gas stations and airports are a reality. Until we come up with a way to live without them, I think it is good that they are making efforts to be more sustainable. It is a step in the right direction. The more people and projects thinking about sustainable strategies the better.
littlebridge
February 24th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
To call any green building “dumb” is to completely loose sight of the purpose of green building. This is a horrible article and I am disappointed that LIL would conceive of writing something like this on their website. Get it together - any green building is a good thing.
Nicole Hall
February 24th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I truly believe there are ways to recycle older historic buildings would be more “green” than having to put up new ones, it would also preserve our history reguarding architecture. I find alot of waste in allowing buildings to sit empty and not using what we have already in place. I am sure there are ways to refurbish them to be more energy efficient. I am sorry for them that they don’t see it.
bweast
February 24th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I love LIL and I look forward to your articles, however this one missed the mark. As others have already pointed out, any green building is a step in the right direction, and dismissing them because they didn’t change their entire way of business overnight is really short-sighted and defeatist. I agree with some of the comments, esp. #6 & #9, but overall it’s commentary like this that makes some folks think we ‘greenies’ are a bunch of overly critical doomsday-ers. We are trying to encourage people to go green, not berate them for it, remember?
Brian Gorski
February 24th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Is there any LEED certification for renovation? Because it seems to be, that it’s great for new buildings, but new buildings are going to use more resources no matter what. I can however see how people are going to do huge amount of things to their currently owned places to reduce their use, shouldn’t this also have a rating?
cOcO Niel
February 25th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Elinate waste…enormous waste… that is the beginning of being green. We have so much and there are millions who have nothing….We are destroying our environment. We need the planet as it used to be for our survival, if human kind dissapear the planet will keep on going, it does NOT need us,we DO… we are so arrogant…To qualify for being green is not a sign posted on a building : it is a way of life. How many pairs of shoes, do I need? IT IS A MORAL ISSUE . They are not fouling us but only themselves, and it is up to us to deliver and not be critical of each other, but to rise above all the nonsens of these past decades. Let’s be the generation of our children’s future
jo
February 25th, 2009 at 9:05 am
i love LIL but i too was disappointed at the tone of this article. i understand that building brand new, green buildings or greening a gas station is somewhat counter-productive but as others have pointed out, they are going to be built anyway so the fact that there are steps made to improve their impact on the environment should be commended. and that family in mumbai is going to have a ginormous house to themselves either way (along with americans and their mcmansions) so making it eco-friendly is a good baby step in the right direction.
Jessica Jensen
February 25th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Hi everyone– Jessica Jensen, co-founder of Low Impact Living here. I am really grateful for all of your comments– and I apologize that many of you found this piece negative. I would like to push back a little though. 97% of what we write on this site is positive and lauds the advances of companies, individuals, products as they embrace sustainable practices. However, the sad reality is that a lot of companies (like BP with it’s “green” gas station) are using these building for major PR efforts, and I really do believe that slapping solar panels on a gas station is like putting lipstick on a pig. Of course I would rather see any building built green rather than not (and I totally echo the comment above that renovating existing structure is the must more green route to go rather than starting from the bottom up). Still, we do have to police companies that are trying to put a “green mask” on an inherently un-green product or service. So this piece may be a bit snarky in tone and sentiment, but the underlying skepticism and desire to shine a light on the dynamics surrounding (or hidden behind) buildings being called green.
Thanks again for your comments!– Jessica
Priscilla Buege
February 26th, 2009 at 6:04 am
I have to agree, these people don’t deserve such snarkieness. At least they did something. Think of the green industries and services that benefited from their purchases. Who knows how many people were inspired to build or at least made a little more aware of the whole green movement because of their buildings. Give them a break, I give them a hand.
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