I’m all in favor of green bashing when justified and there is no shortage of things to bash when it comes to ridiculous “green” building claims. But unjustified, unsubstantiated green bashing is something I have little tolerance for. I came across some of this recently in an article appearing in The Vancouver Sun about the potential risks and liability of building green. The article includes an interview with British Columbia Construction Association President Manley McLachlan and excerpts from the association’s September 2011 research report titled, “A Study on the Risks and Liabilities of Green Building” (available for free on the BCCA Web site). The article, unfortunately, does not actually offer much in the way of additional information on the subject. It does, however, provide several quotes attributed to McLachlan that fall squarely into the unjustified and unsubstantiated “green bashing” category.
Green building risk and liability is something that has been studied and written about extensively in the U.S., with clear, understandable recommendations widely available to practitioners to educate and inform how to avoid them. For a good summary of the issue surrounding real and perceived risks in building green, you might find the article “Warning: Green Building Litigation—Really?” by real estate attorney Stuart D. Kaplow, particularly illuminating. Kaplow’s article debunks the myth that building green is fraught with unavoidable risk.