For What It’s Worth

Not every green building component is considered to be as worthy as another. For example water use is of more value than land use which is more valuable than ozone depletion – at least that’s what I’ve read. As we strive toward greener building and lower environmental impact we try to create rating systems. Upon close examination it is found that these rating systems can be based on somewhat arbitrary information, including a polling of a group of people to determine what is important to them. We all know that what is important to one is not so important to someone else, and that statistical data collected from polling can be skewed. To quote Benjamin Disraeli; “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” I’m not suggesting that we don’t try to create rating systems, just that we look at them with our eyes wide open. Read Weighing Environmental Impact Categories on the BuildingGreen.com site. It certainly opened my eyes.