[Greenbuilding] 100 miles builds

[Gennaro Brooks-Church - Eco Brooklyn]

>I suspect rather that it gives them a simple rule of thumb
> which they can use INSTEAD of thinking.

We all know there are a million ways a system can not work. But I
think the benefit in rules of thumb it to make choices more quickly.

The goal is that we continue to think AND use rules of thumb, tweaking
our direction as things come up.

Nobody on this list is a stranger to synergies. In the case of
calculating carbon footprint most businesses have relatively small
amounts of material sourcing. This means when they take on a new
supplier, of say salvaged insulation from china, they can calculate
the footprint for that once. Next time they need to choose between the
Chinese supplier and something that comes up 100 miles away they
already have one rule of thumb calculated.


Gennaro Brooks-Church
Director, Eco Brooklyn Inc.
Cell: 1 347 244 3016 USA
www.EcoBrooklyn.com
22 2nd St; Brooklyn, NY 11231



On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 8:48 AM, Corwyn <corwyn at midcoast.com> wrote:
> On 2/24/2012 6:51 PM, Reuben Deumling wrote:
>
>> well, but in practice this might be a good proxy, no?
>
>
> Not really.  The differences between types are just too large to make this
> metric valuable.  Let's assume that 100 miles is by truck, and the cargo is
> 1 ton.  An equivalent distance by plane would only be 35 miles, but by rail
> it would be 984 miles, and by container ship 1704 miles. And all of those
> pale beside the 30 miles for my Prius.
>
> Put another way, a ton of polystyrene shipped by container ship from
> Savannah GA, to Portland ME would be less embodied energy in transport than
> a ton of straw at a farm 15 miles away that I have to pick up myself in my
> car.
>
> See what I mean?
>
>
>> It gets people thinking about the issue of impact/footprint/etc.
>
>
> But does it?  I suspect rather that it gives them a simple rule of thumb
> which they can use INSTEAD of thinking.
>
>
>
> Thank You Kindly,
>
> Corwyn
>
> --
> Topher Belknap
> Green Fret Consulting
> Kermit didn't know the half of it...
> http://www.greenfret.com/
> topher at greenfret.com
> (207) 882-7652
>
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