Something we didn't think about......

As we thought about the economic justification for building a green building, we were able to quantify the value of energy savings due to the improved design of the buildings. For instance, we know that our energy bill will be at least $20,000 a year less than it would have been in a standard design building. That makes the decision to integrate green building design into our project a "no brainer".

But at a meeting of foundations last week, former Vice President Al Gore dropped by to talk about the emerging economic changes that are occurring globally as a result of the imperative to decrease carbon emissions. Gore urged us to look at our investment portfolios for "hidden carbon liabilities". "How many companies in your portfolio have business models based on the idea that it's free to dump billions of tons of carbon dioxide in the air? How confident are you that the world will continue to allow that? What will be the impact on these companies?"

Gore and his business partner David Blood (they co-founded Generation Investments) made a compelling argument that considering carbon emissions in investment decisions is no longer a social imperative, but a business one as well. They believe that the market value of companies that depend on the right to dump carbon at will may be wildly overstated. One can only imagine that this will lead to price increases on goods and services from these companies (particularly energy providers) as they absorb the costs of alternative methods of disposing of carbon.

If they're right, and I suspect they may well be, the decision to build a green building may be an even better business call than we might have thought.