CHICAGO — HERE at Greenbuild, the world's largest conference on environmentally responsible design, former President Clinton packed a ballroom with a rapt audience of 8,000 that began lining up for seats two hours before he took to the stage.
Environmental messiah Paul Hawken, author of "The Ecology of Commerce," delivered his own impassioned address on green design as moral obligation -- and promptly received a standing ovation that outlasted Clinton's.
But years from now, historians of the green building movement just may decide that the most influential stars of last week's conference were far from any spotlight or speaker's lectern. They sat quietly, largely unnoticed, in a nondescript, closet-sized display in the McCormick Place convention center. On 8 1/2 -by-11 sheets of recycled paper, soy ink rendered pictures of ordinary-looking buildings, each poised to redefine the average American's concept of what it means to be green.
What made these single-page profiles of recently built homes so revolutionary? Each bore a graphic with a striking resemblance to the "nutrition facts" on the side of a cereal box. Whereas the cereal container might cite 30% of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin C and riboflavin, though, the homes' graphics spoke of 65% savings on utility bills and 75% of construction waste diverted from landfills. In lieu of calorie and fat counts, the numbers detailed energy efficiency and proximity to public transportation. Water systems, sustainable materials, innovation in design -- each was quantified in a stark, black-and-white label.
It's a smart idea, one that instantly conveys how a home can be as healthful as a bowl of low-fat, high-fiber organic oats. For a public that has largely equated green living with bamboo floors and low-flow shower heads, the emphasis on deeper, elemental design changes may enlighten minds in a way that no compact fluorescent light bulb ever could.
And not a moment too soon. The statistics repeated at Greenbuild time and time again were grim: The demolition and construction of buildings account for more than one-third of waste in U.S. landfills. The majority of Americans think cars and trucks are the largest contributors of greenhouse gases, but they're not. Power plants are. So unless we're buying renewable energy or generating our own electricity via wind turbines or photovoltaic cells, our carbon footprint grows larger with every light we flick on, every reality show we TiVo, every morning cup of coffee we brew.
