Wider Horizons

Darren Gilbertson, Studentgreen perspectives

For a guy who spent 17 years as a business manager in the southern Alberta arts community, Darren Gilbertson might seem an unlikely convert to the gospel of “green” home building.

But the Lethbridge College Geomatics student got his jeans dusty last summer developing a construction waste management strategy and monitoring the results at The Living Home project. After convincing contractors to discard their bits of lumber, plastic wrap, foam insulation and such into his recycling bins, and measuring the results, he’s now a vocal ambassador for waste diversion and recycling practices.

“Once contractors see they can save money by following green building practices, and you show them it’s not a huge shift in procedure from what they’ve always done, you get a buy-in,” says Gilbertson, who graduates in April with a Geomatics diploma to pair with his fine arts degree.

Some 200 students from a variety of programs took part in The Living Home project, including future engineers, interior designers, multimedia creators and more.

Hired by Lethbridge College as a summer support student, Gilbertson measured and weighed every piece of construction waste on the site, after teaching builders to separate softwood from plywood, cardboard from plastic wrap and insulated concrete forms from anything else they were tossing away. The goal was to restrict the amount that actually had to be land filled to one garbage bag. Gilbertson came close.

“We created the culture we wanted by developing a strategy that was simple and easy for construction firms to use,” says Gilbertson.

Whenever a small piece was needed, carpenters found what they required in one of Gilbertson’s bins without having to rummage. A lot of lumber that would have headed to the landfill wound up as part of the home.

Insulated concrete forms were ground down to spread on the driveway under the concrete. Left-over foam chunks from insulation were put inside walls. Drywall was crushed and the gypsum used as a soil additive. All these practices drastically reduced the landfill.

Originally from Bow Island, Gilbertson, an early forty-something, chose Lethbridge College after a university degree in fine arts.

“Lethbridge College’s engineering school has a really good reputation, known throughout the province and accredited nationally. It’s where I wanted to come.”

Leona Rousseau, Instructor

Leona Rousseau began her research on The Living Home project with a clear goal: to give her students the best experience possible, hoping it would prompt them to make greener choices throughout their careers.

Rousseau, an Interior Design instructor, tasked them with conducting research on specific materials and finishes for The Living Home.

“Their primary goal was to find materials that were ‘truly green’, not simply advertised as green,” says Rousseau. The research was an excellent learning opportunity for her students.

“I believe it is essential for my students to use their acquired design knowledge to give back to their community and gain valuable experience in the process,” says Rousseau, who is working on a doctorate in interior design. “This project offered a tremendous learning experience for the students, was interdisciplinary in nature and contributed to community development.”

Amy Walters, a 2008 graduate of the interior design program, says working on the home taught her some valuable lessons and made her realize how important environmentally conscious design is.

“It has been an amazing experience working on The Living Home project,” she says. “The resources and materials we used for research showed me how everyone can have an impact on our world — even interior designers. I realized that my decisions do not just impact the users of the space, but the Earth’s environment as a whole.”

Rousseau says she had many ideas for the home, including finishes that contain natural or recycled materials, dual-flush toilets, bamboo grass cabinets and recycled glass countertops.

“Incorporated are materials and finishes that are truly eco or environmentally responsible and contain natural and or recycled content, such as materials and finishes that contain no to low volatile organic compounds, and certified woods from responsibly managed forests.”

Her ideas came from a combination of existing design knowledge and research on truly healthy, environmentally responsible product and material options.

She says she believes the home will raise public awareness and influence choices.

“I hope there is an awareness of healthier, environmentally responsible and sustainable building products and the tremendous benefits they hold for our environment as a whole,” says Rousseau. “It’s about knowing better, then doing better.”

For the monster SUV-driving, castle-dwelling champions of consumption, the answer to “why live green” is still a bit of a challenge. Braum Barber, a Lethbridge College engineering instructor, explains why it’s necessary.

Human life consumes about 13 trillion cubic metres of oil energy each year, which, if it was all in the form of oil, would fill the Lethbridge water tower every three seconds. This rate of consumption causes two problems: the inability to extract the energy fast enough, and the environment’s lack of capacity to absorb the wastes created.

The former results in peak oil, when consumption outstrips extraction; the latter causes global warming. We face rising sea levels, melting ice caps, extended droughts, the intensification of weather, the desertification of agricultural land, and a rate of extinction not seen for tens of millions of years, yet Earth is still within a degree of temperatures to which we are accustomed. Predictions for global warming greater than two degrees Celsius are dire. Children already born will experience the consequences of our inaction as earth systems settle into a new equilibrium.

Peak oil – actually we should be talking about peak everything, but peak oil is imminent – means some consumers of energy will have to do without, or convert to another finite energy source, and there will be less oil to use each year afterward. Our consumer society will have to learn to use less energy, through efficiency gains and conservation.

Of the energy we consume in North America, about a third is used for transportation, and about half is used in the construction, maintenance, and operation of buildings. Reducing the consumption of energy in these two sectors could have a significant impact on our collective footprint on the environment. The Living Home is an open dialogue on the process of how we can make a difference.

Becoming “green” is regularly more costly; good answers are often ambiguous and they vary for different regions; and it requires an effort to learn. In the end, becoming green is an ethical decision: bandwagon or not, it is the only bandwagon that will lead to a livable future.

Wider Horizons
Lethbridge College
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