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The Green Building Industry in California: From Ideology to Buildings

Beth Duckles
Dissertation Proposal
January 2007

"If decision makers can get the framework right, the future of humanity will be secured by
thousands of mundane decisions: how many babies people have, where they graze their cattle,
how they insulate their houses. It is usually in mundane matters that the most profound
advances are made."
- "The Climax of Humanity" (Musser 2005)

Introduction
Many decisions go into the creation of a new building, from the type of insulation, the

number of skylights, whether to use single or double paned windows, and what type of

light bulbs would be best. Yet these decisions are not typically regarded as radical or

even particularly interesting details. Clients are focused on a building that will meet

their needs without going over budget. Architects are interested in creating a name for

themselves and making a building that while functional is also artistic, edgy and unique

(Cuff 1991). Builders wish to construct a sound building by the deadline. Decisions on

light bulbs barely register as important in the larger scheme of the building process.

Yet it is exactly these mundane details that are coming center stage in the growing

movement of green building. Proponents suggest that each of these decisions can have

a profound effect on the relationship that the building has with the natural world. By

changing the lighting scheme in a building, not only can clients save energy and money,

not only can architects use their skills to create more dramatic and interesting

daylighting schemes but the world as a whole can be positively affected and changed
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for the better. Proponents believe that these small changes will affect the environment

by creating less greenhouse gasses and other toxic waste products and by creating more

harmonious spaces for humans to interact with the natural world.

This change within the building industry has been rapid and ideologically based. One

way to examine the issue is to look at how the ideals of the movement found in the

environmental social movement have been translated into a profit-focused language.

Green builders have created ideological mechanisms to make it possible for profit

motive to coexist with the ideology of saving the environment and helping humanity.

For instance, the idea of the triple bottom line where a company focuses on profit, social

good and environmental good is a concept that helps for profit clients to be more at ease

with building green while maintaining a focus on profit.

The dissemination of the green building ideology into the mainstream is also changing

the market. It is changing the types of buildings consumers want, the materials that

builders use and the way in which architects design and think about buildings. It is this

shift in ideology that is creating a change in the market, though it is still unclear

whether this ideological shift is demand or supply driven.

As the growth of green building becomes more and more apparent, it is clear that the

environment will not be the only entity affected. The construction industry is being

transformed as a result of the increased interest on every level. Yet the mechanisms for
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the creation of this transformation have not been explored. What does it mean to shift

and change a marketplace based on difficult to define concepts and ideals such as

"green" or "sustainable"? The central focus of this dissertation will be to examine the

way in which the actors within a quickly shifting market maintain, implement or alter

the ideals of sustainability and environmentalism in the face of established rules, norms,

and traditions, i.e., institutions.

To explore the role of the architect, the builder, the client and the supplier, in a quickly

expanding and embedded markets this dissertation will meet at the intersection of three

literatures: social movements, organizational change and economic sociology. But first

let us look at the movement itself.

Green Building

The green building movement can be found in its earliest forms within the context of

the environmental movement, where stewardship of the natural world is central. The

ideal of living in harmony with the environment and doing no harm to the world can be

seen in the core beliefs of green building. One author writes:

"Sustainable architecture basically comes down to three purposes – first to

advance the purely selfish motive of survival by a cooperation with nature;
second to build shelter in concert with ecological principles as part of this
objective; and third, to address the deeper philosophical conflicts surrounding
the issue of whether we really deserve the luxury of this existence, given our
appalling track record of environmental abuse." (Wines 2000)
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Green building echoes the roots of the conservation movement in its struggle to address

humanity's needs while also focusing on the degradation of the environment. How

does a movement ask a species that has already exploited its environment to stop doing

so? Sale writes that there are two key perspectives in the conservation movement:

biocentric conservation, that acknowledges humans as one animal among many thus

upholding the rights of other animals and lands, and the anthropocentric viewpoint, in

which materials in the natural world are seen as resources which must be conserved

and used wisely in the interest of humanity (Sale 1993). As the movement has grown,

one key question for green builders has been to make conservation a viable and self-

interested option so that the actors within the market seek out conservation for their

own benefit.

Proponents of green building have begun to intertwine the motives of capitalism with

sustainability. The idea of "natural capitalism" implies a progression from the

exploitation of resources to a post industrial management of available resources in

order to better sustain long term growth and profit (Hawken et al. 1999). By doing so,

they encourage consumers to see long term cost savings rather than focusing on the

generally higher up-front costs of building green. Lovins (2005) says "Using energy

more efficiently offers an economic bonanza – not because of the benefits of stopping

global warming but because saving fossil fuel is a lot cheaper than buying it." By

framing the argument in terms of long-term savings in the form of lowered operating

costs, energy savings and building maintenance, a particular subset of builders are
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attracted to green buildings. Owner built and operated buildings such as corporate

headquarters are much more likely to be built green compared to shorter term tenant

buildings such as shopping centers because the argument for long term savings is more

salient. There has been, however, a movement to make green building more appealing

to those who do not reside in owner operated buildings.

The response has been a rapid growth of the green building sector and the subsequent

expansion into the corporate community. Though the list changes daily, some of those

who have built or are constructing sustainable buildings include Target, Wal-Mart,

Home Depot, Lowes, Toyota, Honda, General Motors, Ford, Chipotle and Patagonia.

Even the soon to be built Major League Ballparks in Minneapolis and Washington DC

are slated to go green (Greve 2006). Schools are taking up the challenge of green

building as well; Harvard University for instance has a total of 16 LEED certified

projects (Sharp 2006) and K-12 schools are increasingly going green. One news outlet

reported that the change in the market share of green buildings has gone from 0.7

percent in 2000 to 5 percent in 2006 (Greve 2006).

Yet are energy cost savings the simple answer to the creation of this market or is there

more to the story? March and Simon suggest that bounded rationality creates

satisficing where actors make decisions within the confines of the information and

knowledge they already have (March and Simon 1958). Given that lower energy costs

in the long term are difficult to calculate with any certainty and executives making the
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decisions will be long gone when those benefits are realized – ideology may play an

important role in creating this market.

I argue that green building is a case in which there has been a relatively rapid

ideological shift that begins within the environmental movement and has moved into

what is a traditionally conservative industry. This raises the question, who drives the

change? The supply side or demand side? In this case the answer is not clear.

However, I suggest this shift has unique implications for each actor: architects, builders,

corporate clients and suppliers. As these actors respond to the changes in the market,

there is an opportunity to examine not only market change, but the mechanisms by

which the ideology of a movement becomes integrated into the marketplace. The

central focus of this dissertation will be to examine the way in which the actors within a

quickly shifting market maintain or alter the ideals of sustainability and

environmentalism in the face of industry norms, rules and traditions and in the process

bring about institutional change within this industry.

More concretely, I propose to study how this all plays out in the way new institutional

standards emerge as evident in the creation of the LEED building certification system,

created by the US Green Building Council.

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The US Green Building Council and LEED Certification System

To create a system that standardizes green building in the United States, the US Green

Building Council, in partnership with a number of stakeholders developed a rating

system called Leadership in Energy and Environment Design or LEED. This rating

system is "creating a common understanding of what it means to build green" (Gordon

2000). Though there are other measures of green building such as Green Globes in the

United States (www.greengglobes.com) and different standards in Europe, the LEED

system has since it's inception in 2000 become dominant in the United States.

Since 2000, the LEED rating system has expanded to include not just the original project

of new commercial construction and major renovation projects (LEED-NC), but also

existing building operations and maintenance (LEED-EB), commercial interiors (LEED-

CI), core and shell development projects (LEED-CS) and the pilot programs LEED for

homes and LEED for neighborhood development (LEED Rating System). The number

of LEED certified new commercial construction buildings has reached 578 (as of

October 2, 2006).

The LEED standards were created with a consensus decision-making process that was

designed to make the process fair and balanced. The key elements of the process

according to the USGBC website are:

A balanced and transparent committee structure; Technical Advisory Groups to

ensure scientific consistency and rigor; opportunities for stakeholder comment
and review; member ballot of new rating systems and certain changes to existing
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rating systems; and a fair and open appeals process (LEED Development
Process).
The process seems specifically designed to include members of all sectors of the

industry and other interested stakeholders. Yet there have been some contested arenas

in LEED, including how to integrate life cycle cost assessments into the rating system

(Trusty and Horst 2002), local conditions for building green and preferential treatment

towards some industries in regards to the number of points allocated.

Those building LEED buildings in different parts of the country face different

circumstances, thus some LEED prescriptions advantage some regions over others. In a

2004 interview, the USGBC Executive Director, Rick Fedrizzi comments that "The future

of LEED, which you'll probably see in the next couple years, is to take a regional

approach" (Koch 2004). Fieldwork suggests that this is in response to the complaint

among some builders and architects that certain areas of the country are advantaged in

obtaining LEED points because they are able to get more materials locally than others 1 .

For instance, an architect in Alaska said it would be impossible for any building in their

state to achieve the highest rating, LEED - Platinum, because there are no locally

available materials that would fit the LEED rating criteria. Some architects in the

southwestern United States argue that the LEED rating system does not give a high

enough rating to the conservation of water given the issues and difficulties that face that

region.

1 It may be helpful to note that some of the points for LEED certification are assigned based on the
percentage of materials used that are obtained within a 500 mile radius of the building site. This is done
to encourage builders to use local materials when possible and to cut down on the emissions required to
transport materials to the site.
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Some materials or technological advancements may be advantaged in the rating system

as well. During preliminary fieldwork, some respondents commented that the concrete

industry is unfairly advantaged in LEED point allocation because of the importance

placed on storm water runoff management in the point system. Because concrete as a

building material can be used not only for the building structure, parking lots and the

storm water management systems, the single industry can be involved in three separate

LEED categories. Thus the concrete industry may be preferred as the building team

(architect, client and builder) seeks LEED status for their building.

Espeland and Steven's (1998) work on the process of commensuration is useful to the

discussion at hand. They advocate a rigorous analysis of the way in which qualities and

ideals are translated into a common metric. They contend that this social creation of a

quantifiable value allows for a quicker comparison and representation of ideas that

simplifies and creates a discourse around complex ideas. Seen in this framework, the

creation and negotiation of the LEED rating system is a way in which green builders are

able to integrate the ideals of sustainability into the fabric of a variety of institutions

from builders, to architects to consumers. In other words, sustainability as a complex

and difficult concept is translated into a number through the LEED rating system.

Beyond just the creation of a metric, the LEED building rating system is also a contested

space for those who are suppliers to the industry as they vie among themselves for the
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distinctions that allow their sub-industry and innovations to become more attractive to

builders seeking LEED certification. The contested commensuration of green building

not only defines (with some challenges) the terrain of a broad and difficult to quantify

concept but it also can offer a sense of how the "green" ideology has changed over time

and what actors have an advantage at any given point in time. The LEED system has

gone through several iterations in its new construction rating (LEED-NC) and the

process seems designed to shift as the industry changes and grows further engaging

suppliers in a discussion about the use of their materials.

The Emergence of Markets and Industries

The struggle to define the concept of green building and the resulting measures created

by the US Green Building Council commensurates the concept in such a way that is

flexible enough to shift as the population grows, and yet also allows for concrete

measurement of a green versus a non-green building (Espeland and Stevens 1998).

Creating measures that allow for and arguably encourage change is a unique attribute

of this movement.

Fligstein and Dauter point out that some who look at the markets suggest that while

there is a difference between stabilizing and starting projects the general tendency of a

market is towards stability. Others suggest that market change is a fluid and

continuous process that is required in order to be effective with in the market. To find a

middle ground, Fligstein and Dauter suggest that there must be a clearer explanation of
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the nature of change within the marketplace in order to more concretely identify when

a shift is large enough to constitute a change within the market versus an evolution of

the market (Fligstein and Dauter Forthcoming).

It is for this reason that I draw on the evolutionary thinking of Aldrich and Ruef (2006:

182), to define the creation of a new organizational population as "whenever observers

see culture or material practices within a pioneering organization as sufficiently novel

to cause a break with previous forms." The result of the LEED certification process is

the creation of an organizational population of professionals, their firms, client

organizations and supplier organizations that is both distinguished sufficiently to be a

relatively new form and yet integrated into the existing construction population.

I consider green building a part of an embedded market, one that exists within the

larger building and construction industry as a relatively separate entity but which also

seeks to change that industry by becoming more entrenched within that larger market.

This implies that some architects and builders who focus on green building are in firms

that may not fully embrace the concept. Clients may seek green building but also be

forced to spend significant energy to justify the choice of a green building to their

organizational stakeholders. Finally an embedded market for suppliers suggests a two-

tiered system drawing from resource partitioning (Carroll 1985). Some suppliers

market to both general building teams and green building teams becoming generalists.

Others suppliers rely solely on revenue from products that are entirely found in green
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buildings and thus they become specialists in the field and subsumed by the green

building market without ties to others in the larger construction and building industry.

Understanding how this embedded market functions is a key question for this

dissertation. While previous research has been conducted on the construction industry

as a whole (see Stinchcombe 1959, Eccles 1981a, Eccles 1981b and Constantino 2001)

there has been little work done on the green building industry as a whole.

Social Movements

The social movements literature has focused on institutions that have a strong

ideological component. Resource mobilization theory has long been fascinated by the

question of social movement outcomes and how the social movement creates these

outcomes. Outcomes in the form of policy changes are a key measure of social

movement failure or success and much research has looked at this question (such as

Amenta et al. 1992). Yet as Giugni (1998) points out, the political process model makes

the assumption that the social movement has as its focus the changing of a political

institution such as laws, regulations etc. While this is key to understanding the central

social movements of our time such as the civil rights movement and the women's

suffrage movement, this may not be the desired outcome of all movements.

Appendix C shows a current snapshot of the local and state governments as well as

federal agencies that have created policies using the LEED building standards. It is
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clear that policy has been affected by the growth of green building and is a key part of

the story, particularly due to the inclusion of LEED standards for government

buildings. Yet it would be difficult to say that the creation of policy itself was the

outcome intended by the movement. Instead, policy changes help to smooth the way

for more building and make it easier and more preferable to choose green building. In

other words, the salient outcome for this movement is the creation of more green

buildings. Similarly, the women's movement had as its outcome a desire for the equal

treatment of women and the civil rights movement aims at a better life for minorities.

Green building is unique in that its roots and its early years are firmly entrenched in the

environmental movement, and much of the rhetoric and ideals come from that history.

Yet the movement has a unique and measurable outcome – the number of green

buildings - that is not focused on political mobilization. And though the movement

may involve itself in some political action, it is secondary to the changes desired within

the building, design and construction sector. The changes proposed by green building

proponents are designed and oriented towards a transformation of the market.

Changes that are to be found within the scope of a particular institution, a type of

institution or a political system are ideological in nature.

A second goal of this dissertation is to understand the institutional shifts within the

market as a unique social movement outcome. As the movement has become more

institutionalized, the movement outcomes are now less ideological and more concrete
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while still clearly tracing its ideology back to the social movement itself. This research

works from an understanding that the topic of green building falls at the cusp between

the enactment of the ideals and ideology of the environmental social movement and the

institutionalization of those ideals within a newly emerging sector.

The social movement literature is well suited to discuss tactics, frames and networks

within a movement. The strengths of this literature will be used in an analysis of the

green building sector.

Profit Motive and the Triple Bottom Line

Morality in the market has been studied in regards to concepts such as fairness and

loyalty in the labor market (Tilly 1994) , altruistic gifts of human blood and organ

donation (Healy 2006) and trust (among others Cook, 2001 (2001); (Sabel 1993)). Healy's

contribution was to uncover the institutional effects on the procurement of organ, tissue

and blood (2006). However, the question remains: how much does morality influence

market behavior?

Great care has been taken by green builders to convey that they are not averse to

helping their clients increase their profit or even making a profit themselves.

Companies who supply the industry make it plain that they are not averse to making a

profit either. It is clear that profit is a central part of the story, but how much of the

story? One architect who attended GreenBuild suggested that the best way to get a
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client to "go green" was to call the building a "high performance" building rather than

calling it ecologically friendly, sustainable or even energy efficient. This suggests that

there are mechanisms at play to reframe the ecological motive as a profit motive.

One way in which builders encourage environmentally friendly building is through the

inclusion of life cycle cost analyses in the design process. The Life Cycle Assessment

(LCA) helps the builder analyze the course of different building systems over the life of

the building (Trusty and Horst 2002). This allows both the builder and the client to see

the potential for long-term savings and the impact on the environment in a measured

and quantifiable way.

A method of appealing to the profit motive while also espousing ecologically sound

principles is the concept of the "triple bottom line" where an organization focuses not

just on profit but also on their company's social and environmental impact. The ideal is

that organizations involved in green building are interested in all three rather than

exclusively profit at the expense of social or environmental good. To integrate this into

the construction of buildings, Life Cycle Assessments are adjusted to include each of

these motives. Potential clients can see that not only can they save money on the long

term operating costs, but they also have measures in place to see the reduction of

emissions into the environment, the change in the "carbon footprint" of the building and

the reliance on local community features such as local suppliers and mass transit. The
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triple bottom line allows the for profit organization to "sector bend" (Dees and

Anderson 2004)

One place in which we can see "sector bending" is in the creation of new industries

where "hybrid organizations [are] looking to harness market forces for social good."

(Dees and Anderson 2004: 55). The authors suggest there are some positive features to

this kind of integrative marketplace. Among them the capacity to offer resources more

effectively, the capacity to find effective solutions to problems by offering solutions that

answer business problems while attending to the social good, improving accountability

structures and strengthening the finances of the social sector. While they caution

against a variety of difficulties in such integration, their cautions fall largely into the

area of concern for the viability of nonprofit involvement. The assumption is that for-

profit organizations will find this hybrid organization attractive provided that it helps

their bottom line.

The question of motive remains. To what extent are these socially and environmentally

responsive parties motivated by profit at the exclusion of other motives? In other

words, is the motivation for an organization to engage in socially and environmentally

friendly practices simply about a further profit motive through positive public relations

or are there additional rationales? And further, do the values that create a triple bottom

line differ based on the organizational form? Are governmental and nonprofit

organizations interpreting the triple bottom line in a similar manner as for profits are?
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Data and Methods:

With the increase in growth and the growing institutionalization of the process of green

building, it is important to examine these shifts in corporate interest as descendent from

the environmental movement. This dissertation asks the question: How do actors, who

are the products of a social movement, sustain their ideology as the ideas become more

institutionalized in a market economy?

To address this question, I will look at three key sets of actors in the building process

and ask how the ideology has shifted as the movement becomes more mainstream. To

look at the professionals: builders and architects, the clients and suppliers to the

industry will give us a sense of the shifts and changes that this industry is facing and

how these actors are responding.

The study will focus on buildings, professionals and clients who are located in the state

of California. There are several reasons to do this. First of all, California has the highest

number of LEED buildings of any state (see Appendix D) and is one of the key places in

the country where green building has grown extensively both in terms of number of

buildings and in terms of interest in green building in policy measures. While it is

certainly not the only place that such changes have happened in the United States, it is a

central location for green building activity and a place where some of the innovations in

green building have been generated.

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There are also enough green buildings in California to provide a reasonable variety to

analyze. As of October 2, 2006 there were 50 LEED certified buildings in California and

among those buildings there were a variety of building usages and client types.

Buildings included commercial buildings (n=11), multi-use buildings (n=8), buildings

for public order and safety such as jails and courthouses (n=7), laboratories (n=4),

buildings for higher education (n=3), industry (n=3), libraries (n=3), community use

(n=1), Interpretive centers (museum or visitors center) (n=1) and recreation (n=1). Since

builders and architects tend to specialize in particular types of buildings such variety

will offer a chance to examine the different motives of a variety of architectural firms

focusing on building different types of buildings.

There are a variety of client types who build green buildings in California. Among the

50 currently certified LEED buildings, sixteen are owned by for profit corporations,

fourteen belong to local government and eight are owned by nonprofits. State and

federal governments also own a combined total of five more buildings and the rest are

either not specified or owned by an individual. The relative variety of organizational

consumers is useful for this type of study.

California is also unique in that its natural environment is varied among the southern

deserts, central agricultural valley, northern forests, the coastal region and the

mountains. The different biomes are important for green building because they dictate
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the type of materials locally available, influence the siting of the building, the HVAC

systems needed and the options available for interfacing with the natural world. While

studying California would not necessarily make the study generalizable to the rest of

the United States, this work may still inform a variety of different regions given the

diversity of environments in the state.

Finally, the choice of California allows us to control for state policy differences. The

current governor of California has proposed sweeping changes in regulations to

encourage sustainable practices in building as well as other areas. Favorable attention

will likely encourage further growth in the industry and foster an environment for even

more local policy changes. This makes it an ideal place for the study of the growth of

this industry and highlights the role of policy.

Phase One: Builders/Architects

To address how have builders and architects have adapted their professional identities

to incorporate green building, I will begin this project by doing participant observation

while becoming a LEED certified professional. This will involve participation in a day-

long course on green building led by a representative from the US Green Building

Council and taking an exam to certify my knowledge 2 .

2To gain a better sense of Life Cycle Assessment, I may also take distance-learning course offered by the
Harvard School of Public Health (URL: http://www.sciencenetwork.com/lca/index.cfm). This will not
be involved in the participant observation given that it is an online course, but it will help me to become
more knowledgeable about the field.
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There are at least two clear reasons to participate in the process of becoming a LEED

AP. To begin with, the detailed and specific knowledge of the LEED certification

process and standards will help me immeasurably in my ability to converse with and

understand the newly growing field. By learning the language and background that the

professionals in the industry have I will also gain better access to the US Green Building

Council materials and web site and further my engagement with the building

community.

Second, understanding how the ideals of the movement are conveyed to professionals

can only be learned by participating in and reviewing the educational materials that are

available to those who become LEED professionals. While it is possible that the

materials could be obtained separately it would not have the same impact as taking a

course and learning the material in the same way that a professional would.

Additionally, this knowledge will allow me greater ease in creating connections with

potential subjects and in having a command of the language of the industry.

To further understand the process of professionalization in the green building industry

and how the sustainability ideas are transferred to professionals, I will also interview a

non-representative sample of 20 – 30 builders and architects who have become LEED

certified professionals and who practice in the state of California. The purpose of these

interviews is to gain a clearer sense of the way in which professionals become interested
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and involved in the sub industry of green building. Please see Appendix E for the

preliminary interview schedule.

These interviews will be conducted in person as much as possible or on the phone as

needed. Interviews will last approximately one hour and will be tape recorded for

accuracy (provided that the interviewee consents). Interviewees will be solicited using

the California chapter of the USGBC website, listserv and contacts and the Emerging

Green Builders (EGB) groups in California. This will be a snowball sample, early

interviewees will be asked to suggest architects or builders in a different firm that they

believe could be useful to the study.

Approximately half of the builders and architects surveyed will be younger architects

and builders (having practiced architecture or building from 1-5 years) while the other

half of the sample will be "established" green builders having been in the business for

over five years. Fieldwork at the US Green Building Council's conference GreenBuild

gave evidence that there are two "waves" of practitioners who do green building. First,

the older and more established architects and builders who have been working in the

green building field prior to the creation of LEED and the younger "emerging" group of

builders. Some respondents commented that there is a significant difference in the way

in which each of these groups approaches green building. This suggests that there may

be variation in the underlying ideology and beliefs behind the practices.

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Additionally the respondents will be varied on the basis of their status as either an

architect or a builder. These two fields are unique and have different motives for their

participation. Thus interviews will attempt to reach between 5 –7 interviewees who are

in each group of emerging green architects, emerging green builders, established green

architects and established green builders.

Phase Two: Organizational Consumers

What is the relationship between organizational consumers of green buildings and the

green building industry? What influence do the organizational consumers have on the

creation of a niche market? While the marketing literature has discussed the so-called

lifestyles of health and Sustainability (LOHAS) consumer as a driving force in green

consumption, less has been written about why and how firms and organizations make

the decision to build green buildings. Commercial buildings are a key consumer of this

new form of building and it is not clear if there is a "culture of green consumption" for

organizational consumers as well.

In this section, I will look at the data on already built LEED buildings in California and

the type of organizations that were involved in their construction as well as the clients

who own the building. I hope to become clear about the extent to which for profits,

nonprofits and government agencies are involved in the production of these buildings

and what their rationale is for involvement in green building practices.

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Care will be taken to clearly understand the green regulations in the state of California

and within the cities that house the buildings. While local green regulations typically

do not dictate green building in a region, there is clearly a relationship between local

regulations that encourage building and green building. Particularly for smaller or

nonprofit organizational consumers this may be key to their ability to be involved in

green building.

To examine how different green building consumers came to the decision to build green

I will do in depth interviews with key decision makers at organizations that have built

LEED certified buildings in California in three distinct sectors, government agencies, for

profit firms and nonprofit firms. 3 These interviews will focus on the reasons for green

building for different types of consumers (for profit firms, government agencies,

nonprofits with a focus on green issues).

Given previous research, we would expect that with a for profit motive, firms would be

more likely to build green buildings if they would see a benefit for their organization in

terms of public relations, if the Life Cycle Analysis marked a significant savings or if

they have an organizational focus on environmental issues. For government agencies,

3 Educational institutions would be another key part of the organizational population that the USGBC has
certified since the inception of the program. However, for the purposes of this study we are narrowing
the focus to for profit/nonprofit/governmental differences. There are some issues that are specific to
schools in addition to the differences facing K-12 public schools and colleges/universities, particularly
justifying the cost of certification to the community and the distinction between certification and
compliance. Because some of these issues are currently being addressed by a USGBC panel focused on
creating a unique certification program for schools it seems wise to wait until that process has finished
before studying this area of green building.
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we might assume that the long term cost benefits from the Life Cycle Analysis would be

the rationale for their involvement, in particular if maintenance costs were significantly

reduced. Finally, for nonprofits, we can assume that there would be a more ideological

focus to their reasons for green building.

This phase of the study will involve interviews with as many LEED building consumers

as possible 4 . As noted before, there are currently approximately 50 LEED-NC certified

buildings in the state of California. More buildings are likely to be built during the

course of the research. Thus this represents a minimum of the number of the

organizations that will be studied. Some organizations may be contacted and

interviewed via the phone if time does not permit a face-to-face interview.

This data is ideal for using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (Ragin 1987) because it is

a small sample, yet information about each building and organization will be detailed.

This analysis of the interview data will allow for an understanding of the paths that

organizations take in their rationale for green building and how they vary by

organizational form.

4A different option would be to take a sample of around 50 buildings in California that are LEED-NC
(New Construction), LEED-CI (Commerical Interiors), LEED-EB (Existing Building Maintenance and
Operations) and LEED-CS (Core and Shell) but it seemed to add a level of complexity in comparison.
Confining the study to new construction does limit the type of organization involved by excluding those
organizations that cannot be owner occupants, but it would reduce the complexity in comparison across
type of building certification in addition to other variables.
 Duckles - 25

Phase Three: Suppliers

In what way do the supplying organizations adapt their organizational identity in order

to fit into the ideology of the movement and thus become a part of a niche market?

There is some evidence to suggest that those supplying green building products to the

industry frame their organization's work as a means to solve environmental problems

(Chen 2001). If the organizations are specialists focusing on solving environmental

issues, given resource partitioning theory we might assume that these organizations

would be specifically focused solely on the green building market. But is it then true

that generalists within the supplying industry are not building green for economic

reasons? Are the generalists focused primarily on the profit motive and the

diversification of their revenue streams or are they adopting a discourse around green

building as well?

Using data from Building Green Inc,'s GreenSpec database (Green Building Products

2006) and lists of vendors and prospective vendors for the GreenBuild Conference, I

will compile a population of green building industry suppliers and take a random

sample of those in the industry. Vendors will be surveyed to ask questions about the

beginning of their company, the changes they've seen in the growth of their company

over the past seven years (period of time when the LEED system has been in place), the

product lines they are marketing directly towards the Green building community, and

their interest in lobbying or influencing the USGBC in order to change the LEED

system. This will allow me to gain a sense of the supplier's role in the contested space
 Duckles - 26

that the LEED system has created. See Appendix G for a preliminary survey

instrument. The instrument will be further refined as phases one and two are

completed so that the information learned from those phases can be integrated into the

survey.

One analysis to be performed is to explore the relationship between the LEED scoring

system and the industry that can affect each point. By looking at the changes in the

LEED system over time and the points which a building could earn based on the

industry product, we can examine how much change LEED would likely affect the field

and test to see if it is true. In other words, as LEED is shifts towards particular types of

innovations or materials, does that supplying industry grow? Is the relative weighting

of the scoring system consistent with the changes in the industry? Do those in the

industry note the weighting and consider it fair/unfair because of the scoring? To what

extent do suppliers then act to try to change the scoring system?

Research Significance

As a market shifts in response to ideological origins, it is important to understand the

mechanisms that affect key actors within the industry and examine how that ideology

becomes institutionalized. This has implications for any social movement, which seeks

to integrate itself into the workings of social institutions in addition to the study of

change within social institutions themselves.

 Duckles - 27

Green building is an interesting case because it entails not only the emergence of a new

market but also the integration of business principles with the motives of

environmental and sustainable ideologies. In this way it is a fascinating starting point

for exploring the emergence of socially responsible and ecologically responsive

organizations and will add to the literature of sector bending organizations.

Finally, the role of the government as a client in this field rather than solely or even

primarily as a regulator of the market is unusual and bears further inquiry. To look at

the rationale for governmental green building in comparison to for profit and nonprofit

organizations may help in understanding the variety of reasons for the growth of the

marketplace and may give us a sense of how to interpret the government as a lead

consumer.
 Duckles - 28

Works Cited
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The Townsend Movement, the Political Mediation Model, and U.S. Old-Age
Policy, 1934-1950." The American Journal of Sociology 98:308-339.
Carroll, Glenn R. 1985. "Concentration and Specialization: Dynamics of Niche Width in
Populations of Organizations." American Journal of Sociology 90:1262-83.
Chen, Chialin. 2001. "Design for the Environment: A Quality-Based Model for Green
Product Development." Management Science 47:250-263.
Constantino, N., R. Pietroforte and P. Hamill. 2001. "Subcontracting in Commercial and
Residential Construction: an Empirical Investigation." Construction Management
and Economics 19:439-447.
Cook, Karen (ed). 2001. Trust in Society New York City, NY Russell Sage Foundation.
Cuff, Dana. 1991. Architecture : the Story of Practice. Cambridge, Mass. :: MIT Press.
Eccles, Robert G. 1981a. "Bureaucratic versus Craft Administration: The Relationship of
Market Structure to the Construction Firm." Administrative Science Quarterly
26:449-469.
—. 1981b. "The Quasifirm in the Construction Industry." Journal of Economic Behavior &
Organization 2:335-357.
Espeland, Wendy Nelson and Mitchell L. Stevens. 1998. "Commensuration as a Social
Process." Annual Review of Sociology 24:313-343.
Fligstein, Neil and Luke Dauter. Forthcoming. "The Sociology of Markets." Annual
Review of Sociology.
Giugni, Marco G. 1998. "Was It Worth the Effort? The Outcomes and Consequences of
Social Movements." Annual Review of Sociology 24:371-393.
Gordon, Harry. 2000. "Sustainable Design Goes Mainstream." Pp. 34-38 in Sustainable
Architecture White Papers. Laval, Quebec: Quebecor Printing.
Greve, Frank 2006. "Green Revolution Sweeping the U.S. Construction Industry." in
Kansas City Star. Kansas City
Hawken, Paul, Armory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins. 1999. Natural Capitalism : Creating
the Next Industrial Revolution, Edited by A. B. Lovins and L. H. Lovins. Boston ;
London :: Little, Brown and Co.
Healy, Kieran. 2006. Last Best Gifts. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press
Koch, Christina 2004. "The New American Way." eco-structure, August, pp. 56-58.
March, James G. and Herbert Simon. 1958. Organizations, Edited by H. A. Simon. New
York: Wiley.
Musser, George. 2005. "The Climax of Humanity." Scientific American 293:44-47.
Ragin, Charles C. 1987. The Comparative Method : Moving Beyond Qualitative and
Quantitative strategies. Berkeley :: University of California Press.
Sabel, Charles F. 1993. "Studied Trust: Building New Forms of Cooperation in a Volatile
Economy " Human Relations 46:1133.
Sale, Kirkpatrick. 1993. The Green Revolution: The American Environmental Movement
1962-1992. New York, NY: Hill and Wang.
 Duckles - 29

Sharp, Leith 2006. "The Business of Green Building Design: What 12 LEED Projects have
Taught Harvard University." in GreenBuild International Conference and Expo.
Denver, CO.
Stinchcombe, Arthur L. 1959. "Bureaucratic and Craft Administration of Production: A
Comparative Study." Administrative Science Quarterly 4:168-187.
Tilly, Chris and Charles Tilly. 1994. "Capitalist Work and Labor Markets." in The
Handbook of Economic Sociology, edited by N. J. S. a. R. Swedberg. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Trusty, Wayne and Scot Horst 2002 "Integrating LCA Tools in Green Building Rating
System." Pp. 53-57 in The Austin Papers: Best of the 2002 International Green
Building Conference. Brattleboro, VT: BuildingGreen
Wilson, Alex and Mark Piepkorn (eds). 2006. Green Building Products: The GreenSpec
Guide to Residential Building Materials Gabriola Island, BC Canada: New Society
Publishers.
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Sustainable Architecture White Papers. Laval, Quebec: Quebecor Printing.
 Duckles - 30

Appendix A

Title: The Green Building Industry in California: From Ideology to Buildings

Proposed Dissertation Chapters:

I. Introduction

II. The Organizational Structure of Green Building

III. Green Builders and Designers

IV. Consuming Green Buildings

V. Supplying the Green Building Industry

VI. Conclusion

VII. Appendices
 Duckles - 31

Appendix B – Proposed Timeline

Dissertation Timeline
Time Start Time Finish
Proposal Defense January 2007
Phase 1: Participant February 2007 April 2007
Observation
Phase 1: Recruitment and March 2007 Summer 2007
Interviews:
Builders/Architects
Phase 2: Recruitment and Summer 2007 Summer 2007
Interviews:
Org Consumers
Phase 3: Data Gathering: Spring 2007 Fall 2007
Suppliers
Phase 3: Supplier Survey Fall 2007 December 2007
Analysis of Qualitative March 2007 Fall 2007
Data
Analysis of Supplier Fall 2007 Spring 2008
Survey
Dissertation Writing Summer 2007 Spring 2008
Publication of Research Summer 2007 Fall 2008
Dissertation Defense May 2008
 Duckles - 32

Appendix C – Federal, State and Local Initiatives Involving LEED

According to www.govpro.com, the following federal, state and local groups have "passed
legislation, executive orders, ordinances, policies, or other incentives for buildings to meet
LEED criteria."

Federal Initiatives • Acton, MA

• Department of Energy • Albuquerque, NM
• Department of Interior • Arlington, MA
• Department of State • Arlington, VA
• U.S. Air Force • Atlanta, GA
• U.S. Army • Austin, TX
• U.S. Environmental Protection • Berkeley, CA
Agency • Boston, MA
• U.S. General Services • Boulder, CO
Administration • Bowie, MD
• U.S. Navy • Calabasas, CA
• Calgary, Alberta (Canada)
State Initiatives • Chicago, IL
• Arizona • Cranford, NJ
• Arkansas • Dallas, TX
• California • Eugene, OR
• Colorado • Frisco, TX
• Connecticut • Gainesville, FL
• Illinois • Grand Rapids, MI
• Maine • Houston, TX
• Maryland • Issaquah, WA
• Massachusetts • Kansas City, MO
• Michigan • Long Beach, CA
• Nevada • Los Angeles, CA
• New Jersey • New York, NY
• New Mexico • Normal, IL
• New York • Oakland, CA
• Oregon • Omaha, NE
• Pennsylvania • Pasadena, CA
• Rhode Island • Phoenix, AZ
• Washington • Pleasanton, CA
• Portland, OR
County Government Initiatives • Princeton, NJ
• Alameda County, CA • Sacramento, CA
• Cook County, IL • Salt Lake City, UT
• County of San Mateo, CA • San Diego, CA
• King County, WA • San Francisco, CA
• Sarasota County, FL • San Jose, CA
• Suffolk County, NY • Santa Monica, CA
• Scottsdale, AZ
Local Government Initiatives • Seattle, WA
 Duckles - 33

• Vancouver, British Columbia • Washington, DC

(Canada)
 Duckles - 34

Appendix D – States With Over Five LEED Certified Buildings*

# of LEED
State Certified Buildings
California 50
Pennsylvania 39
Washington 36
Oregon 32
Michigan 28
Massachusetts 20
Georgia 19
Texas 18
Colorado 17
New York 17
Illiniois 16
Virginia 12
Arizona 11
Ohio 11
Florida 10
North Carolina 10
Maryland 9
Utah 8
Missouri 7
New Jersey 7
South Carolina 7
Maine 6
Wisconsin 6
Arkansas 5
Tennesee 5
*Information gathered from USGBC and is accurate as of October 1, 2006
 Duckles - 35

Appendix E - Survey Instrument for Builders and Architects

All questions are open ended and may be stated differently or paraphrased. The interviewer may
also use further prompts, follow up questions and a restating of the respondent's answers to gain
more detailed information. This interview schedule is designed to be adaptable to a variety of
settings. Therefore, not all questions may be asked at all interviews, questions may be asked in
any order and questions may be adapted to fit the particular issues brought up in an interview.

Individual Ideas of Green Building

- What do you personally think green building is?
- How long have you personally been involved in green building (however you define
that)?
- Tell me how you got interested in green building.
- Why are you interested in this way of building?

Company's Idea of Green Building

- How does your firm view green building?
- How long has your firm been involved in or interested in green issues?
- Would you say this is an important issue for your firm? Why or why not?
- How is California unique in green building?

LEED AP
- Tell me how you decided to become a LEED AP.
- How many of the other people in your office/company are also LEED AP's?
- How many buildings has your company/firm built that are LEED certified?
Compliant?
- How many buildings have you participated in the building of that are LEED certified?
Compliant?
- Where/how do you learn the most about green building techniques/methods?
- Have you used any techniques, ideas, methods or materials that you learned about
either from the LEED training or from the USGBC in buildings that are not LEED
certified? What?
- How do you convince a potential client to "go green"?
- Do you use Life Cycle Assessments to help convince your clients? How does that
work?
- Has becoming a LEED AP changed the way that you do your work?
- Does the LEED criteria fit your idea of a green building? Is it a good measurement of
green buildings?
- Does the USGBC represent you?
- Tell me what you think of the "triple bottom line"?
 Duckles - 36

Appendix F - Survey Instrument for Building Owners

All questions are open ended and may be stated differently or paraphrased. The interviewer may
also use further prompts, follow up questions and a restating of the respondent's answers to gain
more detailed information. This interview schedule is designed to be adaptable to a variety of
organizations. Therefore, not all questions may be asked at all interviews, questions may be asked
in any order and questions may be adapted to fit the particular issues brought up in an
interview.

Individual Ideas of Green Building

- What do you personally think green building is?
- How long have you personally been involved in green building (however you define
that)?
- Tell me how you got interested in green building.
- Why are you interested in this way of building?

Company's Idea of Green Building

- How does your firm view green building?
- How long has your firm been involved in or interested in green issues?
- Would you say this is an important issue for your firm? Why or why not?
- How is California unique in green building?

Creating a Green Building

- Tell me how your organization decided to create a LEED certified building. What was
the decision making process like?
- What was the determining factor in convincing all parties involved to build green?
- Did the designers do a Life Cycle Assessment before building? How did that impact
your decisions?
- Did your sense of green building change over the course of your experience building
this building?
- What was the most advantageous part of building this building for your company?
- What was the most difficult/challenging part of building this building?
- Did your company get any good PR because of building this building?
- Do you think your organization would build another LEED certified building?
- Tell me what you think of the "triple bottom line"?
 Duckles - 37

Appendix G – Preliminary Survey for Suppliers

Organization
- When did your company come into business?
- Are you a subsidiary of another company?
- How many people does your company employ?
- Where do you find the raw materials for your product?

Marketing to Green Builders

- What year did you begin to market some of your products to the green building
industry?
- Why did you begin marketing to the green building industry?
- What products specifically do you market to the green building industry?
- Do any of these products affect LEED scores? Which products and which LEED points
do they affect?
- In 2006, what percentage of your total sales was the sale of these green friendly
products?
- Who are your primary customers?
- What kind of shift have you seen in the green building market since 2000 (the year the
LEED building system was created)?
- Would you characterize your company as a for profit or a nonprofit?
- Does your company have an explicitly environmental mission?