Triple Bottom Line
The triple bottom line describes our company’s philosophy. Do our actions benefit People, Planet and Profit? We use this metric to evaluate our progress, specifically if our projects produce zero waste and if they generate savings for everyone involved.
On Eco Brooklyn job sites we employ innovative green building concepts, which are Eco Brooklyn’s core values:
Build It Forward
Original brownstone builders have given us a gift. Brownstones are wonderful structures and our job as green builders is to be custodians. We ‘build them forward’ so that our work is a gift to future generations. We build with value, longevity and integrity and add value and store that value in the brownstone.
Zero Brownstone
Zero brownstone describes a brownstone that has been renovated in accordance with principles of low waste, low consumption and low energy usage. During the deconstruction phase (aka demo phase) zero waste is generated. All “waste” is salvaged and organized so that it can be reused onsite or on another job.
During the rebuilding phase no new materials are bought. Everything we put back into the brownstone is salvaged or recycled. The final brownstone is built using insulation, solar design and energy efficient appliances. As a result, the only energy that this process consumes is generated onsite via PV, Solar Thermal and geothermal sources. The brownstone is also designed to create zero waste by reusing gray water, composting food scraps and composting toilet waste.
The City Provides
New York City provides us with abundant resources to turn it green. These resources can be found in dumpsters, on job sites and can be throwaways. Instead of presuming our only resource is a store we recognize that many resources are just around the corner. We act locally and think globally.
Harvest the City
Harvest the City revives the idea of harvesting nature. It helps us see the city as a biological entity rather than a dead layer of concrete and steel. The city is our field from which we harvest resources. Dismantled buildings, dumpsters and other sites provide resources, which we manage intelligently and share with others to maximize gains.
Gotham Forest
The Gotham Forest refers to the millions of feet of timber boards located in buildings throughout the city. About a hundred years ago, forests of old growth trees were cut down to build New York. This ancient wood sits in our buildings ready to be reused. Each time we dismantle a building or upgrade it, this amazing wood can be accessed. As a result Eco Brooklyn has yet to buy new wood. Neither have we bought new flooring, studs, joists or molding. We primarily build with wood because metal is harder to salvage. The director of corporate sales at Lowes is a business friend of mine. But he jokes that Eco Brooklyn is his worst client. And we are. We are determined to minimize what we buy new.
Guerrilla Green Building
Guerrilla Green Building is key to Eco Brooklyn’s model. It allows us to make a large impact by building green and keeping our costs low. Eco Brooklyn has shattered the connection between high costs and green building because of how we source our materials. There are countless companies who cater to the demand for green materials by charging a premium because there is limited competition and low supply volume. But this is the old model of consumerism, the root of our ecological crisis. Eco Brooklyn practices the paradigm of Guerrilla Green Building by not only changing how we build, “why” we build and how we source. We are Turning Brooklyn Green and by connection the world.
Civil Disobedience
We strongly believe in the city’s building codes. Unfortunately building codes don’t always evolve quickly enough, and currently support many wasteful building practices. Taking the concept of guerrilla green building a step further, we utilize processes that have not been fully accepted by the Department of Buildings. These include gray water, composting toilets, repurposing salvaged wood for new structural beams and opting for insulation instead of heating.
We classify these acts as civil disobedience. An inspector could fail our job site and make us undo the work. Other times we may decide we are not up for the fight and hide the work from the city; we may install a gray water system after the inspector has looked at the plumbing. We don’t hide it proudly but as a pragmatic approach to get the system installed with the hope that one day it will be accepted and encouraged by the city. We try to avoid civil disobedience and instead approach the city to share new building technologies and reasons to incorporate them into building codes.
Turn Brooklyn Green
“Turn Brooklyn Green” (and Manhattan) is the daily ongoing goal of Eco Brooklyn. We are called Eco Brooklyn to specify our geographic focus. We typically work in Brooklyn and Manhattan, leaving the other microclimates for other green builders to master. Anything larger than Brooklyn and Manhattan is a different community with different needs and techniques. We avoid the one size fits all mentality, which is another cause of ecological destruction.
