It's oftentimes described as an immovable force meeting an irresistible object, but despite the best-laid plans of Western and domestic companies attempting to launch the green building movement in this country, the effort, it seems, is doomed in the short-run.

For those of you who don't know what the "green building" movement is, a brief primer courtesy of my good friend and green building maven Andrew A. Hunt, of Pittsburgh, PA, USA would suffice:

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Andrew A. Hunt:

"The basics of green building [in the US] are defined as a home that is healthy (with high indoor air quality), durable (made of quality construction/materials), and energy efficient ("tight" building envelope, insulation, HVAC).

Beyond that, it's all about material selection like recycled, local, low VOC -- volatile organic compounds, like off-gassing from paints and laminated woods, on-site power, water saving, and size (smaller is better).

The good news [ed. - about those new economies in Emerging Europe] is that you can sort of build a program to be flexible."

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Indeed.

Andrew and a group of local Czech collaborators are kickstarting a new Green Building Society for 2008 which will go right to the heart of the movement -- new home and new home developers.

This will run the gamut of:

** run-of-the-mill "production"-type builders, where one company buys the land and develops it into several hundred of individual home sites.
** custom builders, where homes are built to suit for nouveaux-riches buyers.
** or multi-unit rentals, which are smaller versions of the "run-of-the-mill" scenario (the "Nosovice Hyundai Auto Factory" model).

Andrew and I were having a game of pepper about this last night, where he'd spitball an idea and I'd fire back a rebuttal, playing devil's advocate.

For all of Andrew's great suggestions, I wanted to inject a healthy dose of Czech realism into the picture -- applicable to several of our post-Communist neighbours as well. His enthusiasm was simply contagious, yet like most Western businessmen who come, um...green, into the market, a little bit of prior knowledge about the workings of the local business culture separates the men from the boys here. What I'd call the a "Lonely Planet-plus" version.

The following is a summary of some of the advantages and disadvantages we'd discussed yesterday:

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Advantages:

** many citizens already own the very homes they live in, as payoff for the difficult years under the previous regime. As such, there are fewer regulatory hoops to jump through at the outset were people to suddenly wake up wanting to "go green." The establishment of a citizens' coalition -- much like the class-action suit currently in the Strasbourg pipeline regarding rent control -- is not an unattainable goal.

** Czech consumers enjoy trialling products and services. If a logical appeal can be made to this highly-sophisticated, skilled marketplace for the Green Building Movement, there are higher chances for uptake.

** what works in the CR will generally work further East. (I've mentioned this in several other places on this blog, but it's borne out by statisticians and regional trend watchers alike).

** with the masses of new building projects being slapped up across the Republic -- especially with high-polluting occupants like business tenants and the like -- the potential environmental windfalls from going green are readily visible.

** "La Combinacion Perfecta" -- no, not Llego El Sabor featuring the god-like Oscar de Leon and Jose Canario, which is a whole 'nother story. No, what I'm talking about here is when Czech scientific innovation comes up head to head with the green building movement. Think about the numerous gains: a pristine playing field for Czech process innovators, a better environment and international reputation, moreover, for Czech citizens (given Klaus' senile blatherings), and high revenues for builders who decide to get into the same bed as the Czech scientific community.

But like DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince (Will Smith) sang long ago, in their seminal hip-hop track, "Joy and Pain" (...it's like sunshine and rain -- c'mon, sing it with me now!). Every coin has it's two sides.

So here were the corresponding disadvantages:

** corrupt bureaucrats and other change-inhibiting Czech Tyrannosaurus Rexes and other assorted ooga-booga knuckledusters will erect roadblocks at every turn. These are the same people who reject everything which comes from "the outside." The same people who gobble-up their Head of State's shnook-like views on the environmental, suckling at the poisonous breast of Klaus' brand of Czech isolationism.

** green building is expensive. When developers from anywhere but the CR are making money hand over fist in this country, with low-cost flights now homing in on the regional cities like Pardubice, Brno, and Ostrava, is it any wonder that this whole discussion of "going green" is a moot point?

** who has a right to tell the Czechs how to live their lives or spend their newfound incomes? When the Americans started going industrial, buying up oil reserves and stockpiling them like they were going out of style, did anyone stand up and stop them? Ditto for the Chinese in this respect. Who has any right to tell the newly surging economies just how to behave? The potentially-splinter green building movement? Fat chance!

** Green building might not speak with a coordinated voice in this country, dooming it from the start. In a country with only 10 million souls, this could be potentially catastrophic. Equivalent to the threshold for election to the Lower House being 5%, which usually results in razor thin government majorities, the product of shaky coalitions between strange political bedfellows. There will be too many small Czech organizations seeking "green" glory. Without due oversight, the greenies will appear like a bunch of squabbling hippies.

** Resistance to outside ideologies and influences, which have doomed Czech society, especially since the late 1930s. Green Building will be looked upon as just another one of these "foreign influences" emanating form the superpower du jour, the U S of A. Even if it makes sense, it doesn't make sense for the Czech people.

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What do you think about Green Building? A hoax or a sensible new paradigm?


As always, I wish for you many good things,
ADM