The Green Building Void, and Green Sacramento

From the New York Times archives I recalled this Christine Larson article about the difficulty for homeowners in finding building and remodeling contractors when you want to "build green."

My take is that the difficulty-to-date has inspired a number of homeowners to be entrepreneurial in their remodeling efforts: scouring obscure sources for recycled materials, learning about resource-saving heating and cooling and electricity options, sometimes even taking the DIY approach to installing green elements. It's an inspired, hands-on attitude and the polar opposite of the "How big can we make our new addition?" approach portrayed by Catherine Keener in Friends with Money, where it takes her the whole movie to realize that her new bird's nest bedroom is going to destroy her neighbors' view.

But obviously it shouldn't be so difficult to build green, and it definitely suggests a lot of business opportunities, from local contractors of every trade stepping out as the go-to greenerers
in the community to the potential for building a national name-brand purveyor of residential solar equipment, as Jennifer Alsever suggests in the current Fast Company. Alsever sites cost as the limiting factor, to-date at least, but it seems like we're collectively crossing that bridge- especially since earlier adopters would intuitively come from a more affluent crowd anyway. Alsever offers up Citizenrē, Newpoint Energy Solutions, SolarCity and SunTechnics as early contenders.

Maybe it will be a scrappy start-up that takes the lead in delivering the green goods to homes efficiently and profitably. Or maybe it will be:

-A manufacturer, like First Solar (whose manufacturing plant is near my hometown in Perrysburg, Ohio) that successful develops a direct-to-consumer distribution model
-A reigning home improvement giant like Home Depot or Lowe's or even Target or Wal-Mart that takes green beyond its current limelight
-Even a public utility that finds a clever way to market gear and services to users

But my bet and hope is that it will be a more entrepreneurial endeavor that takes the lead, and possibly one that uses the "webfront" model that Nau is applying in the apparel market especially since it's intuitive for a green retailer to NOT inhabit a 100,000 sq ft big box joint.

Maybe Larson has already identified a future green-retailing powerhouse in her Times article in her cover subject Green Sacramento, a start-up created by frustrated home remodelers Josh and Joy Daniels. Check it out.