An Inconvenient Truth about 1 Famous Green Home
A couple years ago, a story was written about current standards-bearer of the green movement, former Vice President Al Gore, questioning if he was practicing what he was preaching (
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-08-09-gore-green_x.htm). The short version of the story was that Mr. Gore had yet to sign on to voluntary yet more expensive green energy programs from the local utility companies that would power his two stately homes in Arlington, VA & Nashville, TN. When asked about it, the Gore family acknowledged as much but said they were looking into switching...
OK, so that's old news and the Gores did make the switch.
This week a new story came out with a 2 years-later follow up and they revealed a rather inconvenient truth about expensive "energy-efficient" home upgrades. According to the article:
http://www.tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=764, Mr. Gore was embarrassed last year when it was revealed that his Nashville home was an energy guzzler, burning 20 times more energy than the average American home. Yikes.
Mr. Gore reached into his pockets to the tune of $16,500 to "upgreen" his home to increase its energy efficiency and the renovations were recently completed. The group responsible for the article, who apparently makes it their business to check the Gore family's energy bill each month, has since discovered a surprising fact. Since the expensive energy-efficient upgrades, the home's energy usage has gone up by 10%!
There are two obvious conclusions to this sad tale.
- Former VP Al Gore cannot win for losing. First there was that whole episode when he won the popular vote but still lost the presidency and now this.
- There is a lot of hype around going green right now. As there is with any hysteria, some things are going to be exaggerated and assumed until all the facts are settled. The lesson we can take as real estate professionals is to make sure we provide professional counsel to our clients based on facts rather than hyperbole. Just because a company calls its product "green," doesn't mean that it is.