TV show to feature local green home

Within the Renwick Development, a group of neighborhoods located in Bloomington, is the environmentally friendly house that is the setting for “The Green House Project,” a TV show that brings realistic, green building solutions to present and future houses.

Bret Skipper, the executive producer of the show, spoke Thursday to the Analysis of Business Decisions class taught by John Wisneski, professor and codirector of the Kelley School of Business’s MBA Consulting Academy.

The show, part of the Planet Green channel, focuses on a team of professionals who build a green house for about the same cost as a regular home. It also aims to teach homeowners about being green by making simple, inexpensive changes in their current homes.

“We chose Bloomington because of the mindset of IU,” Skipper said, adding that he heard the University was open to addressing environmental challenges.

However, he said now he is not sure if they made the right decision because the house is not selling.

“I am not sure if the city of Bloomington is ready for the type of house we are building at the cost we are building it for,” he said.

But Wisneski said his class focused on the triple bottom line: people, planet and profits.

Skipper said creating the show made him more aware of all the energy he and his family were wasting and made him want to change to help the endangered state of the planet.

“Two years ago, before I started this project, I lived in an energy black hole and I was skeptical,” he said.

Skipper discussed in great detail the ups and downs of the project. He said there were many unforeseen issues that caused the project to cost 30 percent more than the budget and take seven months longer than the original time allotment. The show’s problems stemmed from conflicts including the builder and collapse in the financial markets.

As a result, the finished house has yet to be purchased, though they have had several interested buyers.

After Skipper’s talk, many of the class’s students posed questions about the business decisions he made throughout the project.

Skipper said he wished he could have installed more features to brand the house as a green house. He said he thought having a green roof and solar panels on the house would help people see the green elements of the house and make it “sexy green.”

“What we have done is mostly hidden,” he said. “I thought the green would sell it. We thought we were ahead of the curve, but it just hasn’t brought out anything yet.”

Wisneski suggested having a buyer before building the house and allowing them to customize the house.

Skipper then ended his talk by outlining what he will do differently in the future. Though he is optimistic about the future of the green movement, he said he feels the project has shown him that people aren’t ready to start shifting their consumer practices just yet.

“At this moment, there isn’t enough pain for green to matter,” Skipper said.