GreenBuild Blog

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Is There a Climate Change Tipping Point? Green Buildings May Provide an Answer

In today’s New York Times, there is a good review article on the debate among climate scientists, about the probability of a climate change tipping point. “Whether the probability is high, medium, or low, I think the response is the same: climate cannot be stabilized without an energy technology revolution,” said Christopher Green, an economist at McGill University in Montreal . “One way or the other, we just need to get busy.” Society in general doesn’t respond well to emergencies, except to rescue and comfort survivors from infrequent natural disasters. But we do need to get busy. That’s why I find it so strange that architects and engineers are so resistant to setting absurdly high goals for energy efficiency in new buildings. Even a 50 percent reduction in current levels of building energy use can be done without sacrificing comfort or health, so why don’t most projects at least aim that high? It’s really because no one wants to leave their (current) comfort zone and try new things. I think the future of building design will belong to the bold, not the timid, so most of my work is aimed at trying to encourage people to set bold “stretch” goals for each new project.

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Monday, March 23, 2009

The Revolution in Property Management: Chapter 14 of The Green Building Revolution

Green building advocates realized early on that existing developments represent a major opportunity for achieving energy and water savings and reducing the overall environmental impacts of building operations. After all, in any five-year period, new construction and major renovations affect only a small fraction of the existing building stock. As a result, the USGBC created the LEED for Existing Buildings (LEED-EB) standard in 2004, as a means to benchmark building operations against a variety of sustainability criteria. By the end of 2006, nearly 250 projects had registered to participate in LEED- EB, and about 40 had been certified. Compared with the success of the LEED- NC program, this program has had a slow start. Nevertheless, there is considerable evidence that the LEED-EB program is poised to take off, as more organizations begin to track their carbon footprint and attempt to reduce it.

This is an excerpt from Jerry Yudelson’s book, The Green Building Revolution.

To read the entire chapter, click here to download the PDF version.

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Sunday, March 22, 2009

What Do They Know (about Sustainable Design) That We Don’t (and Should)?

Check out my latest article on this subject in the March issue of Building Design and Construction magazine. Although North American green building practices and technology have come a long way in the past 15 years, it’s my opinion, based on my research in Western Europe and the United Kingdom for my forthcoming book, Green Building Trends: Europe, that Western European architects, engineers, and builders are ahead of us in the widespread use of passive design techniques, integrating solar power into building design, and producing low-energy buildings.

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

How Will Green Building Fare During the Great Recession?

The press release outlines more detail on these projects. We’re likely to see government projects continue to aim at LEED certification. A recent report showed more than 2,000 LEED registered Federal government projects, with more than 150 certified, representing about 10 to 12 percent of all registered projects and about 7 percent of all certified projects. Federal use of the LEED system has accelerated in the past three years. It’s the same in the commercial construction arena. My research indicates there are more than 17,000 green building projects worth an average of $15 million now moving forward in the U.S. One reason is that green is now a key differentiator. Take the new Bank of America Tower opening this year in New York City. It’s expected to be certified LEED Platinum. It’s got two million square feet of space, cost almost $1 billion, and it’s met the highest standards for both environmental construction and commercial development. That indicates you can go green with any type of building.

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