World’s Leading Green Building Rating Systems Agree on Common Standards
Since buildings generate between 40 percent and 50 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, the first step in controlling then reducing such emissions is to agree on common standards for measurement. In the US, we tend to focus on “site” energy (a building’s use of electricity), but the real key is acknowledging “source” energy (the carbon generated at the power plant), because nature doesn’t care what we call it, it just cares about overall carbon dioxide levels in the upper atmosphere. We’re currently adding about 3 ppm each year to the atmosphere (30 ppm in the next 10 years, against a current level of 386 ppm), which can take a hundred years to disappear. Knowing what we’re doing is the first step toward beginning to reduce the concentration to more manageable levels (which some now advocate as 350 ppm, a reduction of 10 percent from current levels.) The Memorandum of Understanding is the first step toward having LEED, BREEAM and Green Star use the same measurement tools for assessing the energy performance of new buildings and homes.
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