The Green Technocrat

We talk a lot about cutting back on our foreign oil dependency, going carbon neutral, creating jobs through the development of clean energy technologies, but often in these discussions leave out one of the most fundamental keys to achieving these goals, energy efficiency. While it is certainly critical that we continue to develop new alternative energy technologies it is equally important that we step up our efforts to implement energy efficiency standards in our building codes.

For some reason, that I have not been able to comprehend, we have yet to see the implementation of large scale energy efficiency programs across America. Certain cities (I’m looking at you Chicago) have gotten a jump on the game by passing stricter building code regulations that would require new buildings to meet certain efficiency targets, but in general we are way behind where we need to be, and where we could be if we just started to pursue this endeavor head one.

For years now the U.S. Green Building Council has offered LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certifications for commercial, institutional, and industrial buildings whose designs meet a standard for environmentally sustainable construction.  Mainstream construction practices have been slow to adapt to the need to reach the efficiency targets required for LEED certification, but this is changing rapidly and “green buildings” are beginning to finally take off.

Earlier today the Executive Editor of GreenerBuildings.com, Rob Watson, released his Green Building Impact Report 2008 to the U.S. Green Building Council at its annual conference.  The report, which is the first of its kind, provides a comprehensive look at the environmental impact of LEED buildings.  To sum up the report in one sentence: LEED buildings drastically reduce their energy consumption (and thus greenhouse gas emissions) when compared to similar buildings that do not meet LEED certification requirements, however, a drastic increase in the number of LEED buildings must take place to make a large dent on our country’s emissions.

“Our findings are both encouraging and cautionary,” said Watson. “Overall, we believe that LEED buildings are making a major impact in reducing the overall environmental footprint of individual structures. However, significant additional progress is possible and indeed necessary on both the individual building level and in terms of market penetration if LEED is to contribute in meaningful way to reducing the environmental footprint of buildings in the U.S. and worldwide.”

Some encouraging figures released in the report include:

• The 295 million square feet of LEED-certified floor space in the U.S. could increase to 5.6 billion square feet by 2015, and 11.1 billion by 2020.
• LEED buildings reduce energy consumption by about 25% on average.
• LEED buildings have thus far prevented the burning of about 1.3 million tons of coal.  This could increase to 26 million tons by 2015.
• LEED buildings have saved the U.S. 9.5 billion gallons of water.  This could increase to 133 billion gallons by 2015.

Now is the time to being this expansion.  Sure, the building boom of the past few years may have gotten us into a bit of a financial mess, but that was due to sketchy lending practices, negligence, and a lack of oversight.  If we invest sensibly in the construction of green buildings in the U.S. we can expand the current green building materials market from the current $10.5 billion to well over $100 billion in the next 12 years.  I know I must be sounding like a broken record to a lot of you, but it seems to me that once again the path out of our current economic crisis, and our current climate crisis go hand in hand.

No, investment in alternative energy technology, building efficiency, and an improved electrical grid alone will not solve either of these problems out right, but by recognizing the fact that these two areas are inextricably linked we can begin to move in the right path.