Existing Buildings = The 99%

It's hard to overstate the potential (and necessity) of greening our existing building stock. Buildings account for 73% of electricity consumption in the U.S. and 38% of CO2 emissions. Can you imagine the dent we can make with added efficiency in this sector - environmentally and economically? Plus, existing buildings are all around us. Chances are, you're inside of a building (an existing one) as you read this blog entry - talk about an accessible opportunity.

We caught up with two of USGBC's existing buildings gurus to get the their take on the facts, figures, and future of the movement - including the evolution of LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance.

Existing buildings: They're everywhere! Seattle skyline - Source:  Jordan R. MacDonald

Let's start simple: What are the key principles behind LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance? What's the point of greening our existing building stock, and what does it involve?

Lauren Riggs: As I see it, the primary role for LEED EB: O&M in the market is to provide a platform for existing buildings to demonstrate their success in implementing sustainable operations strategies. The majority of buildings are not new - and in fact have been in operation for quite some time; LEED EB: O&M is available to set these buildings up for optimal performance. The point of “greening our existing buildings stock” is to realize the massive potential that such a large number of buildings has to positively impact the environment through efficient operations.

What does this involve? Commitment to the ongoing process of operating a building sustainably. Start with practical and sustainable practices, implement them and update along the way – key words “update along the way.” If LEED EB: O&M projects continually try to make their processes better, they will see the full value of the rating system.

Christopher Davis: Look, the annual replacement rate of buildings (the percent of the total building stock newly constructed or majorly renovated each year) has historically been about 2%, and during the economic recession and subsequent years, it's been much lower. Even if we succeed in making half of those new buildings green, that doesn’t sound like a very urgent response to a crisis. We're deluding ourselves if we think we can solve all of our problems just with new, super efficient buildings. Existing buildings are, to borrow a phrase, the 99%, and we need to pay serious attention to them. Greening existing buildings is incredibly important for our planet, but it makes exceptionally good economic sense. Last year when the Empire State Building achieved Gold using LEED EB: O&M, they were a little over halfway through a deep energy retrofit program projected to cut annual energy costs by 38%. Just a few weeks ago they announced that in the first year they've exceeded their projections by 5%, already saving $2.4 million. Just think what kind of impact we can have if every aging building with leaky windows and inefficient chillers invested in these kinds of improvements. That's the kind of innovation that LEED EB: O&M is trying to stimulate.

The True Story of the EBies

Laurie Kerr
Senior Policy Advisor
NYC Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability

Several years ago, a group of us Urban Greeners were chatting about how to scale up energy efficiency in existing buildings – as we so often do for fun. Someone sighed and said for the umpteenth time, “The problem is, correcting operating schedules and insulating steam pipes just isn’t as sexy as installing solar panels or bamboo flooring…” At which point I thought, “Sexiness is in the eye of the beholder isn’t it? Fashions change. We need to make efficiency and existing buildings sexy, even glamorous!” And with that, the idea for the EBies was born.

Clean Energy and Conservation the Silver Bullet the American Economy Needs

Maggie Comstock

Associate, Policy

U.S. Green Building Council

One day the history books could say that the Obama Administration’s stimulus package of 2009 saved the nation from deep and irreparable financial collapse. But one thing we know right now is that the historic $90 billion investment in clean energy was a significant policy decision for unleashing critical market forces and helping ignite a nascent clean energy economy—a decision that continues to pay clear dividends.

Clean energy technology was identified by the Center for American Progress (CAP) as “one of the fastest-growing sectors of the global economy…projected to grow to $2.3 trillion by 2020.” For example, it is estimated that 827,000 clean energy jobs will have been saved or created nationwide by the fourth quarter of 2012 through the progressive provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Bracken Hendricks, author and senior fellow at CAP, called the green stimulus dollars the “the most important energy bill in American history.” And if we want to spur more new jobs that cannot be outsourced, we need even more innovative policy decisions that spur better clean energy market choices.

That is why clean energy and a more intelligent and resilient infrastructure to deliver that energy are also key components of CAP’s three step approach to further boost job creation: 1) Invest in national infrastructure through existing channels and the creation of an investment bank; 2) Stabilize the housing market through restructuring loans and automatic foreclosure mediation; and 3) Promote residential and commercial energy efficient retrofits.

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that unemployment in the United States has remained unchanged at 9.1%, and that no new jobs have been added to the U.S. economy. Retrofitting our buildings may be the most obvious step forward when buildings consume 70% of all electricity and contribute to 40% of our national greenhouse gas emissions. McKinsey & Co showed that we could create nearly a million jobs by working to bring building energy retrofits to scale. With 25% unemployment in the construction sector, energy efficiency retrofits make our investment dollars go further by creating jobs, saving homeowners and building occupiers utility expenses and reducing our nation’s impact on the environment—called a triple win by some lawmakers.

In a few days the President will address the nation on the current state of unemployment and the economy. We anticipate and hope that his speech will include provisions for ramping up investments in clean energy and conservation. The clean energy economy could be the silver bullet needed to ensure America’s sustainable future—not exclusively in the environmental sense, but as a self-perpetuating and long-term economic solution.

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Greenbuild Green Jobs Summit: The U.S. Green Building Council, in partnership with the Center for American Progress, the BlueGreen Alliance and the BlueGreen Alliance Canada, will host the Green Jobs Summit at Greenbuild 2011 to further explore the role of green jobs in the economy as well as their deployment. The Summit will feature notable experts and sector leaders inlcuding eco-entrepreneuer Majora Carter and Dan Esty, Commissioner of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection for the State of Connecticut.

View the full Green Jobs Summit program »

Visit the Greenbuild 2011 site to register »

Encouraging Energy Efficiency: A Tax Fix Everyone Can Get Behind

Lane Burt
Technical Policy Director
U.S. Green Building Council

Pretend you are a small business owner. You happen to own the building where your business is housed, which has helped you weather the recession. Things seem to be getting better, and you have the opportunity to make some investments in your company that could really pay off in the long run.

You’d like to figure out how to cut your operating expenses, especially utilities, which have gone up and up and up over the last 10 years. You know your building is pretty old and leaky, and that much of that energy you buy is wasted. You’ve heard the President talk about efficiency retrofits and think that might be a smart investment that will cut your energy bills and pay for itself.

But there is a problem. If you invest in your own building energy efficiency, you will have to pay federal taxes on the value of the investment. If you were to keep wasting energy, all that wasted money would be completely deductible from your taxes.

That’s right; in effect our tax code unintentionally subsidizes wasted energy. Despite the economic benefits (not to mention the domestic job creation and the environmental benefits), investments to create energy efficient, better buildings do not receive the same treatment under the tax code as wasted energy.

That’s why USGBC is working with a diverse coalition of industry and environmental organizations, like the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Real Estate Roundtable, to change that. It’s our highest priority to convince Congress that energy efficiency is at least as valuable to the nation’s prosperity as wasted energy.

We’ve proposed changes to fix Section 179D of the tax code, and existing policy designed to encourage energy efficient new construction to make it usable for existing buildings. You can read more about those changes here.

The positive impact of this tax code tweak would be immense – 77,000 new jobs and immense savings on energy bills where we live and work. Those are benefits that will be felt not only by those who do the work, but also by everyone who works in an office, stays in a hotel, shops at a mall, or lives in an apartment.

But what will be the cost to the treasury? Not much if anything for one major reason – all those investments we want to encourage will drastically decrease the total amount of money spent on energy at businesses across the country, thereby lowering the total expenses deducted from their taxes for years to come. Instead of deducting wasted energy, they will reap energy savings and reinvest that money in much more productive ways.

This is one tax fix that nearly everyone can get behind. We plan to advocate tirelessly for these changes on behalf of our members, many of whom own the buildings, make the more efficient products, and will design and engineer the retrofits. Stay tuned for opportunities to get involved.