Energy-efficient buildings have huge bang for their buck in reducing our carbon footprint.
Six months ago, the United States made strong commitments to address climate change at the U.N. climate conference in Paris. In another six months, our politics will decide whether we will honor those commitments or walk away from them.
If we stay the course, we will need to slash our carbon footprint without hurting our economy. Almost any action to cut carbon will make for good economics in the long run, since climate change will cost billions if allowed to continue.
But what approach to carbon reduction has the best economics in the short term? Probably the best solution is simply to make buildings more efficient, so they use less energy to heat and cool them and keep the lights on. A report just released by U.S. Green Building Council and American Sustainable Business Council (disclosure: I’m a co-founder) probed the economics of green buildings and their value in stopping climate change.
Buildings really matter. Buildings account for more greenhouse gas emissions than any other part of our economy – more than industry and more than transportation. Buildings produce carbon dioxide mostly because of the energy needed to heat them in the winter and cool them in the summer. (Lighting is a much smaller factor.) In addition, it takes a lot of energy to put up a building in the first place, mostly to make concrete, brick, steel and other construction material.
Anything that can reduce the power consumption of buildings really helps protect the climate. A lot can be done to reduce power needs through more efficient heating and cooling systems, better insulation and taking advantage of natural light and natural heating and cooling. The most resource-efficient and healthy buildings earn official recognition in the form of LEED, which stands for “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design,” and EPA’s Energy Star. The LEED standard, created by the U.S. Green Building Council, now covers more than 14.4 billion square feet of space worldwide.
Building improvements are probably the largest single opportunity for carbon reduction in our entire economy. A typical LEED-certified building uses about 25 percent less energy and belches out 25 percent less carbon dioxide than a comparable non-LEED building. With many LEED buildings in operation and under construction, the savings add up fast. According to the American Sustainable Business Council’s analysis, if all new and retrofitted buildings were LEED-compliant, by 2025, we’d keep nearly 150 million metrics tons of carbon out of air. This reduction is nearly 7 percent of what the U.S. has pledged at the Paris talks. By 2050, LEED-related savings could cover nearly 10 percent of the entire U.S. commitment.
In addition to being perhaps the largest source of carbon reduction, building efficiency may also be the most cost-effective. Efficient buildings save money, primarily from needing less energy and maintenance.
Recently, the Center for Real Estate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released a thorough study of the cost of LEED construction versus conventional construction. Researchers found that green buildings really don’t cost more to build than conventional buildings. (They do take more time and cost more to design because they more complicated, but design costs are on average just three percent of total costs, so the difference amounts to is a rounding error.)
MIT’s work is consistent with an extensive earlier study by the consultancy McKinsey & Company, which found that the economic benefits of reduced energy usage are much greater than the cost of making those buildings more energy-efficient. For example, looking just at local government buildings, McKinsey estimates it would cost $19 billion to upgrade them all, but the savings would be worth $36 billion – nearly twice as much.
Since energy-efficient buildings provide big savings in energy, and impose negligible extra cost to build, they are attractive to developers and property owners. As a sweetener, LEED certification brings cachet, and LEED buildings generally support higher rents than others. So it’s no surprise that 13 percent of the total commercial office stock is now certified by LEED or Energy Star. In addition, many government entities at all levels are supporting these certifications. More than 30 states and many major cities have policies mandating or incenting LEED in government buildings.
Economists remind us that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but in this case they’re wrong. Green buildings help fight climate change, and they pay for themselves.
Source : http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-09/green-building-is-the-most-economical-short-term-answer-to-climate-change
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