New Legislation Aims to Improve the Built Environment

According to the US Department of Energy, buildings consume more energy and emit more greenhouse gases than any other single source. This is a pretty dire commentary on our built environment, but there is another statistic that creates some optimism. By 2035, the American Institute of Architects estimates that 75 percent of the buildings in this country will be either new or remodeled.

This opportunity to improve our built environment is being embraced by policy makers, resulting in a sharp rise in green building legislation. This year alone, there have been more than 200 separate legislative proposals in more than 30 states seeking to address green building in one form or another, ranging from tax incentives to expedited permitting to mandates. At the municipal level, many mayors around the nation have also accepted the 2030 Challenge—which is centered around the goal of achieving net carbon neutrality in all buildings in their cities by the year 2030.

Examples of recent legislation include:

Federal Green Building Legislation
Federal legislation was recently introduced to encourage energy efficiency and conservation and development of renewable energy sources for housing, commercial structures and other buildings, and to create sustainable communities. The legislation recognizes the use of three green building rating systems—Green Globes™, LEED® and the national Green Communities Checklist for residential construction—to determine the achievement of sustainability goals.

Federal Climate Change Legislation
Last year, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held hearings on proposed climate change legislation promoting a cap and trade approach to reducing emissions. A revised version of the bill was released this year and contained a section on Efficient Buildings. This section called for the distribution of emission allowances to be allocated among owners of buildings in the U.S. as a reward for constructing highly efficient buildings and for increasing the efficiency of existing buildings. Buildings would have to achieve a minimum score of 75 using the ENERGY STAR benchmarking tool or its equivalent using an established energy benchmarking metric. Retrofitted buildings would need an improvement of at least 30 points using the ENERGY STAR benchmark or equivalent.

This would be good news for GBI as Green Globes is the only green building rating tool that uses ENERGY STAR to evaluate building performance, and the New Construction module already gives credit for the minimum score of 75.

Although activity on this legislation has ended for the year, we are likely to see some of the same language included in a revised bill when the debate resumes in 2009.

Federal Green Schools Legislation
Earlier this month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public Schools Facilities Act, which authorizes $6.4 billion for school renovation and modernization projects for fiscal year 2009. To encourage energy efficiency and the use of renewable resources in schools, the bill requires that the majority of funds be used to support projects that meet Green Globes, LEED, ENERGY STAR or CHPS criteria. Before becoming law, the bill must be approved by the Senate.

State Legislation
Oklahoma and Tennessee have joined the growing list of states to formally recognize the Green Globes system. In Oklahoma, state agencies are now required to achieve the highest performance certification attainable when constructing or renovating public buildings. In Tennessee, new legislation encourages the state building commission to promulgate rules and regulations that require the design, construction and certification of state buildings with a rating of at least two Green Globes or equivalent.