Climate change & building efficiency
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The recent Phase 1 Report from Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Jerry Brown’s America’s Pledge lays out actions that states, cities, and businesses can pursue to fight climate change.
According to the report, energy consumed by commercial and residential buildings accounts for 9% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Space heating and lighting energy use in buildings has made significant gains over the past 10 years. This is due in part to local building energy codes and a shift towards green building programs like LEED and ENERGY STAR.
However, there is much more to be done. As the America’s Pledge report explains:
The market is not fully capturing cost effective energy efficiency opportunities as a result of capital constraints, split incentives (such as the differing motivations of owners versus renters), access to information, and aversion to modifying traditional construction practices.
In addition, recent progress is attributed to new buildings but “only an estimated three percent of the U.S. building stock is new or renovated annually.”
Beyond GHG reduction efforts in electricity generation and transportation, what more can we be doing for buildings — especially existing buildings?
America’s Pledge: Phase 1 Report
Source: America’s Pledge
Link: https://www.bbhub.io/dotorg/sites/28/2017/11/AmericasPledgePhaseOneReportWeb.pdf
EXCERPTS
Across the U.S., governors, mayors, and business leaders are acting to fill the climate action void created by current federal climate policies. With public support, and effective collaboration strategies, they will drive U.S. climate action forward, from the bottom up. These efforts, however, must accelerate. Adoption of ZEVs, improvements in the energy performance of buildings, increased use of renewable energy and fuels, significant improvements in the carbon intensity of manufacturing, and deep cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide (CO2) like hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and methane must be pursued aggressively. Further action is also needed to restore our forests and agricultural sector to help remove and store carbon from the atmosphere.
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Since 1980, best-in-class energy efficiency building codes have resulted in a 40 percent reduction in energy usage for those residential buildings they cover and 50 percent reduction in energy usage for covered commercial buildings.
Despite progress, barriers persist.
The market is not fully capturing cost effective energy efficiency opportunities as a result of capital constraints, split incentives (such as the differing motivations of owners versus renters), access to information, and aversion to modifying traditional construction practices. In addition, local jurisdictions often lack the resources to fully enforce the applicable building codes.
While much has been done to address these challenges, particularly for new buildings, they remain a consistent impediment to sufficiently addressing emissions from the existing building stock. Only an estimated three percent of the U.S. building stock is new or renovated annually, which drastically reduces the impact of solutions to addressing building energy efficiency that focus solely on new and renovated buildings. Looking ahead, investment in the existing building stock must accelerate; at the same time, increasing electrification in the building sector may be needed to achieve long-term emissions goals.
