Green Proponents Target CO2 in Emissions Reduction Plans

11/27/2006 By Tom Nicholson in Denver

Joining the groundswell of concern about climate change, the U.S. Green Building Council announced this month its aim to target greenhouse gas reductions through its LEED rating system.

USGBC unveiled an eight-point initiative to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which next month will be submitted to USGBC members for approval. The initiative includes a proposal that all new commercial LEED projects, beginning in 2007, would be required to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50% over current levels. Reductions would be accomplished by minimizing a building’s “carbon footprint” by using environmentally sustainable energy, water and transportation sources, and through selection of materials.

“We are raising the bar for the building industry by launching a series of new initiatives,” said USGBC President Rick Fedrizzi at the fifth annual Greenbuild Conference in Denver on Nov. 15, acknowledging the industry’s role as a contributor to CO2 emissions, and its responsibility to reduce them.

Included in the initiative are proposals to increase energy reduction prerequisites on LEED projects, a CO2 offset program to provide incentives for continuous improvement on exisiting LEED-certified buildings, a portfolio performance program to recognize high environmental performance across companies’ entire portfolios, and a CO2 reduction education program for industry professionals.

The initiatives drew nods of approval from proponents of environmental sustainability. Bill Chameides, chief scientest at New York City-based Environmental Defense, says the initiative is overdue and “a very important move.”

But for many owners, contractors and designers, ratcheting up LEED standards is prompting questions of cost. “There may be more upfront construction costs to achieve this,” says Tom Leppert, CEO of Turner Construction Co., New York City, who was a key speaker at Greenbuild. “But those with experience in green building will be able to keep costs down. We have done about $13 billion in green building in the past five years, and we see only a 1 to 2% cost increase on those projects.”

In the long term, green buildings’ energy savings will more than offset upfront costs, Leppert says. “The question should not be, ‘How much will it cost to build green?’, but ‘How much will it cost not to?’”

Also at the conference, which drew about 13,000 attendees and 700 exhibitors, USGBC announced it is partnering with Autodesk Inc., to create software to make sustainable design more efficient through use of building information modeling.