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Published in Spring 2006
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Green building focus of new independent report
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© Alise O’Brien / USGBC
Alberici Corporation’s headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, channels rainwater into an underground cistern where it is filtered, chlorinated and then used in the building’s urinals for a savings of close to 300,000 gallons of water each year.
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As a major consumer of energy and other resources and a producer of municipal waste, the building sector in North America has major impacts on the environment.
According to a 2003 report, commercial and residential buildings in the United States consumed 65.2 percent of all electricity generated, 12 percent of fresh water supplies and 40 percent of all raw materials, as well as accounting for about 36 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. All these environmental impacts originated from various building activities, such as design, construction, use, refurbishment and demolition that evolved in a period of seemingly limitless natural resources and cheap fossil fuels.
Today, concerns about resource depletion and energy security are fueling a movement that is striving for sustainability in our built environment by designing buildings in an environmentally conscious manner. These “green buildings” can address the consumption of energy and resources and generation of waste by applying concepts and technologies that are an environmentally beneficial and economically favorable alternative to the designs of the past.
Experts say the opportunity for growth in the green building sector is significant because the sector is still in its infancy. In the United States, there are less than 300 buildings certified under the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.
That’s one of the reasons why the CEC Secretariat announced in March that green buildings will be the focus of its next independent report, says Executive Director William V. Kennedy. “We’re interested in fostering the adoption of green practices in the building sector because we believe there is significant opportunity for environmental benefits across the continent.”
One of the challenges has been the inherent characteristics of buildings. Unlike cars, which are standardized products that are removed from circulation after eight to ten years, all new buildings are essentially
prototypes that carry the limits of their designs for decades unless they have been designed with flexibility and adaptability in mind.
Existing buildings cannot readily benefit from the latest efficiency technologies that may be relevant for new buildings, although green building principles can also apply to retrofitting existing buildings. If buildings have been designed in an environmentally conscious manner, benefits will accrue for generations while poorly designed buildings, which consume more energy and resources and generate more waste than necessary, will be more costly to operate.
In North America, the building sector is also extremely diversified and must satisfy multiple private, business and public needs. It also faces a great variety of environmental situations: from the cold and harsh Arctic environment to sub-tropical areas. Materials differ as well
as building techniques.
A major challenge for governments is to reduce the building sector’s impact on the environment while ensuring that the sector continues to support healthy economic activity in the three NAFTA countries. Achieving optimal progress in the green building sector requires putting in place the appropriate policy conditions to encourage
constant environmental and social improvements in the building sector.
Choosing the right green building policies offers the additional advantage of influencing numerous product designs because of the hundreds of components that enter a building. Progressive green building policies also complement ancillary policies such as green purchasing, waste minimization, Brownfield development, energy conservation, urban planning and environmental protection in general.
But, due to the extended chain of products and
manufacturers involved in construction, identifying
priority issues to be addressed, the appropriate policy mix and their level of intervention is essential to ensure their effectiveness.
To address these issues, the CEC Secretariat will convene an advisory panel comprised of prominent experts from the private sector, sub-national governments (state, provincial, municipal), non-governmental organizations and other stakeholder groups with knowledge and expertise relevant to green building. Key private sector stakeholders include, among others, developers and architects of green buildings, green building trade associations, financial institutions involved with green building, real estate appraisers and brokers, building materials suppliers and the utility and waste management sectors.
Together, they will help further define the scope of the report, and guide a background analysis of the issues to be addressed in the report. Opportunities for expanding the North American market for green building, promoting education and awareness about green building, developing policies supportive of green building, and increasing government investment in or procurement of green buildings, will all be addressed.
As with other reports initiated by the CEC Secretariat under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation’s Article 13, the green building study will include input from prominent international and national groups, the private sector, interested members of the public, as well as the three NAFTA governments. Public input will be solicited throughout the study process, and a final report is expected in 2007.
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