Architects & Builders
The great Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi did something thought to be impossible. He covered the huge cathedral of Florence with an enormous dome, capping the construction that required 140 years to complete.
Architecture is again at a transformational moment, and all eyes right now are being directed to an architect -- not from Florence -- but from Flatbush. He's solving climate in a way that has never dawned on anyone before with common sense insights and a proposal called Architecture 2030. It may do more for the fight against global warming than any other single thing now being contemplated anywhere.
This architect's name is Ed Mazria, and he is showing fellow professionals -- and the rest of the world -- how to dramatically cut global warming emissions by transforming our built environment. He's taken the sector by storm. On his web site is a list of architects and organizations from around the world who have committed themselves to his visionary building proposals. Your index finger will develop carpal tunnel syndrome scrolling through the list.
Remember the little boy in the fairy tale who said out loud that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes? When you hear Mazria talk about the built environment, it's like that. The situation stands naked and the solutions become obvious, easy and unavoidable, and that includes an immediate moratorium on dirty coal.
The Architecture 2030 Challenge
Three simple slides on the Architecture 2030 web site tell story.
First the stakes:
Data from the US Energy Information Administration illustrates that buildings are responsible for almost half (48%) of all energy consumption and GHG emissions annually; globally the percentage is even greater.
Then the opportunity:
Herein lies the hope. By the year 2035, approximately three-quarters (75%) of the built environment will be either new or renovated.
This transformation over the next 30 years represents a historic opportunity for the architecture and building community to avoid dangerous climate change.
And lastly the solution: by using innovative sustainable design strategies, generating on-site renewable power and purchasing clean energy, the sector can immediately cut 50% of the energy newly renovated or constructed buildings use.
Mazria has also challenged architects and builders to increase the energy cut by 10% every five years, starting in 2010, so that by 2030, all new construction will be carbon-neutral. Buildings would no longer require fossil-fuels to operate. It's a project worthy of Brunelleschi.
Partners
The building industry is responding and has taken a first major step: collaborative agreement on a benchmark standard against which to measure progress. Who has signed on? The key professional organizations in the sector:
The American Institute of Architects (AIA)
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-
Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)The Illuminating Engineering Society of North
America (IESNA)
Supported by representatives of the U.S. Department of Energy, they agreed to use 2003 Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) as a common starting point (benchmark) and made a commitment to design net zero energy buildings.
At the same time, the Architecture 2030 Challenge is being supported by a growing roster of governmental bodies and non-profits interested in solving climate:
The US Conference of Mayors (USCM)
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)
Royal Architecture Institute of Canada (RAIC)
State of New Mexico (Governor Bill Richardson)
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI)
World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA/Target Finder)
National Wildlife Federation (NWF)
Society of Building Science Educators (SBSE)
Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA)
Union Internationale des Architectes (UIA)
American Solar Energy Society (ASES)
The Coal Connection
Architecture 2030 is also using its influence to inform debate around the use of coal as a source of energy, because there is an intimate though largely invisible connection between buildings and coal.
Sea Level Rise: BostonBuilding operations -- heating, cooling, ventilation, hot water, etc. -- account for 43% of total annual US greenhouse gas emissions. Most of that is because buildings are powered by energy mostly from coal-fired power plants. In fact, 76% of all the electricity produced at power plants in the US goes to operate buildings. By reducing the demand for energy from the building sector, Mazria believes the nation can avoid new investments in dirty coal, and has joined the call for a moratorium.
It has become common today to declare that there is no ‘silver bullet’ for solving the global warming crisis. This, in fact, is not correct. The one fossil fuel positioned to push the planet beyond 450 ppm, and trigger dangerous climate change, is coal.
This fact, coupled with the fact that a coal plant built today has life expectancy of 50 years or more, mandates that the time for positive preventive action is now, and that this action must be a moratorium on coal.
To bring the point home, Mazria used publicly available data to generate images of the impact that sea level rise, triggered by global warming, would have on US coastal cities. The images, and the connection between coal and the building sector, are in this report.
