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Green Building Summit - A Success
SUMMARY OF GREEN BUILDING SUMMIT
OUTCOMES-
2008 -APRIL 11-12
This year's program was
called Green Building Summit, which
is the third of the Open-Space programs, but it was decided to begin an annual
event with a new name that would take place for the building community as a way
to monitor success and new issues.
Sponsors included CASA, AIA
New Mexico, USGBC, NAIOP and BuildGreen New Mexico.
Planners were Jean Gibson,
Exec. Director, AIA New Mexico, Chris Kerlin, Exec. Director, USGBC New Mexico and
myself.
On Friday evening at the
reception, Lt Governor Diane Denish gave a keynote speech about her hopes for a
continued Building Sustainability Program, and touted her work with Green
Mortgages. She wants to make them available to many more income levels to
encourage a discount for building energy saving homes. Her campaign for Governor is just getting
started and hearing about her ideas and hopes was important. This presentation
was well received with many of the industry's leaders responding with high
praise for her future ides.
On Saturday, we began with a
discussion by the organizers, CASA, USGBC New Mexico, and AIA New Mexico
reviewing successes of the past year; the issue of a state mandated energy
savings increase by another 5% by 2015, Albuquerque Green Building Codes, Santa
Fe Building Codes. The importance of unifying the Building Community to speak
with one voice is a vision of this body in creating a blueprint for the future
of New Mexico's built environment.
The program was divided into
two distinct types of processes, with the morning session following the classic
open-space technology format.
Areas of concern in the morning session
covered were varied, with areas discussed: water resource, water supply for
building, clean energy, and metrics for the progress of green buildings. The
other sessions related to education of the building owner, sustainability for
existing buildings, and how to change values to embrace green issues.
The afternoon session was
focused on making specific choices for subsequent actions about Building
Codes, Education, and Legislative, and Making Green Building the
Norm. Following the afternoon session a measure was taken to decide which
actions were most important to focus on. Both sessions were full of important
ideas and solutions.
Please go to our website www.casa-center.org for more information.
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More CASA News
We have been asked by Steve
Fischmann, a Las
Cruces Green
Building activist, and President of the Southwest
Energy Alliance to bring another Green Building Summit to their city. We
hope that it will happen in the late fall.
CASA has been awarded a grant from the Coalition for Clean and Affordable Energy
(CCAE)to continue to work on the state's revision of the building codes and
support the development of a Green Bureau at the Construction and Industry
Division of the state's Licensing and Regulation Agency. This is a great
challenge, and we are looking forward to making this a reality.
Howard Kaplan CASA Board
President has been asked to give a presentation at the Lorman Sustainable Development Seminar, on
August14th. He will present the issues associated with developing a
Green Building Code in New Mexico.
This AM presentation includes discussions on zoning, incentives, and the New
Mexico Tax Credits. He will be presenting with Dale Dekker, AIA, and Katherine
Martinez, Attorney. Other topics in this day long program include legal issues
and the financial aspects of sustainable architecture and green building
performance expectations.
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Global Warming Climate Report
National Resource Defense Council and Rocky Mountain
Climate Organization publish a report on the
impact of global warming on the West's climate.
This report basically states
that the climate in the western half of this country is warming by as much as
1.70F. The Rocky Mountain Climate Organization (RMCO) and the NRDC published
a report in March that claimed that the" American West has heated up even more
than the rest of the world as a whole. For the last five years (2003-2007), the
global climate has averaged 1.0 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than its 20th
century average. According to RMCO during this period, the 11 western states
averaged 1.70F warmer than
its 20th century average- a 70% higher warming than for the world as
a whole, along with more heat waves and more hot days increasing by up to four
days per decade since 1950.
Other statistics include: California
heat waves in 2006 killed at least 143 people with suspicions of higher numbers
being investigated by the state government: Arizona diminished water
volume at Lake Powell reservoir dropped by two-thirds between 2000 and 2005,
and currently less than half-full; Washington's snowpack at Snoqualmie
Pass did not reach is usual level of 92 inches, with no snow reported at all in
2005; Idaho had to cancel it's annual sage grouse hunting season after
wildfires, in 2007, destroyed much of the bird's habitat; Wyoming has
had a treacherous invasion of mountain pine beetles in the high country at
Yellowstone, this threatens to eliminate the whitebark pines that provide an
important food source for the grizzly bear in the area; New Mexico experienced
a great loss of revenue due to lost livestock production from a record drought
in 2002.
Water supplies in the
semi-arid areas in the west affected by global warming conditions, such as heat
trapping pollutants, have reduced snowpack with less snowfall, earlier snow
melt, and more winter rain events with reduced summer flows. The Colorado River
Basin has
warmed more than any other area in the country. The lower volume of water for
at least six states is now at half of what is was in the late 1970's.
See http://www.rockymountainclimate.org/for the full report.
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NAFTA Study
Promote Green Buildings for
Biggest, Easiest cuts in North American CO2 Emissions, says CEC Report
In March, in Vancouver, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC)
proclaimed that the promotion of green design, construction, renovation and
operations could cut North American greenhouse emissions more cheaply and
quickly than any other measure available. North America's buildings, they say, cause a release of more then
2,200 mega tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, about 35% of the continent's total.
They claim that a reduced CO2 emission of at least 1700 fewer megatons could be
reached by 2030, employing sustainable measures.
The report "Green Building in North
America: Opportunities and
Challenges", is the outcome of a two year study by this organization, a
committee established under NAFTA. Their efforts came from the urging of a body
of international advisors of architects, developers, real estate appraisers and
brokers, local and national governments representatives, and experts in the
energy and sustainability areas. Executive Director, Adrian Vazquez is quoted
as saying that using these tools and technology, "Green Building represents some of the ripest 'low-hanging fruit' for
achieving significant reductions in climate change emissions."
Report authors feel that
there are a number of disincentives to green building that must be overcome for
developers to incur the marginal cost of green building features that the owner
will then realize as an energy saving and therefore reduced energy cost in
time. There are recommendations for accelerating the market uptake of green
building and make it the standard practice for all new construction and
renovation in North America. Among these they call upon governments, industry and
nongovernmental leaders to:
- Create national, multi-stakeholder task forces
charged with achieving a vision for green building in North America;
- Support the creation of a North American set of
principles and planning tools for green building;
- Set clear targets to achieve the most rapid
possible adoption of green building in North America, including aggressive targets for carbon-neutral
or net zero-energy buildings.
The entire report can be
found on www.cec.org/greenbuilding
This
report is a project of the North American Agreement on Environmental
Cooperation (NAAEC)
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Time Magazine; April 28, 2008
Why Green is the New Red,
White and Blue
This is a great piece. It is full of statistics, and insights by Bryan
Walsh, the author. He describes the challenge that Global warming poses to this
country, where we stand in the international arena. There are terrific
resources for some very sensible strategies to address CO2 reductions.
He quotes Fred Krupp
president of the NRDC as saying" I'm not saying the challenge isn't almost
overwhelming, but this is America, and America has risen to these challenges before".
We produce 25% of all GHG!
Just a reiteration to see it in print.
He is very pro cap and trade.
He feels that putting a price on the ceiling of carbon output is as great way
to make some research money, investment money. If the Warner-Lieberman bill gets passed, it
would be a great beginning, however small, but something. The EPA said that the
loss of only 1% from 2020 to 2030from the GDP would occur if this bill gets
passed.
In April, the International Monetary Fund put out a study that claimed that smart
carbon-cutting policies could contain climate changer without seriously harming
the global economy.
See more at:
www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1730759_1731383,00.html
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The Clean Energy Scam
Again this article from Time
Magazine is another good overview.
It deals with the Biofuel
issue, and ethanol in particular. The piece talk about the "savannization"
possibilities of the Amazon due to severe deforestation.
See http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
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Phyllis Kaplan
CASA: A Center Advancing Sustainable Architecture |
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