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Are Green Building Codes The Only Answer?

mark handler

mark handler

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Are Green Building Codes The Only Answer?

February 15, 2011 by Shari Shapiro

There has been significant discussion over the past few months over the need for green building codes to achieve major green building goals. The International Green Construction Code Version 2.0 was published in November 2010, and CalGreen, California's mandatory green construction code went into effect in January 2011.

A developer friend asked me what I thought of CalGreen, and it got me to thinking:

Could you achieve the same environmental results by implementing regulations that did not require an overhaul of the building code?

Last week, San Francisco passed a regulation requiring owners of nonresidential buildings to

conduct Energy Efficiency Audits of their properties every five years, and file Annual Energy Benchmark Summaries for their buildings. The regulation is available here. San Francisco is following the lead of Washington DC and other municipalities mandating disclosure of energy performance.

Could mandatory energy, water use and indoor air quality disclosure, along with rigorous benchmarking be the foundation of an alternative green regulatory approach? An interesting thing that San Francisco did is not only to make the disclosures mandatory, but also to file them with the city, allowing public access to the records. Thus, they can be used by anyone looking to purchase or value the buildings. By mandating disclosure, it incentivizes building efficiency measures, and lets the market do most of the work to force the highest levels of efficiency.

The next piece would be to provide major incentives for infill development, brownfield redevelopment and trandevelopment around mass transit--and charge a premium for infrastructure improvements outside developed areas.

Another component would be to reduce parking requirements, and create parking maximums. The reduced parking capacity would reduce building costs, incentivize public transit usage and make properies built in strong transit hubs more attractive.

Finally, mandate recycling of construction and demolition waste. C & D waste is easy to track and waste management is already highly regulated.

These efforts address most of the green building focus areas--water, waste, energy, site, and indoor air quality. The question is whether this combination of market transparency, incentives and mandates would be as effective in reaching environmental goals as a drafting and implementing a new green building code.

http://www.greenbuildinglawblog.com/2011/02/articles/regulating-green/are-green-building-codes-the-only-answer/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GreenBuildingLawBlog+%28Green+Building+Law+Blog%29
 
The intent of building codes is life safety.

The intent of green codes is power, money, and control.

The Federal Government (and ICC) no longer care about the former, but are doing everything they can to acquire the latter.
 
Life safety is one of the purposes of the code

101.3 Intent. The purpose of this code is to establish the minimum requirements to safeguard the public health, safety and general welfare
 
Mark said:
establish the minimum requirements to safeguard the public health, safety and general welfare
Click to expand...
Minimum requirements to safeguard the general welfare as defined by whom? Green codes are making people sick in their homes to promote the political and religious agenda of a few, we must always heed President Eisenhower's words from his Farewell address in 1960:

President Eisenhower said:
....we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
Click to expand...
 
You forgot the rest

101.3 Intent.

The purpose of this code is to establish the minimum requirements to safeguard the public health, safety and general welfare through structural strength, means of egress facilities, stability, sanitation, adequate light and ventilation, energy conservation, and safety to life and property from fire and other hazards attributed to the built environment and to provide safety to fire fighters and emergency responders during emergency operations.

Not requireing energy audits. Except for air quality all anybody has to do is call the utilities to find out how much water, gas or electric a building has used over the years, Realtors here do it all the time so potential buyers can estimate their energy bills when considering a purchase. Now mandate an audit every 5 years so jow blow public can have access to it. I just don't see the point in that part of it.
 
log,

the definition of "intent" will be changed in the 2012 codes.

control the language, control the agenda.

orwell addressed this very issue in "1984".
 
One thing the green codes and rating systems are very good at is creating jobs for raters, auditers, evaluators, comissioning agents, verifiers, engineers etc.

It will also benefit the pulp and paper industry for all the reports required.

Building automation and control is also a big winner.
 
I was on an architect selection committee in a former town for a new assisted living community...all of them were touting their "green" experience and commitment....one out of twenty printed his presentation on both sides of the pages....there is only one "green" the rest are interested in...
 
And often the expense of that energy exceeds the value gained from recycling. But that's easy to ignore in these days of The Greenwashing of America. As long as you're thinking "green', you're saving the world...

Recycling itself can use three times more resources than does landfilling.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lilley/floy14.1.html
 
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Our planning manager was so pleased at one "green building complex" in his former jurisdiction. Replaced 80 older maufactured home with 70 some all new "green energy buildings at a cost of 50M. Told him to do the math and at 700K+ per unit (rent ranged from $750 to 1100 @ month) there was no way a return on investment made sense unless Uncle Sam was backing the damn thing. He shut up after that.
 
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