Welcome to Green Lede, a CoStar feature column by sustainability reporter Andrew Burr examining green building and its impact on commercial real estate, politics and the environment.
Sept. 9, 2009
8 Things You Need to Know About LEED Credentialing Changes
With major changes occurring to LEED credentialing -- including the popular LEED Accredited Professional (AP) designation -- CoStar News combed through pages of rule changes, tuned in to instructional webcasts, and spoke with Peter Templeton, president of the
Green Building Certification Institute, the organization that oversees credentialing, to compile the eight things every LEED AP and future LEED-credentialed professional needs to know.
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Sept. 4, 2009
Paterson Signs Amended Green Construction Bill for State Facilities
New York Governor David Paterson has signed an amended version of the green building construction bill that state lawmakers originally passed last year.
The State Green Building Construction Act, which goes into effect in mid-2010, requires that state-owned buildings be developed or renovated in accordance with sustainability principles.
Under the amended bill, authority to develop those guidelines is transferring from the Department of Environmental Conservation to the Office of General Services, which already oversees energy efficiency and voluntary LEED certification initiatives for the state’s facilities.
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Sept. 2, 2009
Are 'Walkable' Properties More Valuable?
How easily can you walk from your workplace to the gym, grocery store or favorite restaurant? The answer to that question helps determine what property professionals call a building’s ‘walkability’ -- a measure that many tenants say figures prominently in leasing decisions.
But less clear is the effect of walkability on property value and ROI, the subject of a new study by Dr. Gary Pivo, professor of planning and natural resources and senior fellow at the University of Arizona, and Dr. Jeffrey Fisher, professor of real estate and director of the Benecki Center for Real Estate Studies at Indiana University.
Dr. Pivo and Dr. Fisher pulled real estate data going back a decade from the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF) and obtained walkability ratings for nearly 11,000 buildings using Walk Score, an online program that assigns points based on a building’s proximity to amenities.
They isolated the walkability variable of each building and examined how it impacted property value and investment returns. Their results confirmed some early assumptions, but also revealed a few surprises.
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August 26, 2009
Developing a Yardstick for Measuring Energy
With an eye on lower operating expenses, tenants and real estate investors are beginning to question the energy use of buildings. But that has led a group of building energy experts to ask another question: What exactly does ‘energy use’ mean?
The innocuous term can actually be quite tricky because no standard protocol exists for reporting building energy information, experts say, leaving the door open for inconsistent measurements and erratic reporting.
“Energy use can mean a million different things,” said Anthony Buonicore, Chairman and CEO of Buonicore Partners LLC, a Connecticut-based real estate energy and sustainability consulting firm, and chair of a new ASTM International task force that is developing an energy due diligence standard for buildings.
“We think it’s appropriate that when a property is being leased or acquired, there’s a standard procedure for getting the energy data, a standard way of normalizing it and a standard way of presenting it.”
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August 21, 2009
Putting Energy Efficiency Benefits in Perspective
The numbers behind a spate of new energy efficiency studies are mind-boggling: $520 billion invested in efficiency over the next decade would save $1.2 trillion in U.S. energy costs,
McKinsey & Co. reported, while retrofitting 50 million U.S. buildings would create 625,000 jobs and shave up to $1,200 per year off the utility bills of American families, according to John Podesta’s
Center for American Progress and the
Energy Future Coalition.
Another study by the
American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found that the House version of the climate bill could save $2.1 billion in national energy costs by relying more on efficiency measures, offsetting higher energy rates from carbon pricing.
But what exactly do those numbers mean? And if the economics are so compelling, why hasn’t the market already embraced energy efficiency?
Political leaders sought to answer those questions last week at the
2009 National Clean Energy Summit, an environmental conference in Las Vegas hosted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, the Center for American Progress (CAP) Action Fund and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
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August 19, 2009
And the Greenbuild Keynote is …. Al Gore
Former Vice President Al Gore will keynote the 2009 Greenbuild green building conference, the event’s organizer, the U.S. Green Building Council, said Wednesday.
Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his activism in raising awareness of global warming, will speak at Chase Field in Phoenix on Nov. 11, the opening night of the conference. Nearly 30,000 people attended Greenbuild last year.
In a statement, Rick Fedrizzi, president and CEO of USGBC, said Gore has “helped elevate global climate change to the main street public consciousness.”
“Vice President Gore’s keynote address will be an inspiration to the Greenbuild community to make 2010 yet another banner year for green building innovation and growth.”
Gore has been one of the world’s most vocal environmental crusaders since narrowly losing the 2000 presidential election. His book on climate change, “An Inconvenient Truth”, and his documentary film of the same name were released in 2006, earning a Quill Book Award and two Oscars, respectively.
His third book, a global warming solutions text titled “Our Choice”, will be published in November.
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August 17, 2009
GBI Offers Green Globes Training, Accreditation
The
Green Building Initiative has launched two accreditation programs to support its Green Globes environmental building assessment tool, the Portland, OR-based nonprofit group said earlier this month.
The Green Globes Professional (GGP) designation will recognize proficiency in the Green Globes program and related green building activities, such as energy modeling, life cycle assessment and the government’s Energy Star benchmarking tool. The higher-tiered Green Globes Assessor (GGA) designation will denote professionals who are qualified to evaluate buildings for Green Globes certification compliance.
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August 17, 2009
Guaranteeing LEED Certification?
Earning LEED certification can be a fickle process, subject to complex credit interpretations and appeals, heavy documentation, budgetary considerations and ultimately, a ruling from the U.S. Green Building Council’s sister organization, the Green Building Certification Institute. For those reasons, LEED consultants -- even ones that have worked on hundreds of projects -- have made a point not to promise certification to their clients.
That is, until now.
Energy Ace Inc., an Atlanta-based energy services and LEED consulting firm headed by Wayne Robertson, is offering what it calls the industry’s first LEED certification guarantee.
At a time when many cities and states have begun mandating LEED-certified buildings, “We can offer clients a certainty that their project is going to be certified and remove that anxiety,” Robertson said.
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August 12, 2009
Roger Platt Leaving Roundtable for U.S. Green Building Council
Roger Platt, the long-serving senior vice president and counsel of the Real Estate Roundtable, is joining the U.S. Green Building Council, the nonprofit group that created the LEED sustainability rating for buildings.
Platt, a USGBC board member, was named senior vice president of global policy and law, a new position that begins next month.
At Real Estate Roundtable, a lobbying group representing members with more than $1 trillion of commercial real estate holdings, Platt handles outreach to Congress, the Obama administration and federal agencies. He has a long record of advancing energy, sustainability and climate change policy issues, pioneering Roundtable collaborations with the Clinton Climate Initiative, National Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
His role at USGBC will include global outreach and policy and legal work, areas that are evolving rapidly as green building becomes more mainstream.
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August 12, 2009
VIEWPOINT: Climate Bill a Defining Moment for Building Sector
Edward Mazria has been grilled by U.S. Senators, shared a stage with former White House chief of staff John Podesta and appeared on the critically acclaimed PBS series “e2” -- all in the name of boosting energy efficiency in U.S. homes and commercial buildings.
Seven years ago, Mazria suspended his architecture practice and founded
Architecture 2030, the nonprofit that created the 2030 Challenge, a roadmap to help the building sector reach net-zero carbon emissions by the year 2030.
Now, Congress is considering landmark climate legislation that includes building efficiency provisions based on his recommendations. With the president pushing for a final vote before December, when world leaders meet in Copenhagen to discuss a new global environmental accord, Mazria shared his thoughts with CoStar on the climate bill and his plans to transform energy consumption in the built environment.
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August 11, 2009
From Shell to LEED Platinum in 15 Days
Leggat McCall Properties earned LEED Platinum honors for its headquarters office in Boston, the project management and development firm said last week, the fruit of a remarkable effort last year that challenged conventional thinking on construction and sustainable development practices.
The firm wanted to know how quickly and cheaply it could fit-out its space at the historic 10 Post Office Square building while pursuing LEED Gold certification for sustainability. It hired
Audrey O’Hagan Architects and
Commodore Builders, both of Massachusetts, and spent five months planning the project, which was to complete in just 15 business days.
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August 10, 2009
Existing Bldgs. Must be Part of Climate Bill's Energy Label, Efficiency Leaders Say
Over the objections of energy efficiency and environmental groups, billions of square feet of existing homes and commercial buildings have been written out of a
building energy labeling provision in the pending climate bill.
House lawmakers narrowed the provision, which originally called on federal agencies to develop labels for both new and existing properties, to apply only to new construction after hearing complaints from the National Association of Realtors, a real estate trade group. The House passed the bill by a slim margin on June 26.
The Senate will begin crafting its version of the bill when it returns next month from its August recess.
“We’re very disappointed,” said Jennifer Amann, director of the Buildings Program at the
American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, an advocacy group in Washington, DC. “As with any other product that we label, whether it’s an automobile or an appliance, part of what you get when you purchase a home or a commercial building is energy performance. We really see it as consumer information.”
Labeling existing buildings is critical, Amann said, because they comprise the “vast majority of the building stock and will for years to come.”
Homes and commercial buildings in the United States account for about 300 billion square feet. In comparison, just a tiny fraction of that number -- about 5 billion square feet, or less than 2 percent of the overall stock -- is constructed each year.
A
recent study on U.S. energy efficiency by
McKinsey & Co. found that existing, privately owned commercial buildings offer three times more efficiency potential than private new construction over the next decade. And existing homes -- which number close to 130 million -- offer a whopping six times more efficiency potential than new homes, the study said.
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August 7, 2009
CRE Clients Eyeing Sustainability Even in Downturn, Property Execs Say
Sustainability is becoming more important to commercial property professionals and their clients even as the global downturn has intensified, according to a survey released Wednesday by the
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
The Global Property Sustainability Survey polled commercial real estate decision makers from around the world during the second quarter. Ninety percent of respondents said that sustainability is as important to their clients as it was at the same time last year, with 40 percent of that group responding that the issue has grown in importance.
See the study.
“Sustainability clearly remains a major issue for most organizations according to this survey despite the depth of the downturn,” Simon Rubinsohn, RICS chief economist, said in a statement.
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August 3, 2009
Efficiency Can Offset U.S. Energy Demands of Next Decade, McKinsey Study Finds
Investing $125 billion in efficiency measures over the next decade would reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. commercial sector to pre-2008 levels, according to a new report by the consulting group
McKinsey & Co.
The commercial sector consumed 6.7 quadrillion BTUs of end-use energy in 2008, mostly from operating an enormous stock of buildings and their systems and equipment. That figure, more than twice the amount of annual energy consumed by the entire country of Egypt, is projected to grow to more than 8 quadrillion BTUs (quads) in 2020.
But annual efficiency investments of about $13 billion above current investment levels would reduce the sector’s energy usage to below 5.8 quads in 2020, a savings of nearly 30 percent over projections, the report found. That would also save $290 billion in energy costs and reduce GHG emissions by 360 million tons.
See the study.
“We are the Saudi Arabia of energy efficiency. There is more potential on this nation than anywhere else in the world,” Ken Ostrowski, a senior partner of McKinsey, said at a press conference announcing the results of the study on Wednesday. “The scale is vast, if we can put together the means to pursue it.”
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July 30, 2009
Sheryl Crow to Perform at Greenbuild
Need another reason to attend the Greenbuild Conference this year? Rocker Sheryl Crow will perform on the event's opening night at Chase Field in Phoenix, the U.S. Green Building Council officially announced Thursday.
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July 28, 2009
Mazria: Building Codes at Heart of Climate Bill
Cap and trade is the flash point for U.S. climate legislation, but no provision in the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 would do more to reduce energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions than improving building energy codes, according to Ed Mazria, executive director of
Architecture 2030, a nonprofit that focuses on global warming solutions within the built sector.
Simple code improvements -- the antithesis of the complex cap and trade proposal for pricing carbon -- are given 28 pages in Section 201 of the climate bill, which runs more than 1,400 pages. It is this scanty section, Mazria said, that does the heavy lifting on climate protection and makes the bill “worth passing.”
“No matter what else is compromised or changed in the climate bill working its way through the Senate, Section 201 must not be changed or weakened,” Mazria said in a statement last week. “All other energy and emissions reduction approaches pale in comparison to what Section 201 will accomplish.”
See Architecture 2030’s fact sheet on the climate bill.
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July 23, 2009
Governors Endorse AIA's Carbon-Neutral Buildings Goal
The National Association of Governors this week pledged its support for carbon-neutral buildings by 2030.
The ambitious goal, which applies to new and renovated buildings, is being advocated by the American Institute of Architects and was previously endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Association of Counties.
“The nation’s governors are committed to maximizing energy conservation and improved energy efficiency,” Washington Governor Chris Gregoire said in a statement. “We can reduce the environmental consequences of greenhouse gas emissions, reduce the operating costs of business and industries nationwide and create thousands of green-collar jobs to compete in a clean-energy economy.”
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July 23, 2009
Quantifying the Benefits of Green Buildings
On a national level, tenants are springing for sustainable and energy-efficient buildings, according to recent studies that have revealed higher-than-normal occupancy levels and rental rates at those properties. But on an individual property level, how exactly are those claims playing out?
The answer: pretty well, according to a new study sponsored by the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, Cushman & Wakefield and the Vancouver Valuation Accord.
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July 20, 2009
Home Sweet (Platinum) Home for USGBC
The U.S. Green Building Council said Monday it has earned LEED Platinum certification, the program’s highest sustainability rating, for its new headquarters in downtown Washington, DC.
USGBC occupies 75,000 square feet on the fifth and sixth floors of 2101 L St. NW, a 10-story office in the Foggy Bottom area owned by Vornado, a New York-based REIT. It took occupancy in March, just three years after signing a
25,000-square-foot lease on Massachusetts Avenue that it quickly outgrew.
Led by Rick Fedrizzi, the organization created LEED in 2000 and has watched the popularity of the green building rating tool skyrocket over the past few years. More than 35,000 real estate projects have achieved or are seeking LEED certification, comprising more than 5 billion square feet in 91 countries, according to USGBC. There is no major competitor to LEED in the United States.
Still, LEED-certified space accounts for just a tiny fraction of the enormous commercial real estate sector -- and most people have never been inside a LEED building. With that in mind, USGBC is running frequent tours of its Platinum-rated office, which was designed to reduce energy and water usage by at least 40 percent over conventional space and is loaded with features geared toward the general public.
Stepping off the elevator, visitors enter a lobby paneled with polished, 500-year-old gumwood salvaged from the bottom of the Tennessee River. A flat-panel television screen in the reception area displays the performance of the space (such as energy usage), and educational hallway corridors contain flashcards of every material used to construct the facility and quotes from environmental leaders like Rachel Carson that were selected by employees.
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July 14, 2009
At Kennedy Associates, Early Commitment to Green Building Paying Off
Many commercial property firms are adjusting to a market that favors sustainable, energy-efficient buildings. But Kennedy Associates Real Estate Counsel LP isn’t changing a thing.
The Seattle-based institutional investment advisor was one of the first big real estate investment fiduciaries to see the benefits of greener buildings. Now it is far ahead of the curve, earning the government’s Energy Star label for 56 office and industrial buildings and achieving LEED certification or pre-certification for almost $1 billion worth of assets (with another $550 million of LEED assets in development.) It is a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment and more than half of its real estate professionals are LEED-Accredited.
Last year, it reduced the energy consumption of its portfolio by nearly 5 percent.
Yet, despite those achievements and an impressive array of holdings -- it manages $8.6 billion in real estate assets for retirement systems, university endowments and its largest client, the open-end comingled core fund The Multi-Employer Property Trust (MEPT) -- Kennedy has kept a distinctly low profile. So who exactly is Kennedy Associates Real Estate Counsel?
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July 14, 2009
Grammy Meets LEED in Santa Monica
The annual Grammy awards show aside, it has been an unusually busy awards season for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Just months after its new Santa Monica, CA, headquarters earned LEED Gold certification for the core and shell, the Academy has earned a second such honor, achieving LEED Gold for its fit-out of the building’s interior space.
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July 8, 2009
Portland Office Tower Earns Top Rating From Green Globes
Melvin Mark Cos. earned a 4 Globes sustainability rating for its 15-story Columbia Square office tower in Portland, OR, the highest rating under the Green Building Initiative’s Green Globes environmental assessment tool.
Jim Mark, CEO of Melvin Mark, a Portland-based developer and property services firm, was presented with a plaque last week in a ceremony attended by U.S. Representatives Greg Walden and Earl Blumenauer, both of Oregon.
“The greening of our building stock is one of the biggest challenges we face in our efforts to curb global climate change, but it is also an area where we can make a significant impact,” Rep. Blumenauer said.
Columbia Square, which was developed in the early 1980s by Melvin Mark and has never left the company’s ownership, is the first existing property in the country to earn the 4 Globes rating and the first in Oregon to achieve any rating under Green Globes. In a statement last Thursday, Ward Hubbell, president of the Green Building Initiative, called the 313,000-square-foot building “an example of where we need to head as a building community.”
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June 30, 2009
USGBC to Monitor Performance of LEED Buildings
Exactly how energy-efficient are the nation’s most sustainable buildings? That question has puzzled experts for years because of insufficient data, but the U.S. Green Building Council will soon have an answer.
Landlords seeking the coveted LEED badge must now agree to submit the energy and water consumption of their buildings to USGBC as a precondition for certification, a major change from previous requirements. The provision is part of a suite of changes to the LEED rating system that became mandatory for newly registered projects on June 27.
Projects can comply either by reporting performance data annually or allowing USGBC to access the information directly from utilities, or by earning certification under the LEED platform for existing buildings and re-certifying every two years. Performance data would not be disclosed publicly.
USGBC will examine the data to determine which LEED credits are most effective at optimizing building performance, helping inform future revisions to the 10-year-old rating system.
“Building performance will guide LEED’s evolution,” Brendan Owens, vice president of LEED technical development, said in a statement. “This data will show us what strategies work -- and which don’t.”
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June 28, 2009
Sears Tower to Undergo Historic Green Retrofit
Nearly 40 years after its construction, Chicago’s Sears Tower -- the world’s third tallest building -- is embarking on what could be its greatest adventure: a $350 million,
top-to-bottom environmental retrofit that would add wind turbines, solar panels and roof gardens to its iconic profile and trim its electricity use to a fraction of current consumption.
The project was announced Wednesday by
American Landmark Properties, the property group that owns the 110-story building in partnership with New York-based investors Joseph Chetrit and Joseph Moinian. It is the second headline-grabbing retrofit of a major U.S. tower this year, following an
energy efficiency upgrade at the Empire State Building announced in April.
John M. Huston, who co-heads American Landmark Properties with Yisroel Gluck, said the retrofit would help maintain the building’s competitive edge long into the future, although the decision was also personal.
“We baby boomers have done a lot of things to the planet that are not very admirable. We need to correct some of those things,” he said. “When I leave this building, I want it to be in better shape than when I arrived five years ago.”
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June 26, 2009
Empire State Building Owner: Energy Efficiency is 'Good Business'
Energy efficiency will save you money. Plain and simple, period.
That was the message of Anthony Malkin, president of Wein & Malkin, the firm that owns the Empire State Building, last week at the annual
Energy Efficiency Forum in Washington, DC.
“I’m not here to talk about climate change. I’m not here to talk about carbon,” Malkin said. “What we’re talking about today is dollars and cents. What we’re talking about here is good business.”
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June 26, 2009
JLL Joins Climate Protection Lobbying Group
Jones Lang LaSalle said on Wednesday it is joining a new climate-protection interest group created by Ceres, the Boston-based environmental coalition.
Launched earlier this year, the Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP) project will lobby lawmakers to address the environmental impacts of U.S. business activities through new policies. Founding members include Levi Strauss & Co., Nike, Starbucks, Sun Microsystems and Timberland. Jones Lang LaSalle, which is a member of Ceres, is the first commercial real estate firm to join the project.
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--Reporting by Andrew Deichler
June 25, 2009
First Look at the ASHRAE Building Energy Label
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) this week unveiled a flurry of new details about its building energy labeling program, including a prototype label design.
A select group of building stakeholders will begin testing the program, called
Building Energy Quotient (BEQ), this fall ahead of a public release expected sometime next year, ASHRAE said on Monday during its annual conference. (
See the building energy label.) The organization said it could not yet release the names of the pilot participants.
ASHRAE, the mechanical engineering association with 55,000 members, began developing the program last year. It would require property owners to document the energy characteristics of their buildings and package that data into a label, energy certificate and technical documents.
The energy label is the program’s most visible component, although until recently, what exactly it would look like was not known.
But as many expected, the prototype borrows heavily from the U.K.’s Display Energy Certificate, an energy label that is required for some buildings in England and Wales. Unveiled Saturday by Harrison, it grades energy efficiency on a color-coded letter scale from “A+” to “F”, with the highest grade reserved for net-zero energy buildings.
The energy use of a typical U.S. commercial building compared to others of the same property type would score in the “C” to “D” range, according to ASHRAE documents. Buildings that have earned the government’s Energy Star label, which signifies the top quartile of energy-efficient buildings, would earn at least a “B”. Complying with California’s Title 24 energy requirements would net at least an “A-”.
The two main components of the label are an asset rating, which is based on energy models and represents the building’s designed efficiency, and an operational rating based on actual performance. The ratings would ideally appear on the label side-by-side, although the operational rating requires 12 months of utility bills, which would disqualify newer buildings.
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June 19, 2009
At Historic Argonaut Building, a Sustainable Future
If change is the enemy of historical properties, then you might say sustainability makes strange bedfellows.
A spectacular renovation at the Argonaut Building, the former Manhattan headquarters of General Motors and Hearst Corp., is turning the century-old landmark at Broadway and West 57th St. into a model for green buildings, new and old.
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June 18, 2009
Expert Panel Discusses Green Building at CoStar Roundtable
If the energy consumption of commercial buildings was likened to the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks, it would look something like this: one quarter of Americans currently work in buildings that are the equivalent of a Toyota Prius or other type of fuel-efficient hybrid while the remaining three-quarters work in buildings comparable to gas-guzzling Hummers, Winnebagos and Mack tractor trailers.
But while it's fairly obvious which vehicles are more efficient and environmentally friendly, it's very difficult to tell from observation which buildings are designed and are being operated in the most environmentally efficient and responsible way.
That is one of the challenges currently facing tenants and landlords who favor green workplaces and stores, according to a CoStar Group-sponsored roundtable discussion on green buildings that convened Wednesday.
Hosted by CoStar Group President and CEO Andrew C. Florance, the panel included Marc Heisterkamp, director of commercial real estate at the U.S. Green Building Council; Laurie McMahon, managing director and principal of Washington-based Cassidy & Pinkard Colliers; Thomas Olson, a consulting attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund's National Climate Campaign; and Steve Teitelbaum, principal of the law firm Jones Day.
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June 15, 2009
Discovery Channel Host, National Geographic Explorer Among Speakers at 2009 Greenbuild Convention
The U.S. Green Building Council has announced the program and a partial list of speakers for its 2009
Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, the annual green building convention being held this year in Phoenix.
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June 15, 2009
Energy Efficiency Leaders Convene in Washington for Annual Forum
Hundreds of public and private sector leaders are gathering today in Washington, DC, for the start of the
2009 Energy Efficiency Forum, an annual meeting highlighting actions and policies that promote energy efficiency.
Hosted by the United States Energy Association and Johnson Controls, the event begins unofficially on Monday evening at the Newseum with a ceremony honoring 22 individuals for their lifetime contributions to energy efficiency. The “Hall of Fame” inductees include Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy; James Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy; Seattle Mayor Greg Nichols; Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell; and Christine Whitman, the former governor of New Jersey and EPA administrator under President George W. Bush.
The Forum opens Tuesday morning at the National Press Club. It will include roundtable discussions on the nation’s energy future and the creation of a smart grid, and speeches from Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert; Dan Reicher, the director of Google.org’s energy initiatives; Alaska Senator Lisa Mirkowski; and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who will deliver the keynote address.
Also speaking at the event is Anthony E. Malkin, president of the group that owns the Empire State Building, which is undergoing a
massive energy efficiency retrofit that will reduce its energy use by almost 40 percent.
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June 9, 2009
'Visionaries in Sustainability' Honored by National Building Museum
Four giants in the green building movement were recognized Thursday night in Washington, DC, with the
National Building Museum’s annual Honor Award, its most prestigious prize.
The recipients were S. Richard Fedrizzi, founding chairman, president and CEO of the
U.S. Green Building Council;
Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago; the environmental justice activist
Majora Carter; and Louis Chênevert, president and CEO of
United Technologies Corp.
(
See the National Building Museum’s video tribute to the award recipients.)
Sustainability is “passing its stress test with flying colors,” Fedrizzi said in his prepared remarks at the event, even in the face of what he called “this outrageous financial mess.”
“Each of these honorees has inspired an unprecedented level of change for the better across cultures, geographies and institutions. Collectively, and joined with all those who are part of our green revolution, we are changing the world,” he said.
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June 8, 2009
Energy, Sustainability Figure Prominently in New BOMA Awards Program
The Building Owners and Managers Association International is shining a light on the critical but often unheralded world of building operations and management.
The industry trade group last week launched the
BOMA 360 Performance Program, a set of guidelines for operations and management best practices that would recognize top-achieving office buildings with a plaque and other rewards.
The program will “add value to commercial buildings at a crucial time” when building owners are scrambling to differentiate their assets in a weak market, Richard Purtell, BOMA International chair and chief elected officer, said in a statement.
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June 2, 2009
Houston Pools $10M for Energy Efficiency Retrofits in City Buildings
The city of Houston is investing nearly $10 million to improve the energy efficiency of a handful of city buildings, the start of a significant retrofitting effort that could broaden to include hundreds of municipal facilities.
The initial phase includes seven properties that comprise 1.2 million square feet. Energy usage at each of those buildings could be reduced by up to 30 percent, according to TAC by Schneider Electric, the energy services company that is handling the energy audits and retrofits. The cost of upgrades will be funded through utility cost savings.
The city has identified a total of 271 buildings with 11 million square feet as candidates for future work.
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May 29, 2009
Partnering on Energy Efficiency
For commercial real estate owners, the world of energy efficiency can be a labyrinth of regulatory requirements, rebates and incentives, and complex financial calculations and energy analyses. And that’s before a project gets off the ground.
Enter
Partner Energy, a Los Angeles-based energy services firm that is helping shepherd commercial building owners through the energy efficiency process and maximize their energy-saving investments.
The firm was jointly established a little more than a month ago by Partner Engineering and Science Inc., a national environmental services and building technologies firm, and Tony Liou, a mechanical engineer who cut his teeth at Siemens and Pacific West Energy Solutions, an energy services company.
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May 27, 2009
Cities With 'Below Zero' Emissions?
His foundation is bolstering the efforts of cities around the world to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, but former President Bill Clinton’s newest climate project is seeking a bigger prize: cities with no greenhouse gas emissions at all.
Unveiled last week at the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group summit in Seoul, South Korea, the
Climate Positive Development Program will help real estate developers and local governments craft 16 of the most sustainable urban communities found anywhere on earth.
“As the Earth’s population increases and our cities grow, we need to ensure we have the models in place to sustain our way of life in an increasingly urbanized world,” President Clinton said in a statement announcing the program. He said it would set a “new global standard for developments that will minimize environmental impacts and benefit economies” as new buildings are constructed and older ones are updated.
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May 18, 2009
In Sign of the Times, Owners Court Clean Tech Tenants
Much of the budding clean technology market relies on commercial buildings to deploy its technologies, but in a twist, some property owners and developers are creating a new real estate market that relies on clean technology.
Around the country, empty land parcels and outdated industrial parks are being primed as clean tech space -- vast parks that would cater to renewable power companies, clean technology startups and the makers of energy efficiency products.
Master plans for clean tech parks are popping up in cities such as Austin, Los Angeles, Mesa, AZ, and Annapolis, MD, while a handful of developments in New York and California already exist.
Though niche real estate markets are nothing new -- biotechnology space has emerged lately as a real estate force -- the clean tech sector was viewed until recently as too small and unbalanced to support dedicated real estate space.
One of the first parks to offer such space, the Saratoga Technology + Energy Park in Malta, NY, was met with skepticism when it debuted in 2001, said Mitchell Khosrova, a program manager for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), which owns and operates the park.
The market for clean energy and environmental technology tenants was far too small to make the project successful, real estate groups told NYSERDA. Those groups also balked at a mandate that the park’s buildings be LEED certified.
“We talked with some big commercial real estate people to build our first building and this is what we heard,” Khosrova said. “We hit those snags.”
But that is changing. As the clean energy industry has surged -- the sector has grown at more than 30 percent annually for the past decade, according to the research firm Clean Edge -- clean tech space is becoming more common. Statistics are difficult to come by, but at least three new parks comprising more than a thousand acres were announced in the past 60 days.
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More Headlines
- New York City’s Green Building Plan Unveiled
The owners of tens of thousands of New York City’s largest buildings would be required to conduct energy audits and make energy efficiency retrofits under a sweeping package of green building laws announced last week by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
- Building Energy Label Proposed in Climate Change Bill
Democratic lawmakers have proposed creating a national building label that would measure and disclose the energy performance of U.S. commercial property and homes.
- At Empire State Building, Green Future Merging with Past
One of the most enduring symbols of the 20th century, the Empire State Building, is being revamped for the energy-conscious 21st century.
- In the Marketplace, Greenwashing Hits LEED
With increasing frequency, buildings that are registered for the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification are being promoted using exaggerated, misleading or false claims, real estate lawyers and consultants say. Additional coverage from the New York Times
- CoStar Study Finds Energy Star, LEED Bldgs. Outperform Peers
A new study by CoStar Group has found that sustainable "green" buildings outperform their non-green peer assets in key areas such as occupancy, sale price and rental rates, sometimes by wide margins.