The Role of Buildings and Climate Change
Austin's Mayor Will Wynn presented his global warming slideshow to representatives of the building industry at the Frank Erwin Center, June 12.
The presentation was the highlight of the first annual gathering of the Green Building Exchange, a collective of local planning, design, and building-related professional organizations, including AIA, ASHRAE, BOMA, IFMA, and USGBC. According to Cameron LeBunsky, president of the Austin ASHRAE chapter, forming the collective grew out of "a sudden awakening to our diverse education needs when Austin's Climate Protection Plan (ACPP) was announced in February."
Upgrading the Building Code
The ACPP
includes ambitious energy efficiency goals for all new construction. Some of these goals will be met through changes to the energy code, which will impact all building professionals. Over the next seven years, Austin Energy Green Building will help the city develop the most energy efficiency building codes in the nation. By 2015, the new energy code will result in new homes that are 65% more efficient (or zero energy capable), while commercial buildings will be 75% more energy efficient than today's levels. A package of local amendments to the energy code designed to improve the energy efficiency of new homes by 11% was unanimously approved by the Zero Energy Capable Homes 2015 Task Force in April 2007 and is currently making it's way through other stakeholder groups to City Council. If approved, the amendments will reduce the typical home's carbon dioxide emissions by 1.57 tons annually.
In order to meet the requirements of the ACPP, building professionals from all areas will need to work together using an integrated approach that builds energy efficiency into the project from design through occupancy.
Why Are Buildings So Important?
Statistics presented during LeBunsky's introduction paint a startling picture of the built environment's impact on climate change. For example:
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Buildings represent 39% of US primary energy use and 70% of US electric consumption |
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Buildings are responsible for 38% of carbon dioxide emissions in the US, more than the transporation and industrial sectors combined |
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Buildings use 40% of all raw materials globally |
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Buildings create 136 million tons of construction debris per year in the US |
On Earth As It Is In Austin
Mayor Wynn was trained by Al Gore to present the slideshow made famous in the movie "An Inconvenient Truth," which has been credited with finally getting mainstream attention for the climate change issue. Wynn easily handles the science of global warming and brings the stunning visuals of it's impacts around the world home to Austin, explaining the local impacts of this global crises from increased disease vectors to food supply interruptions and increased storm intensity.
Wynn clearly believes that Austin is an indispensable city in the global warming effort and the Austin Climate Protection Plan looks to be the project that will define the remaining 18 months of Wynn's term.
Austin has some advantages in the fight to protect the climate, including the fact that we own our electric utility. Austin Energy is the tenth largest public power utility in the country.
Our "real world" fuel mix: 35% coal, 30% natural gas, 29% nuclear, and 6% renewables gives us a good starting place as a model for lowering our carbon footprint. While Austin easily has the fastest growing
big city-metro economy in the country, we are meeting our increased demand for power through conservation, efficiencies, and renewables.
Austin is also a major clean technology center, which, according to Wynn, will play a huge role in finding ways to reduce emissions from fossil fuel consumption.
Wynn himself is another feather in Austin's indispensable city cap, as he is the Chairman of the Energy Committee for the US Conference of Mayors.
Most important, says Wynn, is that "Our citizens, human and corporate, "get it" and
will accept the challange, recognize the opportunity, and the moral obligation to do what's right.
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Comments about the mayor's presentation were overwhelmingly positive. David Webber of Webber+Studio Architects, said "Hearing the mayor's presentation on global warming has inspired me to treat the issue of climate change with much greater urgency than previously. If we can show leadership for a national and even global audience, then perhaps we can have an influence that will make a difference. Mayor Wynn has certainly been leading that charge and I give him credit for doing it."
Get STARTed
For follow-up discussions and more events related to green building and climate change, visit the START (Sustainable Technology Applications Resource Team) web site. START is an all-volunteer research and development committee within the USGBC Central Texas Balcones Chapter, comprised of industry experts and partners that are passionate about knowledge transfer and its ability to transform.
The web site currently hosts a green building-related forum and the group is planning a series of quarterly events to discuss technical issues in green building systems.
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