Tag: Advocacy and policy

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With only a few short weeks before the New Year, the House and Senate completed a series of important legislative milestones including the bipartisan budget deal. With this budget deal in place, the House and Senate Appropriations Committee will begin to formally negotiate over the holiday recess by dividing up some $498.1 billion in domestic discretionary spending. They will have until January 15^th to negotiate a spending package to replace the expiring continuing resolution to fund the government for rest of the fiscal year.

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I’m inspired by the many people I meet who are committed to the idea that green building design, construction and operations will change the world. The market’s uptake alone is reason enough to be sure that we really are having an impact, with already nearly 60,000 LEED projects around the world.

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For green building policy geeks like us, King County, Washington, is as cool as it gets.  And, my dear geeky friends, they’re at it again.

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Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Energy announced three Better Buildings Accelerator programs. USGBC Senior Vice President of Global Policy and Law Roger Platt and I were in attendance at the White House events. Driving better building practice is central to USGBC’s work, so it’s no surprise that the program launch took time to highlight our community’s ongoing contributions to building energy benchmarking, accessing data and unlocking new markets for energy efficiency. 

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Globally, buildings account for 40% of energy use, 38% of greenhouse gas emissions, 12% of potable water and 20% of solid waste streams in developed countries. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified buildings as the greatest impact, least costly way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change. Beyond emissions reduction and environmental protection, green buildings have extensive co-benefits, including cost-savings, job creation, and improved human health and productivity.

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In Ohio, we’re proud to be number one in the nation for green schools, thanks to our state’s commitment to use the LEED green building rating system for new public facilities, including schools. LEED is the preeminent standard for buildings because it helps ensure they conserve energy, save taxpayer dollars and are healthier for occupants – especially for our school children. Why then, is the Ohio State Senate, specifically Sens.

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The list of benefits from Maryland’s building energy efficiency programs feels a little like a MasterCard commercial. These programs have led to an investment of nearly $200 million, attracted more than 42,000 participants (17 percent of accounts), saved nearly 800,000 megawatt hours and more than a billion dollars, created more than 2,100 jobs and avoided nearly 400,000 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Oh yeah, and what about the benefit to the state’s climate resilience? “Priceless.” I guess building efficiency in Maryland is a win-win-win-win-win-win-win.

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