We're gearing up over here for a major go-to-market initiative. Part of that effort has been researching the impact of the commericial sector when it comes to energy use. I came across a fantastic white paper put out by the Center for Sustainable Systems out of the University of Michigan. I love reports like this one, because they are easily accessible no matter what your level of knowledge about the built environment. I encourage you to download the paper, and give it a read. But in the mean time, here are some amazing stats for the report...

In 2005, the commercial sector consumed 18 quadrillion BTUs of primary energy – a 65% increase over 1980 levels.

Lighting and indoor climate control consumed 50% of commercial sector primary energy in 2006

In 1996, construction, renovation and demolition of non-residential buildings generated 77.4 million tons of waste.  This amounts to 1.6 lbs per capita per day – compared to 4.3 lbs per capita per day from municipal solid waste.

There's a ton more to find in the report. Go check it out.

Have a great weekend.

 

 

 

There are 4.9 million commercial buildings in the US.

In 2009, more than 275 projects achieved LEED-EBOM certification. Compare that with only 12 certified projects in 2004, 11 in 2005, 17 in 2006, and 27 in 2007. (Stats taken from the Center for Sustainable Systems) For me it's very hard to hold those numbers in my head at the same time. And while I know it's not really a fair comparison to pit the entire commercial building stock of the US against a program that's only 6 years old, I hope I'm trying to make is clear. Existing buildings are the key to sustainability, if we are to achieve it in this country.

But this is a challenge so large, how shall we meet it? With the literally billions of square feet that need to be retrofitted throughout the country how can we possibly come up with a strategy to handle it all. When it comes to scaling sustainability I believe there are two core principles that our industry must utilize in order to do our part to solve the national energy crisis.

Stress what matters to most clients...ROI

When discussing scaling green building, there is often a discussion around education. The argument goes if building/business owners simply understood sustainability more clearly they would of course embrace it en mass and we'd rapidly grow a market that achieves wide scale. Sadly, I believe in our day and age everything is politicized and "green" is seen as something only some folks will be interested in. The job of greening America's building stock is a big one, and we cannot afford to make green building something only folks in blue states are interested in. We simply cannot afford to align the green building as a movement, liberal (i.e. Al Gore), or otherwise. Doing so will marginalize 49% of Americans and immediately inhibits scale. The scalable market for sustainable measures isn't found in the passionate few who think about sustainability every day. It's found in the greater population of business and property owners who don't. If we want green to scale to those folks we have to make the simplest most compelling argument possible. ROI - simple return on investment. There is a very real link between sustainable retrofit/renovation and cost savings. Exploiting that link and making green building not simply something that is done for altruism and prestige, but in the pursuit of profit is the only way to grow the market.

I know this strategy is limiting. By focusing our efforts only on those measures that are most profitable we limit the scope of what a green retrofit can be. However, given the enormity of the task at hand...we must get to work now...

Profitability is also the "gateway drug" to larger sustainability efforts by property owners and managers. Once business and property owners begin to see the benefits of simple efforts toward greener operations, the doors will open to a wider world of possibilities. We didn't get to this lousy building stock overnight...we can't expect to correct it overnight.

The Perfect Cannot be the Enemy of the Good. (Or, Incremental Change is OK)

When it comes to the greening our existing building stock we have to recognize as an industry that every building won't be able to employ every measure of sustainability in our tool kit. That doesn't mean we do nothing. It means that we attack the problems we can with every client every, every time. Affordability, return on investment and durability of retrofits are key selling points. At this point the most compelling argument for this kind of retrofit is being made in lighting technology. Lighting currently consumes about 25% of energy in commercial buildings. But promising new LED sources/fixtures along with improved lighting controls are becoming proven technologies that can be widely deployed at relatively little cost. We can right now, reduce the impact of lighting in the commercial buildings of the United States by incredible sums. I recognize that simply retrofitting a lighting system doesn't turn a brown building green, but if it makes a dent, we should take a swing.

One last thought...incremental change to system as large as the US commericial building stock is probably preferable to wide scale change anyway. Imagine if you could have waved a wand in 2005 and put the best CFL replacement lamp in every single building in America. Later this year we'd be disposing of them in favor of even better LED alternatives.

It is a testament to the brightest thinkers of the green building community that they want to design and build structures with a minimum or a net positive effect on the planet. I applaud those efforts and want to see them continued. But unless as an industry we can go after the other 99% of buildings in the US, we will not have solved our energy problem, we will only have some examples of buildings and technologies that could.


If you’ve been following our blog for any amount of time, you know that we believe in sustainability. We even put it right in the company name to avoid confusion. While sustainability is at the core of everything we do, there are plenty of other reasons your company should undertake a renovation of it’s office space. I could write out a big long list with bullets, but let me sum up.

Your office sucks.

If you work for a company with leased office space, there is a very good chance your office genuinely, no two ways about it, unabashedly sucks. It’s probably beige, which isn’t even really a color, but a blah name for a blah non-color. It’s probably lit with ancient fluorescent technology in the most boring-directly-over-your-head-in-big-bright-squares kind of way. There are likely windows, and they’re likely far from your desk. You work on a boxy screen in a boxy cubicle in a boxy block of cubicles, on a boxy floor in a big box of a building. You get paid to think outside of one…but you’re in so many boxes everyday…it’s hard to know which one they mean. The air is stale, the carpet is old, it’s freezing in the summer from too much AC and stifling in the winter from too much heat. The conference rooms are just brighter versions of the box you work in all day. It makes you tired, makes you disinterested, makes you long to be outside. In short, your office, truly, and deeply sucks.

What if we could renovate that office? What if you could add some color and visual interest? What if we could re-light the space to add natural variations in color temperature and contrast? What if you ditched the boxes? What if your space was designed for the kind of work everyone does every day instead of the work the “average” office worker does everyday? What if you had access to privacy when you needed it and the ability to work somewhere comfortable when you wanted it? What if that new office also used less energy, made you more productive and actually improved your health?

There are dozens of reasons a renovation makes sense…reducing your company’s utility costs is just one of them.



We tweeted this the other day, but I thought it was worth more attention. Build2Sustain seeks to become a leader in sustainable retrofit and renovation for commercial spaces. This story is a prime example of what's possible with intelligent retrofit.

Caterpillar Headquarters in Peoria Ill. underwent a retrofit focused on efficiency. Here are some of the highlights:

-Caterpillar’s headquarters will save about $800,000 a year in energy costs.

-Tom Gerike, Engineering Project Team Leader, provided the following: Previously, the building’s annual energy usage of electricity and natural gas was 111,591 MMBTU. Now, it uses 60,622 MMBTU.

Some Key Retrofit Features:

From Gerike:

There was no night setback in place for HVAC equipment or for lights,” he said, adding that consistent setpoints were established at 70 degrees in the heating season and 76 degrees in the cooling season.

From The Environmental Leader Article:

For lighting automation, the new system has smart breaker panels controlled by a lighting schedule with pushbutton overrides for common areas. Also, motion sensors were installed into private offices and conference rooms.

As a result of these improvements the site earned LEED Gold Certification. What's missing from this story is project ROI and payback periods of the renovation. We're working to get that info and hopefully will have it for you soon. In the meantime, for more on the retrofit, read the entire story at Environmental Leader or see Caterpillar's Press Release for more.

In the latest two-step from NYC on the subject of green building, here's the latest bill to pass (as reported by LightNow)

Some highlights (again, thanks to LightNow for the run down):

Int. No. 973-A: Legislation that requires large commercial buildings (over 50,000 square feet) to upgrade their lighting and sub-meter tenant spaces over 10,000 square feet;

Int. No. 564-A: Legislation that creates a New York City Energy Code that existing buildings will have to meet whenever they make renovations (closing the loophole that allows buildings to perpetuate non-compliant systems if they perform renovations on less than half of a given building system);

Int. No. 476-A: Legislation that requires large buildings owners to make an annual benchmark analysis of energy consumption so that owners, tenants, and potential tenants can compare buildings’ energy consumption; and

Int. No. 967-A: Legislation that requires large private buildings to conduct energy audits once every decade and implement energy efficient maintenance practices. Also, all city-owned buildings over 10,000 sq ft will be required to conduct audits and complete energy retrofits that pay for themselves within 7-years.

I don't have a ton of time this morning for commentary, but look for more tonight. We specifically mentioned NYC legislation initiatives in our white paper. This update only strengthens the argument that businesses are soon going to face one of two options, meeting energy requirements on their own terms, or have their arms twisted. Build2Sustain advocates the former.

Look for more on the bill from our blog later this week.