But, my daughter and her mum live in an area of Greater Vancouver where car ownership seems to be assumed, and where public transit is not a first choice for most people living in the area in some cases because it is too far away.  When I go to see them, I am all too aware of a sort of culture clash between my neighborhood and theirs. Public transit is available in some areas, but entirely absent in others.  Bus frequency is lower, and less comprehensive relative to the spread of residential areas.  Direct connections between points A and B are rare. In some regions,  taking the bus requires a lengthy walk beside busy, noisy, and (frankly) smelly roadways.  This being the case, my mind often drifts to the idea of how values take shape in the way that neighborhoods are planned and how we choose to live in our neighborhoods.  What remains is the product of those values.

Perhaps this is a reflection of economic realities too.  My neighborhood has a lot of renters and lower income families.   Car ownership is perhaps not as much of a given, especially when accessible public transit will help close the transportation gap.  But, I think values are what’s really being reflected.   I think that when certain things are important to us, we invest in them even if they aren’t objectively essential.   This is not meant to a judgmental statement applied to current residents in any given area on the issue of car ownership or any other issue.  But, I think it does show that we are the inheritors of certain cultural values that have shaped our expectations for the areas in which we live and the lifestyles that come out of that.

Some of the trends in green building for the upcoming decade are not only about retrofitting individual buildings to increase the ‘green factor’, or about the development of new individual buildings for the same.  The idea of  entirely green neighborhoods or Eco-towns are also being put forward as an upcoming trend.  A big part of this type of planning involves a concurrent development of more extensive and affordable public transit systems, as well as commercial and community spaces that are accessible by foot and by bike.  But, to me, the question of the culture clash remains.

What if there was extensive public transit provided to every corner of an urban area, including in suburbs?  What if schools, stores, libraries, restaurants, performing arts venues, were all within walking distance of all residential blocks?  Would this mean that more families in these areas would think twice about car ownership, or use their current cars less than they do?  I’m not so sure.   A lot of these issues are pretty deep-seated on a cultural level, as well as on an economic one.  And thinking about this leads me back to the underlying point that I’ve noticed since I started writing this blog; that green building, and greener living requires a values shift of some measure, which in turn requires action to reflect those values.

When it comes to how builders, homeowners, city planners, and other influencers who have a say in how neighborhoods should be organized or re-fitted in this next decade, I think a meeting of the minds, and a meeting of the values are definitely the first item on the agenda.  And further, how politicians and industry leaders approach fossil fuel dependence, and how that in turn impacts the average consumer will also have a powerful effect on how our neighborhoods, and by extension our cultural expectations will change in the coming decade too.  Examining and solidifying values are always the first step in any transformative process.

And it’s transformation that is required as we step further into our century.

For more information and resources about green neighborhoods, check out Green Communities Online.

Cheers!

Rob.

The movement toward globalizing green building practices seems to be moving closer and closer into the public eye with the first annual World Green Building Day.  The day  is observed as a series of events around  the world for the promotion of green building practices, involving various green building councils in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, Asia, and Western Europe.

Earth image courtesy of Aussiegall. Click image to view Flickr stream.

A major thrust of these events is about education of the public on sustainability issues.  Some of the events associated with World Green Building Day are:

• educational tours of certified buildings (Austria)
• training courses for building professionals and volunteers (Taiwan)
• formal conference hosted at  British House of Commons ( UK)
• green building on agenda at Congressional Advocacy Day (US)
• promotion of the founding of new national Green Building Councils in countries that don’t have chapters

And to give you some perspective, here’s a quote from the World Green Building Day MarketWire Press release that outlines why an international alliance to address sustainability is needed:

The building sector is responsible for more than one third of total energy use and, in most countries, is the largest greenhouse gas emissions source,” said Tony Arnel, Chair, World Green Building Council. “This makes buildings the greatest and most cost-effective opportunity for tackling climate change, especially when technologies exist that can reduce a building’s energy consumption by 30-50 per cent. World Green Building Day is a call to action to ensure green buildings are an international priority, a part of the climate change solution and are in the forefront of decision makers’ minds when the world gathers at the United Nations Climate Change Conference this December.”

Winning the hearts and minds of both the decision makers as well as citizens of industrial countries all around the world seems to make sense if green building is to become the standard by which all construction is measured in this century and beyond.

To learn more about World Green Building Day, sustainability, and international efforts to promote green building standards and practices,  check out the World Green Building Council website.

Cheers!

Rob.

Conservation of resources – both natural and financial – are goals that may be the focus in California’s new building codes over residential building standards.  The new codes, effective as of August 1st, are to be implemented as mandatory across the board in California by 2011 with the following items in mind:

• 20% reduction in water use efficiency
• reduction of energy use
• reduction of C02 emissions
• reduction of mold growth

Read the article by Jennifer Goodman, editor of EcoHome magazine for more information.

California certainly has a natural environment which is more than worthy of protection. This image courtesy of Kevin Krejci. Click on image to view Flickr stream.

One of the challenges in green building has been a greater upfront cost commitment. But it has been surmised that front end costs from more efficient building practices this year will mean savings  in the next.  After all, creating systems whereby less is used for equal or greater performance and savings makes for a lot of room to spend that money elsewhere.

And eventually, the idea of ‘green building’ will become something of an antiquated term, when greater energy efficiency, water conservation, and a greater return on the use of materials becomes the standard, not the exception.

Cheers,

Rob.

As part of the stimulus spending of $64-billion to be spent over the next two years, ($34-billion in 2009-10; $30-billion in 2010-11), there are some sizable sums earmarked for Infrastructure and Housing.

To save you the trouble of looking back at the dates I recommended the spending, I’ll reiterate here:

 January 16, 2009, I said:

“focus on housing – both construction and retrofitting with environmental benefits.”

Federal Budget 2009, Canadian government said:

The federal government is providing $7.8 billion to build quality housing, stimulate construction and enhance energy efficiency …  investments for social housing to support low-income Canadians, seniors, persons with disabilities and Aboriginal Canadians, and low-cost loans to municipalities

November 26, 2008, I said:

“Heavy construction seems to be the favorite target of historical government interventions in failing economies. So much so that “infrastructure” seems to have taken on a standard definition of  “roads, bridges, sewers, etc.”

“How about including homes offices, industrial buildings?”

Federal Budget 2009, Canadian government said:

Budget 2009 accelerates and expands the recent historic federal investment in infrastructure with almost $12 billion in new infrastructure stimulus funding over two years, so that Canada emerges from this economic crisis with more modern and greener infrastructure. This includes funding for shovel-ready projects that can start this upcoming construction season, including roads, bridges, clean energy, broadband, internet access and electronic health records across the country.

 November 10 2008, I said:

“Green remodeling: Key to Economic Recovery?”

Federal Budget 2009, Canadian government said:

Measures include a renovation tax credit providing an estimated 4.6 million Canadian families up to $1,350 each, funding for energy retrofits.

Here’s a intriguing plan by Architecture 2030, a U.S.-based non-profit organization that promotes integrated climate change action through the built environment.  It connects a lot of dots in reducing CO2 emissions in the building sector while creating jobs and stimulating the economy in a responsible way. The plan has been presented to the new Obama Administration and it would be worth consideration in Canada as well, where the Harper government is preparing a large deficit budget due January 27.

The 2030 Challenge Stimulus plan promises the U.S. some 8-million new jobs and the creation of a new $1.6-trillion renovation market in just two years.

It calls for large investment in the U.S. building sector ($192-billion over two years) to provide a “housing mortgage interest rate buy-down” and “commercial building accelerated-depreciation program” for buildings that meet energy reduction targets.

The 2030 Challenge Stimulus Plan aims to save consumers $132 billion to $208 billion in energy costs and mortgage payments over a five-year period, significantly reducing the risk of mortgage failure while increasing disposable income.

And there’s a huge reduction in green house gas emissions as well.

The Pew Center report on a Climate Friendly Built Environment – to which I referred in my previous posting – makes an emphatic assertion for the needed political will to act now in three policy areas. It correctly observes that the building industry’s fragmentation makes decision making almost impossible for comprehensive solutions to environmental problems.  

The report notes:

“An integrated approach is needed to address GHG emissions from the U.S. building sector—one that coordinates across technical and policy solutions, integrates engineering approaches with architectural design, considers design decisions within the realities of building operation, integrates green building with smart-growth concepts, and takes into account the numerous decision-makers

within the fragmented building industry.”

History is perhaps unfolding as it should in this regard – though opportunities can be lost if not recognized and acted upon quickly.

As the new U.S. administration takes shape (and at the time of this posting, a possible new Canadian one too) it might be worthwhile if people began to press for public expenditures where the environment, the social benefits, and the economy can all be helped at the same time.

In several of my next posts, I’ll be examining some of the particular benefits to be derived from focusing on the built environment in these respects .

Please return.

In my previous post I referred to the PEW Centre on Global Climate Change.

In 2005 – shortly before the new world economic order began – the PEW Center published a most insightful, almost prophetic study entitled ”Towards a Climate Friendly Built Environment.”

Built Environment and GHG emissions

Here’s an excerpt from the Report’s introduction.

Buildings in the United States—homes, offices, and industrial facilities—account for over 40 percent of our nation’s carbon dioxide emissions.

In this report, authors Marilyn Brown, Frank Southworth, and Theresa Stovall identify numerous opportunities available now, and in the future, to reduce the building sector’s overall impact on climate.

This Pew Center report is part of our effort to examine key sectors, technologies, and policy options to construct the “10-50 Solution” to climate change. The idea is that we need to tackle climate change over the next fifty years, one decade at a time.

Looking at options for the near (10 years) and long (50 years) term, this report yields several insights for reducing GHG emissions from the largest portion of our nation’s physical wealth—our built environment.

I’ll discuss these in my next post.

A brief note following my advice yesterday for US President-elect Barack Obama.

From the Canadian environmental perspective, the headline in today’s Globe and Mail (Toronto’s National Newspaper) reflects a major political statement by Prime Minster Stephen Harper to US President-elect Obama.

“Ottawa swoops in with climate-change offer.”

Canada’s Prime Minister Harper has been viewed as closely aligned with outgoing Bush Administration in many areas, including an environmental approach that did not support the Kyoto Protocol.

Today the Canadian government is first of the mark to make an environmental proposal to the Obama Administration, and on nothing less than Climate Change itself. The main part of the story is about a proposed Canada-US climate change pact that would aim at reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions while protecting Canada’s giant oil sands project in the Prime Minster’s home province of Alberta.

It may be a very smart political move. Mr. Obama has pledged to reduce US foreign energy dependence and may view Canada as less foreign than the Middle East.

Mr. Obama has been described by many Americans as a socialist. Prime Minster Harper is going have to live with the fact that he once described the Kyoto Protocol as a socialist plot.

This will be worth watching.

You’ve been elected on the promise to change … uh … something about the way the United States is governed.

Pardon me. I must have missed exactly what that change is going to be. I guess it got downed out in the all the cheering every time you mentioned it.

Whatever… Here’s something for you to consider if you’re planning to change environmental policies and practices. I think you may find it of interest since you’ll no doubt have to change some things about the economy as well

It looks like a natural fit for your new government since a lot a people are talking about your having to deliver a new New Deal – the old one being Franklin D. Roosevelt’s in 1933.

Let’s hope we don’t head into such a severe economic Depression as FDR had to address, but in any case if your new New Deal proposes a new treatment of the global Environment, it can make good global economic sense as well.

Take a look at this United Nations initiative called the “Global Green New Deal” – Environmentally-Focused Investment Historic Opportunity for 21st Century Prosperity and Job Creation.

It was announced by theUnited Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) just a few weeks before your election. Take a look and then please return to my future posts.

I’ll relate this initiative to Green Building as we go forward.

Even the global economic breakdown that is still unfolding as US voters go to the polls seems to have taken second place to Faith with a capital F – not religious and not even ideological – the kind of big question mark Faith that is necessary when you know your vote counts for something very important – but you’re not exactly sure what it is.

But when the winner is determined, the atmosphere will still be heating up. It might be worth noting, therefore, what each presidential candidate’s position is on something like green house gas emissions.

Both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama have recognized the need to reduce emissions. That in itself might seem like progress, but neither has indicated he is interested in meeting Kyoto targets (remember them?). The US decided not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol back in 1997 and by 2003 it was almost 25 % higher than the target it had agreed to in 1997.

In other words, the USA isn’t achieving much by way of international targets in emissions reductions. The election promises of 2008 are now the only estimate of what can be expected.

Both candidates set their goals for 2050, by which time Mr. McCain aims to reduce to USA emissions by 60 % of 1990 levels, and Mr. Obama’s goal is a reduction of 80 % of the same baseline.

Now, back to watching the election results.