Green Urbanism
It’s Getting Easier to be Green
COMMUNITY INVESTMENTS. Aug 2008. By Naomi Cytron
Cultivating the intersections between community development and environmental sustainability
The construction and operation of the buildings where we live and conduct business consume over 60 percent of the electricity used in the U.S. and account for one-third of total greenhouse gas emissions. Inefficient heating and cooling systems, lighting, and appliances contribute to the carbon footprint of the built environment; an old or poorly maintained refrigerator, for instance, can emit over 1,500 pounds of CO2 annually—the equivalent of about 75 gallons of gasoline. Building construction, renovations and operations also consume vast amounts of raw materials and generate heaps of waste; while some building materials are recycled, millions of tons of wood, concrete, drywall, and asphalt shingles end up in landfills. Conventional building practices may also have negative impacts on our health; materials and finishes are thought to contribute to poor indoor air quality and resulting respiratory illnesses such as asthma. The negative impacts of conventional building practices on human and environmental health require that we rethink where and how to design, construct, operate, and maintain both residential and commercial buildings in more sustainable ways.
...While green affordable projects have started to spring up in larger cities around the country, the green revolution has not yet reached all corners. “In more sophisticated markets, the momentum will carry green building forward and it will become the standard,” said Rose Cade, Senior Program Director at Enterprise Community Partners. “But in smaller markets, nonprofit developers are often inexperienced and have limited capacity to integrate green practices. It’s a real challenge to figure out how to deliver the right resources, training, and funding to these places.” Access to environmental consultants, or even to green materials, might be limited, and additional work is needed in determining how to expand the capacity for green building in rural areas and smaller cities.
Another limiting factor rests with the financing of green development. Walker Wells, Director of Urban Greening at Global Green—the American arm of Green Cross International that seeks to stem global climate change by working to green the built environment—noted that most large-scale financial institutions have been slow to adjust underwriting standards in ways that might boost the industry. “At the moment of underwriting, lenders are still wondering how green elements influence financial performance and risk exposure,” said Wells. In part, this is because there is limited data regarding the savings from energy and related efficiencies—data that can be translated into an argument for a larger loan amount to cover the upfront costs of greening. Lenders also might have concerns simply about the abilities of a developer to succeed in stepping outside of conventional building practices. Increased data about performance and savings of green projects that is collected and reported in a way relevant to lenders would be a significant boost to the industry, noted Wells. Enterprise Community Partners has begun to collect such data on the projects financed through the Green Communities Initiative, but more widespread monitoring of projects will strengthen the case for financing structures geared particularly to green projects. For this to happen, more resources must be devoted to the equipment and staffing necessary to track and analyze the performance of green developments.