Bocra said these new regulations will help the city become carbon neutral by 2050. New York City government is now implementing a “robust new building energy code” - Local Law 97 - a “landmark building performance standard that mandates carbon reductions in our 50,000 largest buildings.” In addition, the city’s recent building electrification law will “restrict fossil fuel combustion in new buildings” starting in 2024. New government mandates will significantly speed up the decarbonization process. state and city jurisdictions.įor companies developing or managing millions of square feet of real estate, one common strategy amid the regulatory flux has been to make incremental improvements to decarbonize each year while also reducing climate and water risks.īut Gina Bocra, chief sustainability officer, New York City Department of Buildings, argued the time of incremental change will soon be over. This calculus is complicated by evolving building performance standards in different U.S. To receive private financing from the markets, companies need to show a return on investment with their electrification and energy efficiency improvements. More financing is needed to make the transition to electric buildings and renewable energy happen, said Joe Rozza, chief sustainability officer at Ryan Companies. Utilities need to accelerate the shift to renewable energy so the power used in all-electric buildings is clean. These buildings simply need to be connected to a “green grid” powered by renewable sources, like wind and solar, instead of fossil fuels, like coal, oil, or natural gas. Green Building Council, noted that an increasing number of new buildings are now “electricity ready,” meaning they weren’t built with oil or gas-powered furnaces or boilers.

and worldwide is seen as an important next step to reduce operational emissions.

In a discussion moderated by Carter-Conneen, government, non-profit, and corporate built environment leaders discussed the collective actions driving down emissions from both buildings and landscapes.Įlectrification of the millions of buildings in the U.S. We need to start thinking about whole projects or whole sites instead of whole buildings when we discuss climate solutions,” said ASLA CEO Torey Carter-Conneen, at Sustainability Week US, organized by Economist Impact in Washington, D.C. “We know the built environment is more than just buildings. Landscapes are a key part of the broader effort to reduce emissions and drawdown more carbon. For landscape architects, approximately 75 percent of project emissions come from materials.īut one major benefit of landscapes is they can store carbon through trees, plants, and soils while also reducing climate impacts and improving ecological and human health. When looking at landscapes, the share of embodied carbon as a percentage of total emissions changes. Building materials and the construction process – which is often called embodied carbon – are responsible for another 13 percent every year. Building operations, which includes lighting, heating, and cooling, are responsible for 27 percent of those emissions. Brandon Huttenlocher/Design WorkshopĪrchitecture 2030 states that the built environment generates 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions annually. Houston Arboretum and Nature Center, Reed Hilderbrand and Design Workshop, Inc.

Cultural landscape human geography