Author: Energy Cost

On March 14, the  Center for Green Schools hosted a webinar, “Climate Change Education Across the Nation: How State Policy Is Delivering Impact,” highlighting district-level stories about the impacts of state climate legislation. The Center was joined by panelists from Ten Strands, the Maine Environmental Education Association and Our Climate, who shared their firsthand experiences creating, advocating for and implementing climate education legislation in their states.

Here are some highlights of the work being done on the ground:

1. The Center for Green Schools highlighted its forthcoming paper in partnership with the Campaign for Environmental Literacy, which profiles example legislation that supports climate change education within the formal K–12 education system and provides talking points with citations and a model climate literacy bill for advocates. The Campaign for Environmental Literacy highlighted two of the states profiled in the report, New Jersey and Washington, and their current legislation.

2. Massachusetts students from Our Climate, who were instrumental in creating the interdisciplinary climate justice education bill, spoke about their journey, which started in 2020 with drafting the legislation. Since then, students have been a driving force in pushing this bill forward. They spoke about lessons learned, from the difficulties lobbying during school hours to the lack of transparency in the legislative process. They covered what’s next, such as creating a platform to drive advocacy strategy with all parties and initiating a lobbying day for teachers.

3. In turn, the Maine Environmental Education Association spoke to the role that young people have played and the process for their pilot program to encourage climate education in Maine. Since 2021, the Nature Based Education Consortium‘s youth-led Climate Education Advocacy working group has met to create a funded policy that gives teachers access to climate education professional development, with a focus on equity. Although the bill faced several hurdles, young people and educators alike played a pivotal role in getting it passed in 2022.

Elevating the voices of women in our green building community is especially timely during Women’s History Month. Women have always been leaders in the sustainability movement—from Rachel Carson’s environmental advocacy in the 1960s to Greta Thunberg’s in the present day. Among the many women setting the course for an even more sustainable future are four professionals who recently shared their thoughts with USGBC on the future of green building, mentoring the next generation and projects that inspire them:

• Hannah Baghdadi, sustainability and environmental analyst, Corning Incorporated
• Katie Bergfeld, branch chief, building performance and enforcement, Department of Energy and Environment, Government of the District of Columbia
• Meredith Hendricks, vice president—sustainability, Entegrity
• Tonya Hicks, president and CEO, Power Solutions; president and founder, Women Do Everything LLC

What are the challenges of your professional role in helping to build a more sustainable world?

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/womens-voices-green-building-pursuing-progress-and-opportunity

he design-build project delivery method is gaining momentum as the most popular construction method in the U.S. because the integrated process saves time and money, allows for more innovation and fosters collaboration. Design-build firms have a reputation for outperforming traditional delivery methods, and the same opportunities exist for better implementation of building performance strategies.

Strategies that reduce carbon emissions

When an owner only has one contract with a single point of responsibility through use of the design-build method, it can be easier to align ESG goals and project performance. Having the designer, consultants and contractor working together from the onset of a project provides consistent and aligned total building optimizations and decarbonization recommendations that are within the project budget and schedule.

For example, emphasizing sustainable design strategies and building performance in conceptual design leads to greater reductions in carbon emissions. Early energy modeling helps determine building massing, orientation, window-wall ratios, envelope performance, shading devices and potential for on-site renewable energy generation.

The mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineers and the energy modeler can collaborate on building electrification, right-sizing equipment and life cycle cost assessments of proposed MEP systems while the architect is tackling building programming and structural engineers are determining the efficiency of the structural system.

For over two years, clean indoor air has become increasingly recognized as a vital tool for response and recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the launch of the National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan, the Biden-Harris administration has mobilized agencies across the federal government to improve indoor air quality through research, innovation and education.

In October, the White House held a first-of-its-kind summit focused on the challenges and opportunities associated with indoor air quality. A key theme throughout the discussion was funding for upgrading outdated building systems and schools. USGBC and other organizations have done extensive research into how schools have managed air quality during the pandemic, highlighting practical solutions and outcomes. The administration also launched an updated Clean Air in Buildings website with a host of resources and information on how businesses and organizations can participate in the Clean Air in Buildings Challenge that kicked off earlier in 2022.

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/white-house-releases-new-commitments-cleaner-indoor-air

It’s become increasingly clear, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, that buildings have a profound impact on both the planet and the people who use them. Buildings, where we spend approximately 90% of our lives inside, according to the U.S. EPA, can help make us happier and more productive, as well as improve our well-being. They must also be part of the solution in the fight against climate change. Buildings currently account for 37% of global energy consumption, according to the International Energy Agency, and the U.S. Department of Energy shares that almost a third of that energy is wasted.

Driven by COVID-19 on the one hand, and climate change on the other, building owners, managers and operators are working hard to both support healthier workplaces and advance energy-saving solutions that help meet climate goals. What’s most important is that we do both together. When it comes to deploying building solutions, we cannot separate occupant well-being from planetary health

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/putting-technology-work-healthier-and-more-sustainable-buildings

“Federal funding has given school districts a financial lifeline to make improvements at schools and help reduce the risk of COVID infection. These upgrades can go beyond the pandemic and yield positive results that last far into the future,” said Anisa Heming, director for the USGBC Center of Green Schools. “By investing in school facility upgrades, these schools are creating healthier working and learning environments for staff and students, and we will continue to encourage districts to allocate remaining funds to green building strategies that improve health and operational performance.”

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/new-usgbc-report-finds-school-districts-prioritizing-federal-funds-air-filtration-hvac

More emerging economies increased their use of fossil fuel gases in buildings in 2021. At the same time, global building energy demand increased by around 4% t from 2020 to 2021, to 135 EJ—the largest annual increase in the past 10 years. In addition, CO2 emissions from buildings operations have reached an all-time high of an estimated 10 GtCO2, about a 5% increase from 2020 and 2% higher than the previous peak in 2019. UNEP found that this reflects both the reopening of the global economy and the lack of structural changes to support decarbonization of the building sector during the pandemic. In 2021, the decarbonization level decreased to 8.1 points, from 11.3 in 2020. The Global Buildings Climate Tracker finds that the building sector remains off track to achieve decarbonization by 2050.

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/2022-global-status-report-renews-call-decarbonize-building-sector-2050