Finding the balance between mandating efficiency and green buildings versus incentives, education and awareness is key in fostering greener construction, RMI Senior Vice President and Principal Architect Greg Franta says.
Speaking at the Association of Building Sustainability Assessors (ABSA) conference in Melbourne, Australia, Franta's keynote speech outlined how that balance has to be achieved with partnerships between private business corporations, the public sector and NGOs.
"It is important that government agencies support and mandate better buildings but the real and more critical part is to incentivize buildings to be constructed that go well past the minimum building codes," he says.
Referring to a chart (shown below) that showed the majority of buildings constructed versus their energy performance, Franta said that while the curve would shift if the building codes are raised, it needed to move further to the right -- "and business incentives, tax incentives, education and awareness, related to NGOs and the public sector" could do this.
As examples, Franta says that pushing building energy efficiency performance beyond what was required by the codes of compliance could be assisted by:
- Offering tax breaks for those that undergo the Green Star (link -http://greenstarinc.org) certification program and have higher building fees for those who do not build as “green” to offset the tax breaks,
- Instigating a 'greener the building, the better the tax breaks'-type policy
- Allowing better business development rights in cities where there are often limitations as to what can and cannot be constructed.
"Take for example (the U.S. state of) Nevada," Franta says. "They have a property tax credit for doing better buildings which has incentivized an incredible wealth of green buildings.
"And in some states, where jurisdictions often limit construction projects, additional building construction rights are granted if things are built green. This means more profit and has proved to be really successful."
Franta drew on his experience in guiding building efficiency in the United States, where RMI's Built Environment Team (BET) -- which he heads -- is based.
The conference audience included Australian Minister for the Environment Peter Garrett as well as members of ABSA -- an Australian not-for-profit organization that represents building and design professionals who specialize in assessing the environmental impact of buildings.
Franta said the audience seemed to respond to his international perspective and experiences of the ups and downs of what has happened with governmental programs versus private industry outside of Australia.
His keynote address had an overarching theme of energy efficiency as related to carbon reduction.
As well as focusing on partnerships and incentives for green building, Franta also discussed the principles of 'abundance by design' -- the importance of energy efficiency as being the least cost way to make the biggest impact.
He also put forward the business case for efficient building, outlining the economics of employing integrative design, whole-systems thinking and using BET's 'High Performance Building Perspective and Practice' film.
"(The audience) picked up on integrated design within a normal building construction budget, asking the question what is the best building we can do in that budget, rather than the typical question of how much more does it cost to do a great building," Franta said.
Franta also met and briefed leaders from the Australian Department of the Environment and Water Resources, the City of Melbourne, the Sustainability Victoria Business Innovation and Technology Office, the Clinton Foundation, and Williams Boag Architects.
To find out more on BET's work click here
