By David Dagan
The
nonprofit group PennEnvironment is
calling for aggressive green-building policies -- including state laws, federal
laws and changes to privately run building codes -- that it says would reduce
U.S. carbon emissions by a third from the projected 2050 level.
PennEnvironment, which has offices in Harrisburg,
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh,
unveiled the recommendations
yesterday. Among the steps the group called for:
and
- Incorporating tougher
efficiency rules into model building codes and adopting those codes as the
standard in all states. PennEnvironment said one model building code
should be 30 percent more efficient by 2012 than it was in 2006. Pennsylvania
already follows that code and automatically adopts updates to it, said
Nathan Willcox, energy and clean-air advocate for PennEnvironment.
- Requiring new
buildings to be "zero-energy" by 2030. Such buildings meet all
their energy needs through clean, on-site generation, according to PennEnvironment.
- Retrofitting
residential and commercial buildings at a cost of $632 billion. The
up-front expense would be paid back and additional savings of $542 billion
would be registered by 2031, according to PennEnvironment.
Pennsylvania
is ahead of many other states on green-building policies, Willcox said.
"Pennsylvania is one of the
leaders in green buildings but that doesn't mean that we are doing everything
that is needed," he said. "We have to go a lot further."
