Energy Efficiency in Buildings

Approaching a tipping point

The Economist magazine last week (September  15 issue) ran an article: "Green  as houses – Building green is getting cheaper and more popular".  It featured David Hovey Junior, an architect  in Scottsdale, Arizona. He had built a stunning home made entirely of glass  and recycled steel, using design features to reduce the amount of energy the  occupants will use and to achieve other “green” objectives such as saving a 150-year-old  ironwood tree.

Mr Hovey Junior thinks such houses will sell easily (even in the current  troubled times for the US housing market!). I agree. I think he’s on a winner.  In fact that’s what the EEB project is all about – showing that energy  efficient building can be commercially as well as environmentally viable, and  how to make it the norm rather than the exception.

Lift-off

Summer is  over. And what a summer! I spent it in the very rainy part of Western Europe.  Something to do with climate change, they say.

But now it’s  high time to return to my blog. And it’s not as though nothing has been  happening – we launched the first EEB report in August (the first stage which presents our analysis). It highlighted the  importance of building energy use and the roadblocks to tackling this huge  issue.

Did you know  that:

• The annual global energy consumption in buildings will  more than double by 2050 unless action is taken. This is like adding 2.3  billion cars to the global car stock – about 10 times the current number of  cars in the US.
 
• The property market in China is breathtaking,  producing 2 billion square meters per year. It means China is building the  equivalent of Japan’s building area every three years.

On the other  hand…

• The global EEB survey detected that the building  industry overestimates the cost of green buildings. Likewise it underestimates  the emissions contribution of buildings.
 
• Only 13% of people in the building industry have been  involved in green building, while 82 % claim awareness of green building  practices.

Our report  underlines the lack of leadership for sustainability in the building industry.  With strong leadership and the right financial; relationships building energy  use can be slashed.