Blogpost Spotlight Questions
Your leadership on the role of existing buildings and sustainability has been ongoing for many years. Tell us why existing buildings matter in the bigger context of sustainability and why the US market in particular is globally important.
We simply cannot build our way out of the hole that we’ve dug for ourselves.
Existing buildings are where we must focus. It is estimated that real estate accounts for almost 40% of global emissions (in cities it’s as much as 60%-70%). Just looking at the operational impacts; existing residential, commercial, and industrial buildings consume more than 76% of all U.S. electricity use and more than 40% of all U.S. energy use and associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to run. Looking globally, operational carbon combined with the embodied carbon of constructing new buildings accounts for 36% of global energy use and 39% of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions annually.The only sensible response is to drastically reduce creating new buildings and instead choose renovation or adaptive-reuse to improve our existing stock. Adaptive reuse done well avoids much of the impacts of new construction. In existing buildings, smart management, maintenance, and upgrades ensure that they remain useful and efficient.
The potential is vast. In the USA alone, there are an estimated 6 million existing commercial buildings. When you add single, multifamily, industrial, and military buildings, that number adds up to a whopping 111 million existing buildings.
There’s also another sustainability driver here that is often ignored, which is embedded cultural significance. The very real community-value of existing buildings has always been important but is especially pertinent in our divisive times. The shared experience contained in buildings that have withstood the test of time should not be underestimated. In Baltimore, entire neighborhoods were built around manufacturing facilities and suffered precipitous decline when those businesses left. I saw those same communities regain their identity when those buildings were reborn.
I’ll use a project that I worked on, Natty Boh in Baltimore, as an example. The project was the adaptive reuse of a long-abandoned brewery. Many of the workers lived in the surrounding neighborhood which had grown around the brewery. In 2002, when we started, we held several community meetings and workers shared vivid recollections of the neighborhood. I was amazed at how many cherished not only the building, but the work that they performed as well.
After we finished, at a grand opening, the neighborhood came out in force. One older woman pulled me aside and said how great it was to have the Natty-Boh man, mounted high up on the tower building, back again. This blinking neon sign was an inspired move by my company. This icon has gone on to become the face of Baltimore City. The funny thing is – it had never been there before. Yet now, decades later, it is seen everywhere: on t-shirts, embedded into the state flag, and on mugs. Baltimore is proud of Natty Boh – even though the brewery hasn’t had a presence in the city for over 25 years.
Our heritage is woven into our buildings. When thoughtfully done, they can be a unifying cultural force.
What do you see as the role of policymakers to drive sustainable building development and operations in the US?
Policymakers have always had a vital role in the development of green building in the USA. The Washington, D.C. area has been a leader in this regard. Over the decades, I’ve had a front-row seat to the changes. In 2002, Maryland created one of the first green building tax credits, D.C. enacted the Green Building Act in 2006, and now Montgomery County, MD is on their second iteration of a green building tax credit. So, while green building policy has come a long way, much of it is still centered on new construction.
In the early years, regulation was a way to get early adopters to take a chance, and to challenge them to take the risk on green building. I am grateful to those that stepped up to understand the complexity of these regulations and create signature projects to inspire others. As part of the team that was the first applicant for the Maryland tax credit, I can attest to the fact that it felt like diving into the unknown. It was a first for everyone. No one, on either the building or regulator side, had any idea of how to implement green building. It was my first experience working with the government to sensibly enact change. Proverbially, we were all trying to ‘build an airplane while flying it’.
In recent years, I have seen private businesses stepping up. Today, regulation is needed to bring along everyone else. Large players with large portfolios are starting to get serious about sustainability, much of which is the result of European influence both from investors and reporting mechanisms such GRESB, and of course BREEAM.
While there have been Federal policies to boost these efforts, the most tangible change that I have witnessed has come mostly at the State and County levels.
How did you first learn about BREEAM?
I first came across BREEAM when I saw an announcement somewhere and sent an email addressed to info@breamerica on Sept 12, 2016, asking to be notified when BREEAM USA would have training available on the East Coast. A little over an hour later, I got a reply with an announcement of an upcoming webinar for those interested in becoming an assessor. There was also a link that included a Washington, D.C.-based training in Feb of 2017. I signed up for both the webinar and training, and the rest is history.
I became so excited about BREEAM In-Use that I wrote my first blog article about it in October 2017, and also attended Ecobuild and the BREEAM Awards dinner in London back in March 2018, which was a very fancy affair. I’ve since participated in two webinars with Breana Wheeler — BRE’s US Director of Operations, and attended numerous conferences where I promoted BREEAM in the US.
I decided to wait to become a licensed Assessor for a few months, hoping to grab the 10th spot. But I waited too long and became the 11th BREEAM USA In-Use Assessor; however,I did grab the first spot for the state of Maryland.
What attracted you to BREEAM’s assessment standard?
I appreciate that BREEAM In-Use is a holistic assessment that has:
The flexibility to address a broad spectrum of building types & performance levels. BREEAM also has the range to focus on lower-performing assets that can get certified while creating a roadmap for future improvements, as building operations and asset performance are assessed and certified separately.
A larger scope of inquiry. It not only has a broader range of topics than other certifications, it also separates how a building is built from how it is managed for more detailed and valuable feedback to the owner.
A counter to the trend I’m seeing with other certifications, which measure just a small amount of outputs to describe the building’s performance. Outputs are only part of the equation for existing buildings. Risk management, health and wellness, pollution, and resilience – among other issues covered in BREEAM In-Use – are also important.
The perspectives of facility managers leveraging best practices, which most sustainability practitioners are not well-versed in but gets to the heart of maintaining building performance.
What role do you see BREEAM playing in the US to drive more sustainable development and operations?
BREEAM has been established in Europe for decades. Their recent expansion into the USA brings a fresh perspective to sustainability efforts for existing buildings. BREEAM’s model focuses on more than just greenhouse gasses, providing a holistic assessment and acting as a one-stop-shop.
In the USA, the trend is moving toward a reductive analysis of only benchmarking a handful of criteria for existing buildings. I understand the reasoning, and know first-hand that improving our existing stock is challenging. The draw for improvements are not as desirable as the construction of new establishments, and require more grunt work and continued efforts from already over-stretched teams.
But change is not effective when it only looks at portions of a problem. A more whole-systems approach yields better results because building owners and occupiers have priorities beyond resource conservation such as health and wellness, enhanced land use and ecological systems, risk management, reduced pollution, and resilience. And this is where BREEAM In-Use shines.