When Should Green Building Regulations Be Vetoed?
I recently co-authored a chapter with Shari Shapiro of a soon-to-be-published book about green building law. I am a regular reader Shari's Green Building Law Blog and she is one of the authors who helped me launch my own blog.
However, I am going to respectfully disagree with one of her recent posts regarding green building legislation. Shari juxtaposed two "green" regulatory measures - one that passed in Europe and one that was vetoed by the Governor of Wisconsin. Shari concluded the Wisconsin Governor was in the wrong:
"On the one hand, Europe has determined that it is not only feasible, but necessary to build its entire building stock to a near carbon neutral level, and Wisconsin has determined that it cannot even make 15% of its public buildings green. What will the competitiveness of Wisconsin--indeed, the entire United States--be if it is saddled with a portfolio of underperforming building stock contributing to greenhouse gas emissions."
The Wisconsin Governor did not actually veto legislation making public buildings green. The Governor properly vetoed spending state funds to certify public buildings as green:
"The measure had directed all state building funds to be used for certifying at least 15% of total gross square footage of working space in state-owned and leased buildings to meet green building requirements. Doyle said he remained committed to green building efforts but that he could not support the bill."
For long-time Green Building Law Update readers, this veto should not be a surprise. Back in October 2008, I pointed out that states may balk at green building regulations if revenues drop:
"[W]hat will happen to all of those states that passed regulations requiring public projects achieve LEED certification? As you probably know, during economic downturns, less taxes are collected, which affects state budgets. . . . One area where state agencies may seek budget cuts is through green building programs."
"The latest biannual NGA-NASBO 'Fiscal Survey of the States,' released on June 3, says that, for fiscal 2010, which ends for 46 states on June 30, state general-fund expenditures will fall an estimated 6.8%, to $612.9 billion."
Why do states need to be spending money on green building certification? Isn't that money better spent on actually constructing or retrofitting buildings to be green?
Doyle Vetoes Green Building Measure (Journal Sentinel)
Can State Budgets Support Green Building? (Green Building Law Update)
Fiscal Squeeze to Continue in 2011 (ENR)(subscr. req.)
Interesting take. LEED does add a layer of expense at times where the same efficiency results can be gained without the certification. I can see why cash strapped states don't jump right int.
Chris, you have a point, especially in the current economic climate. And if greenwashing weren't such a huge problem, I'd be inclined to agree with you. Unfortunately, greenwashing IS a huge problem, and third-party certifications are necessary to verify green building claims.
Even with third-party certifications, the marketing of green building often gets it wrong. Marketers will refer to a "LEED-certified" building before it's even built, much less certified. So certification is more than just marketing—it's verification.
I have to agree with Allyson. Absent third party verification, greenwashing will run amok. As for governments not wanting to spend money on certification, I think they do so at their peril. Unless there are performance benchmarks built into their building contracts, they won't know what works and what doesn't until it's too late.
Allyson - I understand why third-party certifications are necessary when green buildings are being sold on the open market. But government buildings are not sold (usually). So why does it matter if a state greenwashes? Why does it matter if a state claims to have built a green building when it actually has not?
I think that both takes are in the right. I believe that Shari was simply juxtaposing that the US continues to turn down opportunities to mandate green building, whereas Europe is moving that direction.
I also agree with Chris' point that certification is not required to obtain efficiency in public construction - or any construction for that point.
While Allyson is correct that there is a problem with ensuring that energy standards are met, this begins and ends with the building standards. Governments do not need to invest in new certification measures, as there are already inspection and approval procedures in play for any construction. The standards in green construction are simply different.
It's on. Battle of the Blogs.
http://www.greenbuildinglawblog.com/2010/06/articles/green-building-lawbattle-of-the-blogs/
Certification is an absolute necessity. Why should green buildings get a gimme that other buildings don't get? Because they're "good"??
Think not? Think building code. Instead of having a competitive bid to verify compliance with a set of criteria, for the code, it's a civil entity. But it's certified nonetheless. In the case of code, it's the building department that certifies. Consequently, the building department requires the components that go into the building to be certified as well. (And don't be mistaken into thinking that a building code is mandatory in this country - it's amazing how many places do NOT have a building code.)
The problem really is that green building is young and as such, it's very wild west. We've only gotten the first Green CODE this year at ASHRAE. The ICC green code has 1800 proposals to hear in August. We're still very young.
Consequently the only other option is to certify to a 'pick your own criteria'. And as noted, those criterias arise out a marketing need, not out of a public service need, though many many people think that. Plus I do not beleive that the certifiers for voluntary programs are as adept at compliance as those who do codes. Maybe that's good, maybe not so, but I do think it makes it more expense.
All this said, as someone who works with both voluntary and mandatory compliance, I can tell you how many things don't get done or go wrong when you don't have someone looking over your shoulder. It's amazing how the level of detail gets changed when you have to prove it to someone else - imagine if there were consequences!