Green Building Law Update

Environmental Law and Sustainability for Business

Archives: Green Globes

ESG is an Opportunity for Commercial Landlords

There is a concomitant issue of whether the California legislature should be setting environmental policy that governs the country?… Continue Reading

45L Energy Efficient Home Tax Credit Extended for 2021 by Covid Relief Bill

By Stuart Kaplow on January 10, 2021 Posted in Energy, Federal, Green Building, Green Globes, IgCC, LEED

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, H.R. 133, signed into law by President Trump on December 27th, extended the 45L energy efficient home $2,000 tax credit, which had been scheduled to expire last year, to cover qualified new energy efficient homes sold or leased through 2021. And yes, regular readers of this blog will notice that … Continue Reading

179D Tax Deduction Made Permanent by Covid Relief Bill

By Stuart Kaplow on January 3, 2021 Posted in Federal, Green Building, Green Globes, LEED

On page 4,872 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, H.R. 133, which passed both houses of Congress on December 21st and was signed into law by President Trump on December 27th, the 179D energy efficient commercial buildings federal tax deduction, which had been scheduled to expire at year end, was instead made permanent. At a … Continue Reading

Carbon Tax Proposed in Portland will be First in the Nation

By Stuart Kaplow on December 6, 2020 Posted in Climate Change, Green Globes, LEED, Local Government

The City of Portland is proposing a carbon tax that would be the first of its kind anywhere in the country. Given the increased emphasis on climate change by the incoming Biden Administration the proposed ordinance should be on your required reading list. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions are changing the climate. Energy … Continue Reading

2018 IgCC to be Adopted in Baltimore City

By Stuart Kaplow on October 18, 2020 Posted in City, Green Building, Green Globes, IgCC

Last Monday evening an ordinance was introduced in the Baltimore City Council to adopt the 2018 International Green Construction Code. In the realm of green building this is a big deal. In the more than 4,400 code adopting jurisdictions across the country only the town of Gaithersburg, Maryland has adopted the 2018 IgCC. It is … Continue Reading

The New and Improved 2020 ICC 700 National Green Building Standard

By Stuart Kaplow on May 10, 2020 Posted in Green Building, Green Globes, IgCC, LEED

The 2020 version of the ICC 700 National Green Building Standard (NGBS) is now available for free download and public use. You care about this because the NGBS is the most used green building standard in the United States. As of April 1, 2020, more than 216,000 residential dwellings have been certified to the NGBS … Continue Reading

Maryland Schools will No Longer be LEED Certified

By Stuart Kaplow on December 8, 2019 Posted in Green Building, Green Globes, LEED

In response to legislation enacted by the Maryland General Assembly in 2018, overriding a veto by the Governor, commencing last week new public school building no longer has to be LEED certified or the like. This is a major change in public policy for the Old Line State that has required by law that all … Continue Reading

2018 IgCC is Not in Use Anywhere. A Detailed Analysis of Why?

By Stuart Kaplow on December 1, 2019 Posted in Green Globes, IgCC, LEED, Local Government

The 2018 International Green Construction Code was released on November 8, 2018 but more than a year later, it has not been adopted anywhere. The 203 page document available from the ICC for sale to the public, .. click here for a free read only copy of the 2018 IgCC, is an entirely new standard … Continue Reading

Maryland Reverting to Certifiable In Lieu of Certified Green Building

By Stuart Kaplow on June 9, 2019 Posted in Green Building, Green Globes, IgCC, LEED

In response to an act of the Maryland legislature in 2018, the state is proposing a watershed revamp of its current mandatory green building requirements for new public school buildings. The public is being invited to comment on the proposal. Existing State Finance and Procurement Section 4-809(f) was amended adding new section (6), providing in … Continue Reading

GSA Reviews more than 100 Green Building Systems and Selects 5

By Stuart Kaplow on May 26, 2019 Posted in Federal, Green Globes, LEED

Section 436(h) of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires the General Services Administration’s Office of Federal High-Performance Buildings to complete a review of high performance building certification systems every 5 years. After the review, GSA recommends to the Secretary of Energy the building certification systems most likely to encourage a comprehensive approach … Continue Reading

Green Globes New Multifamily Rating Systems Respond to the Market

By Stuart Kaplow on August 26, 2018 Posted in Green Building, Green Globes

On July 11 the Green Building Initiative launched the Green Globes Multifamily for New Construction and Green Globes Multifamily for Existing Buildings. While certainly there is a market in developers of newly constructed multifamily buildings, spending on multifamily construction was more than $61 Billion in 2017, being 18% of all new residential construction spending, up … Continue Reading

Green Building that Cleans the Air

By Stuart Kaplow on June 17, 2018 Posted in Green Building, Green Globes, LEED

Today’s green building standards, rating systems and codes are stale, largely based in decades old science and do not go far enough to be efficacious for most business to invest in. This is no longer a genuine debate over the negative environmental impact that buildings have on the planet. But the green building industrial complex … Continue Reading

Your ENERGY STAR Score is About to Fall Precipitously

By Stuart Kaplow on June 10, 2018 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Energy, Green Building, Green Globes, LEED

Building owners that utilize ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager will see a dramatic change in the 1 to 100 ENERGY STAR scores after August 26, 2018. Every score model we reviewed saw a drop in ENERGY STAR score except hotels. You have 75 days to act. The change is significant for buildings pursuing LEED or Green … Continue Reading

The World is being Forced to Rethink Recycling

By Stuart Kaplow on April 29, 2018 Posted in Environmental, Green Globes, LEED, recycling

Maybe not since Plato wrote about the value of reusing waste in the fourth century BC has recycling undergone the wide fluctuation, good and bad, that we are seeing right now. Today, the world has been forced to rethink its approach to waste. China is driving the change in recycling. Most recently, China imposed a … Continue Reading

Saint Paul Green With Envy

By Stuart Kaplow on January 21, 2018 Posted in City, Green Building, Green Globes

When the Saint Paul City Council votes this Wednesday on Ordinance 17-60 it should amend the legislation to not delete, from the existing law, Green Globes as one of the approved green building standards. The work product of an advisory committee of experts, Ord 17-60 Sustainable Building Regulation Ordinance, alters and amends the 2009 Resolution … Continue Reading

Green Globes Acquired by GBI Expanding Sustainability

By Stuart Kaplow on January 14, 2018 Posted in Green Building, Green Globes

Last week Green Building Initiative announced that it had completed the bold and innovative acquisition of Green Globes from JLL and I had an opportunity to speak with Vicki Worden, President and CEO of GBI and Bob Best, Executive Vice President of JLL. In 2008, JLL, a Fortune 500 company with more than $50 billion … Continue Reading

Green Globes to be Approved in Maryland

By Stuart Kaplow on August 27, 2017 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Green Building, Green Globes, LEED, State

Last week the Maryland Green Building Council voted unanimously to recommend that Green Globes, at the two Green Globes level, be approved by the Maryland Secretaries of Budget and Management and General Services as a “high performance building” as defined in Maryland law. The vote is being widely heralded as a significant step forward in … Continue Reading

Is the 2018 IgCC Doomed to Fail?

By Stuart Kaplow on May 14, 2017 Posted in Codes and Regulations, Green Building, Green Globes, IgCC, LEED

Last week the ICC and ASHRAE issued joint news releases on the status of the “unified green building code that could become the foundation for LEED certification” that will be published as the 2018 version of the International Green Construction Code. This blog regularly advances the postulate that green building is the ideal means of … Continue Reading

Green Building Transactional Due Diligence

By Stuart Kaplow on January 15, 2017 Posted in Green Building, Green Globes, IgCC, LEED, Local Government

As ever larger numbers of green buildings are bought and sold, due diligence related to the green features of commercial buildings takes on an increasing importance. But apparently most real estate due diligence checklists are stuck in the 1980s and while they address matters ranging from title and zoning to tenants and leases, as well … Continue Reading

Junk Science And Heat Island Effect Revealed at Greenbuild

By Stuart Kaplow on October 5, 2016 Posted in Environmental, Green Building, Green Globes, IgCC, LEED

Among the most interesting exhibitors at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo this week in Los Angeles (.. and okay, the virtual reality experience from the View glass people is pretty wild) may be the Asphalt Pavement Alliance challenging what we thought we knew about urban heat island effect with peer reviewed research from Arizona … Continue Reading

Supreme Court Decision is Good for Green Globes

By Stuart Kaplow on July 3, 2016 Posted in Environmental, Federal, Green Building, Green Globes, Sustainability

The recent unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Kingdomware Technologies, Inc. v. United States, is a win for small businesses and very good for those that work on Green Globes projects. In an effort to encourage small businesses, Congress has mandated that federal agencies restrict competition for some federal contracts. The Small Business … Continue Reading

Now is the Time to Revise your Green Building Contracts

By Stuart Kaplow on April 3, 2016 Posted in Green Building, Green Globes, LEED, Sustainability

Today is the day to revise your contracts for sustainable projects. With the U.S. Green Building Council’s recent announcement that all new projects registering for LEED 2009 beginning later this week, on April 8, 2016, will need to satisfy increased minimum energy performance thresholds, everyone involved with LEED projects should promptly review their contract documents … Continue Reading

Vicki Worden on the New Green Globes and Her Commitment to the Mission

By Stuart Kaplow on October 18, 2015 Posted in Green Building, Green Globes

I had an opportunity some days ago to speak at length with Vicki Worden, the Executive Director of Green Building Initiative. Readers of this blog will be interested in what this thought leader in the green building movement has to say. We spoke after the public comment period commenced on the GBI’s revision to its … Continue Reading