Measuring the Green Mile
I sometimes wonder about the economic cost of the foot. I’m not talking about the body part, mind you, but the unit of measurement, arch-rival to the meter. During the great wave of globalization, we’ve relied on two competing systems of measurement. What inefficiencies did this produce?
In the fight against climate change, many obstacles to effective policy continually emerge, but one of them is not the unit of measurement. And least that’s what I’ve assumed. Everyone agrees to speak in MTCO2e, after all. (That’s a metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent, to the uninitiated.) All global warming gasses can have their impact on the climate translated into MTCO2e. This allows methane released in China to match up against tailpipe emissions from California, as both can be translated quickly and reliably into MTCO2e.
But can you do the same for a green building? Erect a new building an in America and the US Green Building Council (USGBC) may label it LEED Gold. Build the same building in Britain and USGBC’s British counterpart BREEAM may – or may not – call it Outstanding. Wouldn’t it be great if the standard setters got together and agreed on one standard and one set of terminology?
That’s why the news that USGBC signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with BREEAM and the Australian equivalent this week caught my eye.
The groups will work together to create uniform standards for green building around the world. These codes have proven enormously beneficial at providing benchmarks for builders in these countries, helping define exactly what makes a building green. This effort targets a crucial sector. Residential and business buildings account for almost 39 percent of the US’s emissions, for example, according Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO and Founding Chairman of the US Green Building Council.
A uniform set of green building standards around the world would be a huge asset to the fight against climate change.
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