Green Building Ordinance of San Francisco - Essay Example

San Francisco has long been recognized one of the greenest cities in the world. In December of at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, the city of San Francisco received the World Green Building Council’s Government Leadership Awards for Excellence in City Policy for Green Building (Livitt). The San Francisco Green Building Ordinance also received the Best Green Building Policy award. According to the World Green Building Council’s Award Publication, “San Francisco’s Green Building Ordinance requirements represent the most comprehensive policy approach to the building environment undertaken by any American city” (Livitt). Along with other five international cities, San Francisco is considered as a pioneer in environmental building policy. The San Francisco Green Building Ordinance is designed to effectively transform the construction industry by becoming more environmentally friendly. It also successfully demonstrates how green buildings benefit communities by stimulating local green business opportunities. The Green Building Ordinance is considered as a role model in promoting the green building concept to local residents and other cities. The San Francisco Green Building Ordinance, which is a part of the San Francisco Sustainable Buildings Program, provides residents with a sustainable living environment because it is a well-developed system that uses advanced design. Although many people believe that recycling construction materials raises construction costs, the San Francisco Green Building Ordinance provides many convenient approaches for building professionals to fulfill the requirements. Furthermore, recycling construction materials will reduce raw material consumption and sustain our environment in the long term. According to James Mascia, a reporter for the L.A Times, “the cost of recycling is far higher than just throwing all the trash into a landfill.” Recycling construction debris requires special diverting facilities and machines to perform the job. Traditionally, construction debris will be processed at a junkyard. Much of the construction debris goes to landfill regardless of the content of the construction waste. On the other hand, new construction recycling facilities will separate construction waste that is not renewable from the recyclable material and then send the reusable material back to the recycling factories. However, this process requires a lot of labor and finance input. Also, it directly causes construction costs to be higher than when traditional ways are used. According to a California government liaison, the city only has to pay $28 per ton of trash to send it to a landfill; recycling the same amount of trash costs close to $150. The cost difference here is astounding, and it isnt the city picking up the tab; it is the taxpayers. The city also has to pay private companies to come and take recycled materials off its hands. However, looking at the bigger picture, the construction industry produces the most waste today. According to the 2008 Statewide Waste Characterization Study contracted for the California Integrated Waste Management Board, “construction and demolition (C&D) materials account for 29 percent of the waste stream. Many of these materials can be reused or recycled, thus prolonging our supply of natural resources and potentially saving money in the process” (Statewide Waste Characterization Study). Also, according to the San Francisco Department of Environment, “construction and demolition waste make up about 22% of all solid waste in San Francisco” San Francisco Department of the Environment). As an example, 7,000 pounds of waste is produced from the construction of a new 2,000-sq. ft. custom home San Francisco Department of the Environment). The necessities of the construction waste divert plan are obvious. The San Francisco Green Building Ordinance requires construction projects to recycle 30 percent of construction waste during the construction stage and provide onsite recycling facilities throughout the lifetime of the building. On the other hand, the Green Building Ordinance also demands that construction projects establish a construction waste material recycling plan. This plan should be prepared by design professionals and submitted to the city building department for approval. The advantage of the San Francisco Green Building Ordinance is that the ordinance provides many approaches in order to meet the ordinance’s requirements. Construction professionals can use any code that is an accepted method in order to establish a recycling plan through the design stage to the building maintenance stage. Also, the ordinance allows contractors to recycle some of the construction waste onsite, such as reusing concrete from the demolition. This will reduce recycling costs on specializing recycling facilities. The Green Building Ordinance effectively regulates the construction industry by recycling construction materials and produce environment friendly products. Although many other cities have their own sustainable building requirements, San Francisco’s Green Building Ordinance helps buildings reduce energy consumption over the lifetime of a building. According to the San Francisco Department of the Environment, “in the United States, buildings account for 70 percent of electricity consumption; in California, homes account for 31 percent of overall energy use. Energy efficiency and renewable energy are critical to the long-term viability of the building environment” (San Francisco Department of the Environment). Most sustainable building ordinances in other cities simply require buildings to comply with California’s Green Building Code requirements, which reduce 15 percent of energy consumption. However, the San Francisco Green Building Ordinance goes far beyond the Green Building Code requirements. The ordinance takes a building’s energy performance as an important factor in determining energy consumption. A building’s energy performance is regarded as the critical first step towards improving energy efficiency in existing buildings. The ordinance requires construction projects to employ professional energy raters in order to perform energy ratings for the building. The design of the building depends on the rating—a rating report will be documented by the city’s building inspection department. The inspector will enforce the contractor to perform the energy upgrade according to the design. Mayor Edwin Lee commented, “San Francisco needs to increase the energy and resource efficiency of existing buildings if we are going to meet our aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets. This ordinance not only helps educate building owners about what they need to do to save energy and money, but it will also boost our local green jobs economy” (Guevarra). This unique design of the ordinance provides green building a way in which to achieve higher energy efficiency. The Green Building Ordinance also offers other approaches to achieve energy efficiency requirements. “Millions of dollars go wasted every year because buildings arent as energy-efficient as they could be,” said Steven Ring, who is a commercial real estate broker at Cushman and Wakefield (“San Francisco pushes for “green” buildings”). When energy efficiency is built-in, the ordinance requires proper maintenance to ensure long-term savings. On the other hand, the ordinance also encourages adding renewable energy to highly efficient buildings, because it can minimize or even eliminate energy costs. According to the SPUR Sustainable Development Committee, “Energy efficiency is particularly attractive because its costs and economic benefits can be accurately projected and measured, and the benefits typically outweigh the costs” (SPUR). This further proves that energy efficiency is important in sustaining our environment. The San Francisco Ordinance is designed to achieve the better energy efficiency. Although San Francisco knows little about sustainable buildings and their benefit to the environment, the city of San Francisco has turned itself into a role model to promote the sustainable buildings by turning municipal buildings into green buildings. According to the San Francisco Department of Environment, “the city and county of San Francisco is committed to leadership by example. We apply the highest standards in the city to the buildings owned and operated by the city government. SF Environment provides tools, standards, professional networks, experts, and education to help new municipal buildings and leaseholds meet their potential for environmental excellence” (San Francisco Department of the Environment). The San Francisco Green Building Ordinance provides communication among city departments on green building issues and policy development, and also supports the integration of green building practices into city departments. One significant example that the ordinance recognizes is the impacts made on our planet by purchasing and using tropical hardwood and virgin redwood products in building construction and renovation. This ordinance prohibits the city from purchasing and using wood from tropical rainforests and virgin redwood products, so as to maintain biodiversity, historical significance, and ecological stability. According to Mayor Edwin M. Lee, “the board of supervisors updated the Municipal Green Building Code to require U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification for all municipal construction and major renovation projects over 5,000 square feet after September 1, 2011” (Azouaou). This makes San Francisco a role model in promoting sustainable buildings to other cities. The unique design of San Francisco’s Green Building Ordinance could stimulate the local green economy and produce job opportunities. Furthermore, the Green Building Ordinance creates a new market for green building businesses. “San Francisco needs to increase the energy and resource efficiency of existing buildings if we are going to meet our aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets,” Mayor Lee said in a statement (Guevarra). “This new green building code will educate building owners about what they need to do to save energy and money, and boost our local green economy” (Guevarra). The Green Building Ordinance requires construction work under its jurisdiction to obtain certificates from three parties. These certificates include a green point rated certificate by Build it Green, or leadership in energy efficiency design (LEED), which is operated by the US Green Building Council. The certificate must be issued by a certificated green building professional. This green building professional will recommend the approved innovative green building material or technology to contractors. This will further stimulate the green construction market. On the other hand, the Green Building Ordinance also sets the threshold of the construction work that needs to meet the green building requirements. This is critical, because not every construction project needs to fulfill the green building requirements. Works Cited Azouaou, Sophie. “SF Mayor Edwin Lee introduces municipal Green building standards ordinance”. Examiner.com. n.p., 19 July 2011. Web. 24 May 2012. . Statewide Waste Characterization Study. CalRecycle Publications Catalog. Ca.gov. 10 November 2009. 24 May 2012 . Guevarra, Leslie. “SF Requires Energy Audits, Benchmarking for Commercial Buildings.” GreenBiz.com. 10 February 2011, n.p. Web. 24 May 2012 . Livitt, Alicia. “San Francisco Awarded WorldGBS’s “Best Green Building Policy””. Sustainable Building Advisor Program. 6 January 2012. Web. 24 May 2012 . San Francisco Department of the Environment. “Green Materials and Resources”. n.d. Web. 24 May 2012 . SPUR. “Green Buildings”. June 2001. Web. 24 May 2012. . “San Francisco pushes for green buildings”. UPI.com. 10 February 2011. Web. 2012 May 2012 . Read More