CALGREEN BUILDING CODE TRANSITIONS INTO EFFECT

October 2, 2009 on 12:05 am | In Green Building, Green Cities, Solutions, Trends, Uncategorized, all |

CALGREEN BUILDING CODE TRANSITIONS INTO EFFECT

By Jodi Summers

We always find these to be statistics to think about - buildings account for 39 percent of the energy used in the United States, 71 percent of electricity use, and 39 percent of C02 emission.

Our new CALGREEN Code state building code – which went into effect August 1st - aims to improve the odds. Adherence to the code is voluntary until 2010, then the provisions are expected to become mandatory.

“It is imperative to expedite the greening of California’s building standards,” Governor Schwarzenegger stated. “As such, I am directing the California Building Standards Commission to work with specified state agencies on the adoption of green building standards for residential, commercial, and public building construction for the 2010 code adoption process.”

State officials say that if all of the green-building measures were enacted, buildings would at least be comparable to the requirements of a silver rating under the LEED standards set by the USGBC.

A recent report by McKinsey & Company notes that the U.S. economy has the potential to reduce annual non-transportation energy consumption by roughly 23 percent by 2020, eliminating more than $1.2 trillion in waste.

By establishing the CALGREEN Code, the California Building Standards Commission

is setting minimum green-building standards that may, at the discretion of any local government entity, be applied. Local governments such as West Hollywood, Santa Monica and Los Angeles have already set up codes that exceed the CBSC standards.

The purpose of the code is to improve public health, safety and general welfare by enhancing the design and construction of buildings through the use of building concepts that have a positive environmental impact, and by encouraging sustainable construction practices in the following categories:

• Planning and design

• Energy efficiency

• Water efficiency and conservation

• Material conservation and resource efficiency

• Environmental air quality

The Governor notes that the CBSC and the other agencies are further developing the framework to include mandatory measures in the 2010 CALGREEN Code. Stakeholder workshops begin March 26, with technical review and public comment scheduled for later in the year. The 2010 version is planned to become effective on January 1, 2011.

**

http://www.newsreview.com/chico/content?oid=1052010

http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/electricpowernaturalgas/US_energy_efficiency/

http://www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/green/meetings/brochure090508.pdf

http://www.buildersbook.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=BBI2411A08&Category_Code=97b

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/04/sb_presentations/source/7.htm

7 Comments »

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  1. Great, thanks for the article!

    Comment by Emily — October 2, 2009 #

  2. The 2008 Green Building Standards Code, went into effect on August 1, 2009. The code is currently voluntary unless otherwise adopted by local jurisdictions as mandatory. State mandatory compliance will take effect in 2011.

    SB 1473 (Stats, 2008, c. 719, Calderon) went into effect on January 1, 2009. See Building Standards Bulletin 08-01 for a summary of the law’s implementation.

    Comment by CAL Green — October 5, 2009 #

  3. Mortgages with less than 10% deposit should be prohibited.

    Comment by Bridging Loans — January 3, 2010 #

  4. The Earth Advantage Institute reported that design professionals should watch for the following green trends in 2010: (1) homes connected to the smart grid, (2) energy labeling for homes and buildings; (3) BIM software advances, (4) financial community buy-in to green building; (5) “rightsizing” of homes; (6) eco-districts; (7) water conservation; (8) carbon calculations; (9) net zero buildings; and (10) sustainable building education.

    Comment by Earth Advantage Institute — February 5, 2010 #

  5. AB 32 AUTHOR DEFENDS CLIMATE CHANGE LAW

    Senator Fran Pavley (D-Santa Monica) one of the original and strongest proponents of California Climate Change laws has penned an article responding to recent criticisms of the law. In an effort to make sure our members understand both side of the argument, here is a piece by the author.

    “When AB 32, California’s landmark global warming law, was being debated in the legislature, a coalition of polluters and their misguided allies opposed the bill. This week these same opponents, who have also fought against clean air and water quality laws, are unveiling an initiative to suspend AB 32, predicting the sky will fall if the law is implemented. They predict that thousands of Californians would lose their jobs, and it will crush small businesses. There are even blaming the current loss of jobs on AB 32, but new emission reductions don’t even begin until 2012, and then are gradually phased in by 2020.”

    Comment by Senator Fran Pavley (D-Santa Monica) — February 5, 2010 #

  6. Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-14), Chair, Committee on Natural Resources, working in partnership with California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr., has introduced AB 2514 (available here) – new legislation that will create a smarter, cleaner electric grid, increase the use of renewable energy, provide Californians with significant savings by avoiding costly new power plants and transmission lines, and reduce air pollution. This transformative legislation will also create thousands of permanent new green-collar jobs.

    AB 2514 will achieve these benefits by closing the gap between the United States and other nations in investments and deployments of energy storage, a booming “green” industry that represents a significant economic development opportunity for California.

    By mandating that utilities incorporate energy storage capacity – 2.25% of daytime peak demand for power by 2014 and 5% of peak demand by 2020 – the bill will provide much-needed lower electricity costs to consumers. Greater use of energy storage will provide the State with a cleaner and less costly alternative to the high costs of generating and supplying primarily fossil fuel-based power for only part-time daytime peak demand for power.

    “Energy storage is the future — it’s a fast-growing clean technology industry that will save the state money and reduce pollution,” said Attorney General Jerry Brown, the bill’s sponsor. “What’s even better is that this new technology could create 8,500 new jobs in California during the next decade.”

    Comment by PR Newswire — March 1, 2010 #

  7. What each conception of waste has in common is the notion of something cast off. Often these cast-offs wind up by the side of the road or in a landfill. Sometimes people find value in them–table scrapings that become a meal for man or beast; discarded bottles that are recycled into new ones; industrial waste that becomes a feedstock to an entirely different process. Most recently, U.S. castoffs are trending downward. Even in categories where more waste is actually generated, less is simply discarded in favor of some type of reclamation.(1) Not only did we avoid a “garbage crisis” in the 1980s, but also, in the late 1990s, there are significant reasons to believe that ever-increasing waste is not inevitable. For the forces of the 1980s have led to a contextual shift in how we view waste today. Seen from the new perspective offered by industrial ecology in the broader framework of sustainable development, far fewer materials need be considered waste.

    Comment by TrMarian R. Chertow — July 19, 2010 #

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