Greening Up Buildings Can Be a Double-Edge Sword

by Tony Chavira

It’s past the point where we even have to question whether or not we should green up your buildings with that winning combo of passive (like slanting roofs, double paned windows, etc) and mechanical systems (like solar panels, waterless toilets, etc).  When you can save both money and the Earth, what’s stopping the progress?  Nothing, that’s what.

But at the same time, taking buildings that have already been built and trying to green them up can have only two possible outcomes: a) you dump a ton of cash into them to make them sustainable or b) keep ‘em energy inefficient in an era when it looks like making structures environmentally-sound will soon be mandated.  It's especially hard for those out there who are looking to green their homes or structures and may have to follow strict guidelines imposed by historical preservationists and city codes related to preservation... sometimes it's hard enough for those people just to maintain their homes, let alone upgrade them.  That said, the Times Online has an article that will (and should) put preservationists around the world into gigantic hissy-fits:

Huge expanses of British town and city centres built in the Sixties and Seventies may have to be torn down to meet carbon emission standards for buildings.

In an interview with The Times, the Government’s new chief construction adviser said that there may be no choice but to demolish buildings put up in those decades because it is impossible to refurbish them to a sufficiently high standard.

Paul Morrell, who took up his new post at the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills at the end of November last year, said: “In the Sixties, everything was built cheaper, faster and nastier. If you are going to try to fix buildings, then really you won’t have too many problems with anything built earlier than the Fifties or after the Eighties.

"Although you can do some things to buildings from the Sixties and Seventies, like replacing the roofs, there are probably some places that need to come down entirely.”

Mr Morrell has been charged with ridding the construction industry of carbon to meet a government target to cut UK carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, compared with levels in the Nineties. He said that problem areas were likely to be places such as Newcastle city centre, where a lot of buildings went up in the Sixties and Seventies.

Morrell actually points out later in the article that the structures that’ll probably get torn down are “semi-industrialised, highly inefficient, badly insulated and so ugly that they are not worth refurbishing” which sounds good to the average internet article glancer, except that the process of demolishing and construction also come with environmental costs like clean-up and shipping in new materials.

Not that dilapidated buildings should hang around in our neighborhoods and rot away… they really should be managed one way or another.  On the same hand, Kaid Benfiend at the NRDC has a few interesting points about turning existing buildings into sustainable ones, commenting on a great post by Urban Omnibus writer Vanessa Keith:

Vanessa Keith has written an outstanding post on the greening of urban buildings and neighborhoods, on the blog Urban Omnibus, a project of the Architectural League of New York.  She begins by noting that “tabula rasa eco-cities trumpeting their green credentials and high levels of environmental sustainability” are being built or proposed across the globe (see, for example, near the end of this post), and queries:ACROS Building, Fukuoka, Japan (By: Pontofon, Wikimedia Commons) “one might ask, with all the urban fabric which currently exists, why build at all, and most especially on such a massive scale?”  Instead, Keith suggests that we add green features to the places we already have.

I couldn’t agree more.  Particularly given that so many US cities have underutilized infrastructure left from the days of urban flight, and given that central city neighborhoods have the lowest per capita environmental footprint, paving over farmland, forests or desert to accommodate the latest green technology just doesn’t make sense.

In fact, one can even make the argument (and some do) that one doesn’t need green features in the city, since the city is inherently green.  I would certainly agree that, at least in terms of regulation, greater burdens should be placed on new suburban developments.  But I also think all development should contribute to environmental health and, besides, many of the techniques we might apply to green city neighborhoods produce multiple benefits for livability, making cities all the more appealing.

What say you though, average Joe and Jane Green-Lover?  Do the costs of revamping existing structures outweigh the benefits?  Would it just be smarter to tear them down? 

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