Vancouver, Canada (GLOBE-Net) - Green buildings represent the best opportunity in North America to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions according to a panel of experts who spoke at GLOBE 2008.  In order to take full advantage of this opportunity several barriers across the building sector must be removed.

In North America buildings are responsible for 35% of all GHG emissions and with respect to achieving climate change goals are the ‘lowest hanging fruit’ but so far only 4% of North America’s buildings are ‘sustainable’.  The number can be much higher.according to Jonathan Westeinde, Chair of the Advisory Group for Green Buildings in North America for the Commission for Environmental Cooperation.

He believes that targeting buildings is the quickest most cost effective way of reducing emissions and that energy reductions of 50% to 70% are achievable through simple lighting changes and improvements to building envelopes.

In addition to the energy and emission benefits, green buildings also offer improved water conservation, waste management, sustainable communities and better indoor air quality for improved tenant health.

Although a growing number of new building developments in North America are seeking LEED certification, Westeinde says that the green building movement in North America is movingtoo slowly when compared to Europe.

"We have all the tools to create more sustainable buildings" he says, "it is just a matter of removing several institutional barriers."

The most significant barrier is the current lack of interaction between building developers and building operators.  Under the current North American system, building developers focus on capital expenditure and have no stake in building operations or a building’s full life-cycle.

Green buildings are designed to provide significant savings in utility costs for building operators but at an increased capital cost.  Unfortunately building developers do not share in these savings and face little incentive to move beyond the ‘business as usual’ approach for building design.

To solve this problem the panel suggested building operators could offer developers financial incentives based on the potential utility savings that would be achieved through a more sustainable design.

The panel also suggested that financial institutions should become more involved and incorporate carbon exposure risk into lending profiles to dissuade less efficient building projects.

Private investors and companies could also play an important role in offsetting capital costs while earning back revenue by providing renewable energy to the building.

"We’re stuck in a design approach to prevent things from going wrong which promotes overdesign.  We need to design for efficiency."
- Jonathan Westeinde, CEC

The economy of the green building sector is volume based, meaning capital cost will decrease as the demand for green buildings increases.  It is estimated that capital costs could drop as much as 50% if green buildings were more widely adopted.

The small number of green buildings in North America (4 percent) is also making developers and owners apprehensive about the risks and increased capital costs associated with the market.  More real life examples, which successfully demonstrate the benefits of green buildings, would likely increase confidence in the market.

According to the panel several good examples of green buildings in North America do exist, many of which can be found in the CEC publication Green Buildling in North America: Opportunities and Challenges.

The panel also agreed that the slow response of North American governments at the federal, provincial and municipal levels to incorporate green design criteria into building codes has been an impediment to the expansion of the market.

Currently the differences between existing guidelines and verification systems are creating confusion in the industry as to what is truly sustainable.   The panel believes that it is up to North American governments to establish consistent, national, green building codes and practices similar to those observed in Europe.

In the United Kingdom, for example, the government has made it a requirement to disclose all environmental and energy efficiency information for new buildings before they can be sold.  All information must be verified by a third party audit.

Canada and the United States also have the lowest research and development budget for green buildings compared to other developed nations while European countries have highest.

Although this is currently stalling green building advances in North America, there is a growing opportunity to leapfrog the technologies developed by other nations.

Unfortunately there is a resulting shortage of an experienced and qualified work force capable of working with such technologies according Rodney McDonald, Chair of the Canada Green Building Council, Manitoba Chapter.

The expert panel made it decisively clear that North America is on the cusp of a green building explosion, all that is required is better communication and awareness between the government, developers, building operators and financial institutions.

"There’s no reason why this can’t happen.  There’s nothing missing except awareness and education," said Westeinde.