PreserveNJ

According to the National Trust’s Preservation Nation blog, the US Green Building Council has decided to launch an interim version of LEED this year called LEED 3.0, with public comment sought before May 1st, adoption by the membership at GreenBuild in November and going into effect about Jan. 1, 2009.

According to Barbara Campagna, Graham Gund Architect of the National Trust, LEED 3.0 will adopt a new system where the credits are weighted according to Life Cycle Analysis Indicators. The amount of LEED points a building will get will be different for every building depending on its materials, their durability, etc. In many cases it may mean more points for existing buildings, but more importantly, the inherent durability and embodied energy will be much better represented, where it currently is not addressed at all.

The historic preservation community has been concerned about the present LEED point system, because current version (LEED 2.2):

1. Overlooks the impact of projects on cultural value;

2. Does not effectively consider the performance, longer service lives and embodied energy of historic materials and assemblies;

3. And is overly focused on current or future technologies, neglecting how past experience helps to determine sustainable performance.

Exciting and important news for all of us who recognize the sustainability value of existing, historic buildings. Many thanks to the National Trust and partners for working closely with USGBC on this terrific step forward!

A recent article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper reports that the Empty Homes Agency charity (UK), suggests that developers have overestimated the amount of overall CO2 saved by building new energy-efficient homes. Its report, titled ‘New Tricks With Old Bricks’, says reusing and refurbishing existing and empty properties could actually save more carbon dioxide than constructing new ones.

Preservationists and environmentalists have rallied together for the Takanassee Beach Club in Long Branch, NJ. Protesting the proposed construction of a nineteen home community on this site, which is one of the last undeveloped coastline parcels in the region and has three historic lifesaving structures buildings that are virtually unaltered, the advocates for the Beach Club have urged the DEP to deny the Coastal Area Facility Review Act (CAFRA) permit that is required to develop the oceanfront site.
Meanwhile an ethics complaint has been filed by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility against an aide at the DEP Commissioner’s Office for violating due process and sharing information and ‘providing coaching’ to the developer.

Read another great NY Times article about the sustainability advantages of preserving existing buildings.

The National Trust’s Dick Moe points out in his recent remarks upon receiving the National Building Museum’s Vincent Scully Prize:

• About 80 billion BTUs of energy are embodied in a typical 50,000 sf commercial building. The equivalent of 640,000 gallons of gasoline. Tear it down - all that embodied energy is wasted.
• Demolish the same building = 4,000 tons of waste, enough to fill 26 boxcars, a train 1/4 mile long headed for an already-full landfill
• The new building replacing the demolished one takes even more energy, uses more natural resources and releases more pollutants and greenhouse gases into the environment. It’s estimated that constructing a new 50,000 sf commercial building releases about the same amount of CO2 into the air as driving a car 2.8 million miles!

“The greenest home…may be the one you live in now, given the cost in dollars and pollution of ripping out old materials and producing and shipping new ones,” the Wall Street Journal quotes the National Trust last week. The payback time on many “green” building products is longer than many Americans live in their houses.

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Campbell Soup Co. announced last Wednesday it will proceed with its expansion
and redevelopment plan without demolishing the historic Sears Building
on Admiral Wilson Boulevard. A flurry of lawsuits filed by the private owner of the Sears Building, city gadfly Frank Fulbrook and a neighboring businessman have slowed the
process to the point that the world’s largest soup maker has decided it
will expand around the former retail store, rather than continue to try
to acquire it at this time. (Courier Post article)

Tons of demolition debris - NOT in the landfill!

Data from the U.S. Energy Information Agency indicates that buildings constructed before 1920 are actually more energy efficient than buildings built at any time afterward - except for many built after 2000. And the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) examined its building inventory and found that utility costs for historic buildings were 27% lower than for more modern buildings.

The thick, solid walls that create greater thermal mass reduce the amount of energy needed for heating and cooling. Transoms, high ceilings, large windows and other features of older buildings allow more natural light and ventilation, and shaded porches and deep roof overhangs reduce solar gain.