Builders Urge Green Building Subsidies

Building green may offer its own payback, but to squeeze the greatest energy efficiencies out of new and existing buildings will require government subsidies.

That’s the gist of a report on green buildings released Monday by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. The report claims that, with enough investment, buildings in Brazil, China, Europe, India, Japan and the United States could cut as much energy use as that now used by transportation and industry worldwide by 2050.
But getting there will take more money than “justifiable on economic return grounds at today’s energy prices,” the report claimed – and that’s where the subsidies will come in.

Buildings account for about two-fifths of the energy used in the world today, with about 80 percent of that coming from heating, lighting, powering and otherwise keeping them running. The remainder comes from making and transporting building materials, construction and maintenance, but Monday’s report didn’t focus on those costs.

Plenty of energy efficiency steps are economically justifiable today, the report found. That’s in keeping with several studies of green building that show paybacks come not just in energy savings, but in the increased valuation and rents that green buildings can command.

Greentech Media