Last week, the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Sustainability (OOS) released Powering Our Future: A Clean Energy Vision for Philadelphia. The report is a roadmap for how the City of Philadelphia can meet its goal to reduce citywide carbon emissions 80 percent by the year 2050.

The report begins by identifying the city’s sources of carbon emissions. It comes as no surprise to Green Building United that buildings and industry are responsible for 79 percent of carbon emissions citywide. Our focus is on buildings because they are both the biggest problem and the best opportunity to fight climate change locally. What’s more, efforts to reduce climate and environmental impacts from buildings also improves occupant health and comfort and lowers operating costs.

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To address the staggering percentage of citywide carbon emissions stemming from buildings and industry, the report is organized into opportunity areas, each with its own action-oriented playbook.

Green Building United and its members are already working hard to support many of the recommended playbook actions through legislative advocacy, policy implementation, and strategic initiatives.

In particular, we are pleased to note that two of Green Building United’s strategic initiatives — Commercial Energy Codes and the Philadelphia 2030 District — can generate significant carbon and cost savings. Each works in tandem with our Energy Benchmarking initiative, a partnership with the City of Philadelphia, which helps to measure and track the impact of updated Commercial Energy Codes and the Philadelphia 2030 District.

Commercial Energy Codes

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This May, Philadelphia City Council unanimously voted to adopt modern building codes in Philadelphia, and the bill was promptly signed into law by Mayor Kenney. Green Building United’s members were at the forefront of advocacy efforts to support the bill’s passage.

In a just matter of months, Philadelphia transformed from lagging nearly a decade behind its peers to a nationwide leader in modern code adoption. The 2018 International Codes represent an increase in energy efficiency of over 30 percent as compared to current codes. Per Powering Our Future, the carbon savings from updating commercial energy codes is 186,830 metric tons and the annual cost savings is $51,304,207.

Training for and communication between the architecture, engineering and construction industries and the code enforcement community is essential for the City’s full carbon and cost savings potential to be realized. To that end, Green Building United and its partners will offer trainings and networking opportunities to support implementation of new commercial energy codes beginning this fall.

Philadelphia 2030 District 

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Green Building United convenes the Philadelphia 2030 District, a voluntary, private-sector led effort by the owners, managers, and developers of the city’s largest properties to achieve deep reductions in energy use, water use, and transportation emissions.

The initiative seeks to improve efficiency in the building sector in Philadelphia with the goal to lower costs, reduce carbon emissions, improve indoor air quality and tenant comfort, and improve the resiliency of the city’s new and existing building stock.

The value of participation in the 2030 District extends well beyond improving upon the performance of and adding value to their assets of participating property owners and managers; the impacts of the initiative reach citywide. Per Powering Our Future, the carbon savings from executing the Philadelphia 2030 District is 525,560 metric tons and the annual cost savings is a whopping $162,856,453.

With more than 19.5 million square feet committed to meeting the district’s goals to date, the Philadelphia 2030 District is continuing to expand its number of property partners and the number and types of committed buildings. In addition, Green Building United will continue to broadening the range and depth of its educational offerings and increase its networking opportunities to help partners meet the reduction goals to maximize the benefit to all Philadelphians.

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We look forward to continuing to work with OOS  to fight climate change locally while fulfilling the vision of a clean, affordable, and healthy energy future for Philadelphia.  

For timely updates on our work, please follow up on Facebook and Twitter.