Word of the Day: "Green" ... or maybe "Hot"? Reflections from AIA2011

On Thursday at the 2011 AIA national convention, the key word at many of the presentations I sat in on seemed to be “green”—or possibly also “hot”.  In the morning, Thomas Friedman spoke at the opening general session.  Much of his presentation seemed to relate to his 2009 book, “Hot Flat & Crowded”, about the continued expansion of globalization, population growth, and impact of climate change.  While “green” has been a theme at industry meetings for years, Mr. Friedman brought some interesting new perspective to it instead of just repeating the same points that have already been made.  I particularly liked his “glass half full” view of how globalization & climate change brings great risks but also great opportunities for design & construction and the U.S. as a nation.  For a more detailed description of his presentation, check out this summary on the AIA website.

 In the afternoon I attended sessions on the International Green Construction Code (IGCC) and the AIA 2030 initiative.  The IGCC is a collaborative effort involving the International Code Council, AIA, USGBC, and other groups to set a new minimum standard for green building.  Rather than the LEED approach, where performance criteria are optional and projects opt-in to pursue certification, the IGCC is viewed as a way to mandate minimum levels of sustainable construction using our existing infrastructure of building codes and local enforcement officials.   It was particularly interesting to hear about how implementation of IGCC will ideally free up LEED to innovate further and continue to lead the industry (no pun intended) in setting higher optional standards.  IGCC will set a baseline standard for all buildings (at least in those jurisdictions that choose to adopt it), while LEED will continue to represent the top level of green buildings.

My final session of the afternoon was an update on the AIA 2030 initiative.  AIA 2030 is a program to make a 100% reduction in building energy use by the year 2030, to net zero.  Individual architecture firms opt-in to participate in the program, and part of their participation includes tracking energy design and performance data for the projects they are involved with.  The first year’s results have now been released, with about 130 firms participating and approximately half of those reporting design data from their projects.  To put it in perspective, one of the presenters shared that in the year 2000, the U.S. had about 300 billion square feet of buildings.  Due to continued population growth, it is predicted that we’ll need about 430 billion square feet of buildings by 2030.  Last fall, the USGBC announced that over 1 billion square feet of buildings have been LEED certified in the ten-year history of LEED.  In their first year of data collection, the AIA 2030 program reported design data for 385 million square feet of buildings—pretty impressive for the first year!  For more information, check out the full results here.