Sustainable Development Focus
Bisnow - Sep 19 San Francisco-based CleanFund closed six transactions in California totaling about $3.5 million. Property owners tapped CleanFund’s SolarPACE program to finance renewable energy improvements. The transactions included an industrial/R&D building in San Jose, Camelot Theatre in Palm Springs, and Galey’s Marine Terminal in Bakersfield. CleanFund provides capital funds for projects through Property Assessed Clean Energy, which offers a financing framework in 33 states and Washington, DC, for property owners to repay investments for building upgrades and new construction on property tax bills. More than $481,000 of PACE financing will help retrofit a 25,000-square-foot industrial/R&D building in San Jose with a roof-mounted solar array provided through Silray.
Scientific American - Sep 14 Scientists hope that the Well Living Lab, a collaboration between Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and Delos, a New York City design and technology firm, will allow them to add to the growing literature on the impact of the built environment, and to produce practical, evidence-based recommendations for creating healthier indoor spaces ranging from offices to homes. The WELL Building Standard, first released in 2014, outlines more than 100 best practices, from using paints that release minimal levels of potentially toxic compounds to organizing cafeterias so that they prominently display fruit and vegetables. But in developing the standard, Delos noticed gaps in the scientific literature. There were many studies on a single aspect of the indoor environment, such as light or sound, but in the real world, these variables operate in concert. Studies have shown, for example, that as the temperature and humidity of indoor air increases, its perceived quality declines. Programs to reduce indoor air pollution could yield greater benefits if building managers pay attention to these other factors.
Green Building Elements - Sep 9 A new Massachusetts start-up called Ubiquitous Energy is betting the coatings it has developed could turn the 50,000,000 square feet of windows in commercial buildings in the U.S. into sources of solar power. Commercial buildings generally have 10 to 20 times as much window area as roof space, which means windows from Ubiquitous Energy could generate more electricity than would be possible from any other source. The company is currently seeking to commercialize its technology, which may include coatings for the screens of cell phones and other digital devices that could extend their battery life.
GreenBiz - Sep 19 As part of the Bay Area city's goal to phase out fossil fuel energy and develop renewable power capacity, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf last Friday detailed her hopes to outpace state and federal renewable energy goals by prioritizing community solar installations, seeking more state funding for transit-aligned development, and building a new base of energy employment. Her goal? To diminish the health impacts of carbon emissions and create job opportunities for low-income and minority residents. Dan Rosen, co-founder and president of Oakland-based solar financing company Mosaic, said that solar companies are primarily looking to fill installation, manufacturing, and technical jobs that pay an average $23 an hour. At the heart of Schaaf’s strategy to capitalize on those employment headwinds is so-called “community choice aggregation,” or building large renewable energy projects that supply power to multiple residences or businesses in a community, rather than individual rooftop solar arrays or one-off wind turbines.
KPCC - Sep 9 South Pasadena has gone green on all of its grounds maintenance operations. All hedge trimming, lawn mowing, and leaf blowing on city-owned property is now done completely with low-noise, zero-emissions equipment. The switch was the product of a three-year joint effort between South Pasadena and the American Green Zone Alliance (AGZA), a Southern California-based organization dedicated to making landscape maintenance work more environmentally friendly. The city’s long haul toward emissions-free landscaping has earned it the title of the first AGZA “Green Zone” city in the country. AGZA estimates that South Pasadena’s shift to zero-emissions equipment will save around 31 tons of pollutants each year.
