Sustainable Development Focus
SolarServer - Dec 12 Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) will soon reach a milestone of 2,409 megawatts of installed private rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity on the energy grid, representing more than 275,000 solar customers in Northern and Central California. PG&E expects to reach this state-mandated limit for its current rooftop solar program in December 2016. With this milestone, new solar customers that PG&E connects to the energy grid will be on the next version of the net energy metering (NEM) program – called NEM 2. NEM is the program for private rooftop solar customers who generate their own solar power and use PG&E energy at night or when the sun’s not shining.
Urban Land - Dec 12 When real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield leased an approximately 6,000-square-foot space on the 45th floor of the newly built One World Trade Center in New York City, it agreed to try out an ambitious new planning and design process to reduce its energy use. The ten-step ULI Tenant Energy Optimization Program aims to help tenants improve efficiency by optimizing a range of elements of facilities operation, from air conditioning, food service areas, and data centers to lighting. With the help of a team of energy experts, Cushman & Wakefield fine-tuned its interior design to burn less electricity. Implementing those measures led to some impressive savings: Cushman & Wakefield was able to reduce its projected energy consumption by nearly 48 percent and save more than $87,000 in utility costs over a ten-year period, according to a project case study.
GreenBiz - Dec 5 Having taken its first major company-wide look at setting sustainability objectives at a corporate level in 2009, apparel, footwear, and accessories giant VF Corporation, the group which owns a number household brands such as Timberland, North Face, and Vans, set a target of reducing its global carbon emissions by 5 percent between 2010 and 2015. It may not sound a show-stopping target at first glance, but the company nevertheless revealed earlier this year it has surpassed the goal by an impressive margin. In fact, VF Corp cut its global emissions by 12.6 percent over the five years to 2015, preventing more than 38,000 tons of carbon from entering the atmosphere, the equivalent of the electricity needed to power 5,710 homes for one year.
USGBC - Dec 5 Starbucks reached a huge milestone in its commitment to build high-performance, sustainable stores last month with the opening in Iowa of its 1,000th LEED-certified store. Early on, Starbucks was a key developer in the LEED for Retail program to adapt green principles to new construction and commercial interior strategies for retail businesses. Since then, the company has been quite busy. Starbucks stores currently make up 20 percent of all LEED-certified retail space globally, and there are LEED-certified Starbucks locations in 20 countries and U.S. territories (the company was the first retailer to open certified buildings in France, Germany, Spain, Thailand, and the Philippines.)
Sacramento Bee - Dec 8 Sacramento is expecting a housing boom in the next two decades, starting slowly, but possibly adding up to 68,000 houses and apartment units, many of them on infill sites in downtown and dotted through other older neighborhoods. City leaders cheer the potential this growth has to provide the fresh faces and skill sets to push the economy forward. But they fear what it will do to traffic. To avoid clogged streets, city officials say they plan to impose a “transportation impact” fee on most new construction to help fund more and wider streets and improve biking and pedestrian facilities. Under the city’s tentative plan, builders may pay from a few hundred dollars per rental unit in some areas, to $700 per apartment unit in downtown, to more than $2,000 for a single family residence in some areas. Those amounts could produce an estimated $3 million a year. It’s a small sum, but it could provide critical “local match” funds that would allow the city to compete for federal and state transportation grants worth five times that amount.
Seattle Times - Dec 3 As Seattle grows into a larger and denser city, urban renters are giving up a long-held luxury: the apartment-building parking space. It’s now common for buildings to open completely free of parking in a city where, not long ago, the average renter was guaranteed spots for one or two cars. In downtown and areas near frequent transit service across Seattle, 30 percent of new apartment developments proposed in the past several years included no parking at all, according to new data analysis provided by the city. But even buildings that do include garages are shrinking them: On average across the city, developers now include 60 percent fewer parking spaces per unit at new buildings than they did a decade ago. Now, only about half of new apartments come with even an option for a parking space.
