With little public discussion, the Anchorage Assembly, at the request of the Mayor's office, recently took an abrupt about-face regarding the development of energy efficient, non-toxic city-owned buildings. This is an unfortunate turn, as these "green" buildings save taxpayer money, provide healthier indoor environments, save energy, promote use of regional and recycled materials, produce fewer greenhouse gases and promote local product development and innovation. In short, high performance buildings promote an economically and environmentally sustainable community while increasing our energy security.
It's puzzling why Mayor Sullivan would want to eliminate the Sustainable Building Policy, when he has quite correctly and publicly noted the fragility of our Cook Inlet natural gas supplies, which supply us with both heat and electricity. Nationally, buildings use about 40 percent of our primary energy, and about 70 percent of our electricity. And energy experts will tell you that the cheapest – and fastest – way to save energy is by first pursuing energy conservation and efficiency measures. Increasing the efficiency of large buildings helps prolong our local gas supplies.
So what did the assembly do? In a 6-5 vote they eliminated the requirement that new city-owned buildings meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, building standard. Increasingly accepted around the world, LEED was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council and has become the norm for hundreds of municipalities and federal agencies. There are four LEED certification levels: certified, silver, gold and platinum. The MOA was requiring "certified," and the plan was to go to "silver" in 2012. Instead, they're going backward.
Is meeting the LEED standard difficult in Alaska? Not at all. In recent years a wide array of new buildings have achieved LEED certification. The Cold Climate Housing Research Center in Fairbanks recently became the northernmost LEED Platinum building in the world, and the Mat-Su Borough boasts two LEED Silver schools. The National Park Service and U.S. Air Force have LEED buildings. And this spring, even as the administration was drafting the proposal to eliminate the LEED standard, the mayor was celebrating the opening of the new LEED Gold Mountain View Library.
Does it cost more to build a LEED-certified building in Alaska? We have little data on that specific question: on the majority of LEED projects comparing what the building would cost without meeting LEED is unnecessary additional effort. However, the architects on one recent project – the new LEED Gold Mat-Su Community Recycling Center – calculated the additional cost at about 6 percent. In the Lower 48, studies indicate an average cost premium of about 2 percent per LEED level. These studies also show the cost premium is declining as more projects use LEED. Several Alaska architects say the same is happening here.
More importantly, the initial cost premium is more than offset by lower operation and maintenance costs. This is what saves taxpayers money year after year – and public buildings are used for long time. Mat-Su's Machetanz Elementary will use about half the energy of a similar non-LEED school. Any time you can save 50 percent on energy costs it's a big deal!
In fact, the U.S. Navy just committed to building all their buildings to the LEED Gold standard without increasing the department's budget. According to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus "it shouldn't cost any more, particularly in this economic environment, to build buildings that are sustainable."
Several years ago, dedicated members of the community, including designers and engineers, spent two years working with stakeholders to carefully craft Anchorage's LEED ordinance. It was passed unanimously by the Assembly. Just like when Ronald Reagan removed the solar panels from the White House, it's very unfortunate that the mayor and a slim majority of assembly members chose to take a big leap backward. This will undoubtedly and unnecessarily burden Anchorage taxpayers.
Mark Masteller is Alaska Director for the Cascadia Green Building Council, which is a chapter of both the U. S. and Canada Green Building Councils. He can be contacted at mark(at)cascadiagbc.org.
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