Twenty-four U.S.-based architecture, engineering and development firms have joined forces with Architecture 2030, a nonprofit research organization working to achieve reductions in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, to call on Congress to update national building code standards with energy reduction targets.
Specifically, the group is lobbying the Senate to pass the building energy reduction targets in Section 241 of the American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009 (S. 1462) and incorporate timelines to reach carbon-neutral buildings by 2030.
According to these firms—which include HKS Architects, Perkins+Will, ARUP, and HOK—the building energy code targets in Section 241 are both readily achievable and cost effective, and passage will give the architecture, engineering and building community the support it needs to begin transforming the built environment.
“We—the building sector community—are on the front lines on this one. We have a big job ahead of us and we need Congress to begin putting into place the code regulations and support necessary to help us get the job done,” said Ralph Hawkins, chairman and CEO of HKS Architects, in a press release.
All of these firms adopted and implemented the 2030 Challenge, which was issued to the architecture and planning community by Architecture 2030 in January 2006. The energy reduction targets of the 2030 Challenge are the basis for the targets in the Senate bill and the targets and timelines of the Waxman-Markey bill passed in the House (HR 2454, Section 201). The challenge calls for a 50 percent energy reduction in all new and renovated buildings today, incrementally increasing to carbon-neutral in 2030.
According to Edward Mazria, executive director of Architecture 2030, “in order for the U.S. to take an effective leadership role on energy and climate change, we must address our building sector, and Senate building energy code legislation coupled with the 2030 Challenge timelines, will make that possible.”
