Public entities at the federal, state and local levels are taking significant steps to improve the energy efficiency of government buildings – a practice commonly known as green building. During these current economic times – when government budgets are constrained – green building is an opportunity to not only reduce the carbon footprint of public buildings but also to save taxpayer dollars.
Green building increases the efficiency with which buildings and their sites use energy, water, and materials, and reduces building impacts on public health and the environment over the entire life cycle of the building. Green building can be as simple as retrofitting older buildings with more efficient insulation or cooking systems, or as extensive as designing a building made out of 100 percent recycled materials that re-uses all of its wastewater and generates all of its own electricity.
Because buildings consume an enormous amount of energy and resources, green building offers governments an opportunity to significantly reduce costs. In the United States, for example, buildings account for 39 percent of total energy use, 12 percent of total water consumption and 68 percent of total electricity consumption.
Policies at all levels of government are already making public buildings greener. In London, a program called RE:FIT is using low cost, flexible loans for energy-saving projects to retrofit four hundred public buildings in the city, reducing city energy costs and providing a boost to the low carbon economy. In the U.S., President Obama signed an executive order that set numerous green building requirements for the federal government, including improvements to water efficiency and reductions in landfill waste during construction. Additionally, more than 500 schools across the U.S. are using solar power to reduce their electricity use – and their energy bills.
But there are still many more opportunities for public buildings to become more efficient and save taxpayer dollars. Take prisons, for example. California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has started 16 new green retrofitting projects, which are estimated to save $3 million in energy costs each year.
My company, Flareum Technologies, has installed a solar cooking system at Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad, India, which is expected to save taxpayers approximately $37,000 each year in fuel costs while reducing annual carbon emissions by 72,000 tons. We hope to bring this technology to the U.S. in the near future.
Buildings consume a huge amount of electricity and other resources, and taxpayers end up paying for inefficient public buildings. As green building and other clean energy technologies from companies like mine continue to mature, the opportunity for governments to save money through green building will continue to increase – improving local economies and the environment.
By Badal Shah, managing director and CEO of Flareum Technologies
