The Greenest Building is the One Already Standing...

[hunter]

Preservation Green Lab Releases New Report on the Environmental Value of Building Reuse

By National Trust for Historic Preservation on January 24th, 2012

For a long time we’ve known that preservation helps create quality communities that are character-rich, vibrant, and dynamic places in which to live, work and play. And there’s also been lots of good news over the years about the economic value that preservation brings – especially in tough economic times. But today, with the Preservation Green Lab’s release of The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse, we have the most comprehensive research to date showing preservation is good for the environment too. The findings from this study offer additional compelling evidence that preservation makes sense for communities.

Each year, approximately 1 billion square feet of buildings are demolished. The Greenest Building explores the environmental impacts associated with the decision to demolish and replace existing buildings – and especially the carbon dioxide savings that might be offered by reusing and retrofitting these places instead of demolishing them. With generous funding from The Summit Foundation, this effort brought together a team of leading thinkers with unparalleled expertise in building and life cycle science. The study team included Cascadia Green Building Council, Green Building Services, Quantis, and Skanska.

http://blog.preservationnation.org/2012/01/24/preservation-green-lab-releases-new-report-on-the-environmental-value-of-building-reuse/

I think this is true for most things. Instead of building new more efficient cars, use our old cars less and less, until we stop using cars.

Instead of building new electric grids that can handle the fluctuating outputs of giant renewable energy projects, simply use less electricity.

Spin down this consumer society that got us into this mess and refurbish our lives so we don't need all this crap...

Don't replace the coal plants with something else; not wind, not solar, not nuclear... Simply shut them down and use less power.

Make sure everyone is well fed, has a nice place to live, good healthcare and education, and then take a hard look at everything else and ask ourselves, "Do we really need this?"

Let's aim for smaller families, twenty hour work weeks, two month vacations, fewer cars, and live lives of greater abundance with less resource consumption for everyone.

[txlibdem]

1. You are describing Germany almost to a tee

I'm not sure about their work week but I seem to remember it is less than 40 hours.

Germany: the model for the western world. Who'd have thought.

[wtmusic]

2. The biggest contributor to landfills is construction waste

not to mention the energy and resources expended to replace what's been torn down.

K&R.