International Green Construction Code: Just Say No

Vanity | June 6, 2013 | Tom Urie

[tyou50]

Let’s say that a progressive community decides to implement a law that requires its residents to have a body mass index within the “normal range”. Undeniably such a measure would be good for the citizens of this community. It would reduce obesity, improve overall health, decrease health care costs and if practiced across the country would reduce food consumption causing food demand to lessen, food costs to fall, and the demand for agricultural land to lessen. To make this law more palatable to the population it will be called the Pink Code: like being “in the pink” (a healthy condition) with perhaps even a positive link to the color pink associated with various breast cancer causes. To make it sound a little more continental (kind of like “continental breakfast”) it will be called the International Pink Code.

How would the International Pink Code work? Easy – just file an annual report (online to speed things up and reduce paperwork) signed by your doctor attesting to height and weight. Or use the figures on your driver’s license. The DMV could confirm these numbers by having you step on a scale when you renew your license. I’m certain they would be as good at this task as they are at everything else they do. If your height and weight measures result in a body mass index outside the healthy range then the “law breaker” would have to pay a fine (excuse me, a “tax”) that would go towards improving children’s healthcare in some fashion.

Wait just a minute, you say. Government can’t do that – they can’t force citizens to become thinner even if it is good for us.

“Police power of the state” is the basis for much regulation. It is justified by the notion that government has the duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of its citizens. For example, the police power of the state is the basis for building, fire and zoning codes.

Currently “progressive” (read: liberal) jurisdictions such as Washington, DC and its adjacent affluent neighbor, Montgomery County, Maryland are in the process of adopting – no, not the International Pink Code - but the International Green Construction Code.

The Washington DC based International Code Council (ICC) writes various building codes: the International Building Code, the International Residential Code, the International Mechanical Code, the International Plumbing Code, the International Energy Conservation Code, and several “international” others. These codes are issued every three years and are formally adopted into the law by states and municipalities.

To this list the ICC has recently added the “IgCC”, the International Green Construction Code. (Hey, it’s international and green so it has to be good, right?) In publishing this code the ICC worked closely with the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) and several other organizations.

USGBC is best known for its LEED program, “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design”, which awards LEED designations (Certified, Silver, Gold or Platinum) to buildings which incorporate a certain number of green provisions. The more green provisions that are incorporated, the more points the building project is awarded and the higher the LEED designation with “Platinum” being the highest. Design and construction industry professionals are awarded a LEED AP (Accredited Professional) designation after passing a rigorous test. LEED is a good program, and one of its best features is that it is voluntary. If you want to build a green building, don’t mind doing a lot of paperwork (or “pdf-work”), and want some publicity for your efforts, you can obtain a LEED certification.

Sadly, the voluntary nature of LEED is ending. Some jurisdictions, such as Montgomery County, Maryland, have in the past several years started requiring that every new non-residential building obtain LEED certification.

Even more sadly, with the pending adoption of the IgCC, obscure global warming preventative measures of little benefit and considerable cost will be made into law. Some examples:

• Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment: From the extraction of resources required to manufacture the materials needed to construct the building, to the eventual demolition of the building and disposal of the waste, you must prove your building project throughout its “life” will have more than a 20% improvement in reducing “global warming potential” and/or in reducing such items as acidification potential, smog potential and or ozone depletion potential. (IgCC Section 303.1)

• Greenfield Sites: These are farms, or land that has not been previously developed. If the proposed building site is located on one of these and the property is more than 1,321 feet from a housing development of at least eight dwelling units per acre, or 1,321 feet from five “diverse uses” and more than 2,641 from seven “diverse uses”, or more than 1,321 feet from a bus stop, you won’t get a building permit. (Section 402.8)

• Surface Water Protection: You will not be allowed to build a building or other improvements within a buffer around or adjacent to the ocean, a lake, pond, stream, or creek. That lakefront property is only partially yours; it is now a shared resource. (Section 402.3)

• CO2e: To simplify it’s the pro-rated amount of carbon dioxide emitted of by the energy source your building will use based on the energy’s “global warming potential”. CO2e is used along with “zEPI” (zero energy performance index) and “EUIp” (the proposed energy use index). In brief your building will use even less energy than what is allowed by the International Energy Construction Code or you will not get a building permit. Purpose: to reduce global warming (sorry, “climate change”). (Section 602)

• Energy Metering and Reporting: You will separately and continuously measure the energy used by heating/cooling equipment, and by lighting, and by anything plugged into any outlets, and by “process loads”, and by building operations, and for heat. That means separate electrical panels and meters for each of those. And if it is an office building with tenants, each of those items will be again separately measured for each tenant. And you will maintain all these energy measurements for 36 months. And you will have a display by the building entrance, or an internet site, that provides the current energy usage for the whole building by each fuel type plus the average and peak energy usage for the previous day and the same day a year earlier, and the total energy usage for the previous 18 months. (Section 603)

• Automated Demand-Response: Your building will have an energy management control system that upon receipt of a signal from the local utility company will automatically reduce by 10% the amount of energy used by your building’s heating/air conditioning equipment and by 15% the energy used by the lighting. Of course this means that if the building’s air conditioning system is on the building will get hotter and darker without any say from you. (Section 604)

• Building Renewable Energy Systems: Your building will have one or more renewable energy systems (solar hot water heating, wind power generation, solar photovoltaic) to provide at least two percent of the total calculated energy use of the building. Or, you will purchase a ten year commitment to buy 4% of the total calculated annual energy use of the building from a renewable energy credit vendor. (Section 610)

• Equipment Rooms: Let’s say your company has a small office that it leases in an office building. Like many offices it has fax machines, scanners, printers and copiers. If you put too many (five) of these in a single room that is larger than 100 square feet, the walls of that room and its door have to be fire rated and the door has to be kept closed.(Section 803.4.1). Your office also has a small computer server room with an air conditioning unit to keep that room at the correct operating temperature needed by the equipment. The electricity used by the air conditioning must be separately metered and the condensate produced by the air conditioner must be collected (in a tank?) for reuse elsewhere on the property. (Section 703)

Keep in mind that the purpose of building codes is to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public. Do the items noted above meet that purpose? And the costs (some significant) to provide such items will ultimately be passed on to the public. Who will pay the increased taxes/fees required to offset the costs to hire and train the extra staff the building permit department will need to administer these items? Will the benefits justify the costs?

In his farewell address to the nation, President Eisenhower first used what is now a famous phrase in issuing a warning about the ”military-industrial complex”. That complex now has a cousin, the “green complex”. The green complex is comprised of:

• Environmental organizations such as the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). They’ll expand their reach, power and revenues.

• Code organizations such as the International Code Council (ICC) and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating & Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). They’ll sell more code books.

• Professional organizations like the American Institute of Architects (AIA), proponents of “carbon neutral” buildings. (A carbon neutral building is one which saves more carbon dioxide than it emits.) They’ll generate more work and fees for their members.

• State and local governments. They’ll expand their reach, power and portfolios.

• Countless manufacturers of everything from building materials to cleaning solutions - which are very similar to older products except now they are nominally more “green”. They’ll sell more products.

This entire matter comes down to a question. Do we as a society want to waste a tremendous amount of resources and give up considerable personal freedom to solve non-existent man-made global warming (err, climate change)? Scientists’ best guess is that the earth has experienced eleven ice ages. Ice ages end when increased solar radiation emanates from the sun. Sports utility vehicles, incandescent light bulbs, livestock methane, and building carbon emissions have nothing to do with it.

If you are a man-made global warming (climate change) believer and want to institute the measures of the IgCC in your building, I think that’s great. Go for the LEED Gold, or the LEED Platinum. Just please leave the rest of us alone.

The police power of the state to protect the health safety and welfare of its citizens can be abused. Adopting measures like the fictitious “International Pink Code” or the all-too-real International Green Construction Code is going too far.

The author is an architect and LEED Accredited Professional. He is a member of the International Code Council, the United States Green Building Council, the Construction Specifications Institute, the National Fire Protection Association, and the Archeological Institute of America.

[zeugma]

BFL.