PROPOSAL FOR SPECIAL ROUNDTABLE SESSION AND CONFERENCE PAPER ON EVALUATION METHODS FOR GREEN BUILDING PROGRAMS
Roundtable Facilitators:
Marianne Anderson, Results Measurement Specialist, IFC Investment Climate East Asia Pacific Region, Manila, Philippines
Phone:+632-465-2700
Email:
Yanwei Chen, Results Measurement Specialist, IFC Investment Climate East Asia Pacific Region
Beijiing, China
Phone: 86-10-5860-3120
Email:
PAPER TITLE: Green Building Does Not Happen in a Bubble: Recent Methodological Advances and Remaining Evaluation Gaps
Author: Marianne Anderson
Peer Reviewed by: Yanwei Chen
GHG emissions reduction is the central impact indicator evaluating the impacts of Green Building projects. Measuring GHG emissions reduction in climate mitigation programs is well-advanced, and for Green Building, the EDGE tool is a user-friendly questionnaire that can be used to determine, ex-ante, the potential emissions reduction over a period of one year. In the case of voluntary programs like in China, this can be very powerful, as it helps make a solid business case for green building. Not only can the firm/developeruse this data in its Corporate Social Responsibility campaigns, but also this tool can extrapolate potential cost savings to the developer (e.g. water cost savings, energy cost savings). The “EDGE” tool is allows users to not only project by average building size, but to predict CO2 reduction more accurately (CO2 reduction) with inputs like square footage, locality (originally EDGE tool was standardized to US costs) and use type (multi purpose, residential, commercial).
Despite such advances, areas for improvement remain. This paper will also discuss the dilemma of not being able to account for variation in external and internal conditions over time. Green Building does not occur in a bubble, measurement should be made over several years and so the current methods are often just a best guess based on ex-ante conditions. For example, depreciation and wear and tear of technology used in green building may require a discounting of GHG emissions reduction over time. Moreover, natural resource availability, government regulations and green building standards will change over time. For example, at time of development buildings may use coal-fired plant to source their energy, and materials used to build may improve in quality and so buildings built 3-4 years into a project may be even more efficient than predecessors. And finally, one action such as a green building can cause a chain of events whose impacts are also not captured in measurement, for better or worse.