Green fever is rising in Syracuse.
Take, for example, CDH Energy Corp.
It’s a Cazenovia-based company that evaluates energy systems. It’s spearheading a project to design energy-efficient homes on Syracuse’s Near West Side. And the company is doing that with a $550,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, a publicly-funded public benefit corporation that promotes energy research.
“The good news is the public has gotten its mind around it because we can call it green,” said Hugh Henderson, the principle executive of CDH Energy. This, said Henderson, is because of the U.S. Green Building Council, a non-profit organization that certifies buildings as “green.” The Council, he said, has “packaged things that are good practices and put a name on it that people can ask for.”
CDH Energy is among the growing number of businesses in Central New York and the nation that are taking advantage of the growing market for green building. This, say experts, is partly because of government incentives to promote green building and the economic and environmental benefits associated with energy-efficient practices.
Green buildings, say experts, are more than just buildings that use less energy. “You have to look at the whole life cycle of a building,” said Jianshun Zhang, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Syracuse University. He heads the university’s Building Energy and Environmental Systems Laboratory.
A green building, Zhang said, employs energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly practices throughout all stages of the building’s existence. This includes the materials used and their transportation to the site, the construction process, operations of the building once it is built and, eventually, the building’s demolition when it has outlived its use. For example, a green building is made from as much local materials as possible to cut down on the energy used to transport materials to the site.
Nationally, the green building market is taking-off. The annual U.S. market in all green building products and services, according to the U.S. Green Building Council, increased in value from $7 billion to $12 billion between 2005 and 2007. The market is expected to increase as much as $60 billion by 2012.
FMI , a firm that provides management consulting and investment banking for the construction industry, predicts that green construction techniques in non-residential building will rise 58 percent between 2006 through the end of 2008.
Public funding has played a large role in the growth of the green-building industry. At the federal level, the U.S. Department of Energy gives financial help to businesses, industries and universities that are remodeling their buildings to be green. This program awarded $506 million in the 2004 fiscal year, the latest figures available.
In New York State, buildings owners receive a tax credit from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation for going green. Also, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority provides grants to private companies to support research in energy-efficient building like the $550,000 grant to Cazenovia-based CDH Energy for its energy-efficient home designs project. The agency allotted $16 million of financial aid for green remodeling for building owners who applied for assistance between April 2007 and the end of March 2008.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority is funded through a tax on energy bills. It also gives incentives to New York homeowners to improve their homes to be more energy-efficient. Among those incentives are grants and lower interest rates on home loans.
It’s little changes like improvements to individual homes that make the difference, said New York State Energy Research and Development Authority officials. “As little as you think you’ve done,” said Sal Graven, a spokesman for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, “it actually goes a long way.”
In Central New York, Syracuse’s first official green building was certified by the U.S. Green Building Council last month. The building is owned by a non-profit organization, Enable, and houses therapy facilities for people with disabilities. It opened in 2006 on Syracuse’s North Side.
Green building has also gained popularity for its wide-ranging benefits. Aside from the obvious benefit of reducing energy consumption, say advocates, green building has these boons:
- Increased market for “green collar” jobs
Employing more energy-efficient technology in building means a higher demand for workers in what the industry calls “green collar” jobs — or jobs in the renewable energy or energy-efficient industries. The American Solar Energy Society is a non-profit organization that promotes the use of renewable energy and energy-efficient practices. It predicts that by 2030, one out of four U.S. workers will be in green-collar jobs.
- Reduced costs for building owners and their communities
Buildings powered by renewable energy sources—such as solar and wind — cuts down on the owners’ energy costs. That also cuts down on the cost of energy for the community as a whole. Non-renewable energy sources, such as coal and fossil fuels, have hidden costs for the community such as cleaning up pollution or importing non-green fuel sources from other countries, said Jeffrey D. Kubik, an economics professor at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
“There are additional costs of using these non-renewable resources beyond what you pay that the pump or to the electric company,” said Kubik. Neither scientists nor politicians are in agreement over how great these costs are, said Kubik. But, he said, if the costs are indeed great, the best solution would be to try and avoid them.
- More attractive businesses
For businesses, using green-building technologies can make them more attractive to customers. People like to think that they’re helping to make a difference in the environment, said engineering professor Jianshun Zhang of Syracuse University. They may do this, he said, by supporting businesses that are committed to using green technology. “If you have a green hotel,” said Zhang, “it can attract more people.”
But it’s not all about business, green advocates and experts say. The green building industry is also about the homes that people live in — like those being designed by CDH Energy of Cazenovia.
For the company’s chief executive,Hugh Henderson, energy conservation in private homes in just as important as using alternative sources. People, he said, often associate green homes with easily recognizable symbols such as solar panels. Proper insulation to cut down on energy use, he said, is as good a practice as installing a photovoltaic ray, the device that turns energy from solar panels into electricity for use in the home.
Said Henderson: “I want to make foam board insulation as sexy as a photovoltaic ray.”
Liam Migdail-Smith is a junior newspaper journalism major.)
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