Most energy experts agree that energy efficiency in the built environment is the low hanging fruit for reducing the production of deadly greenhouse gases.
After all, it costs a lot less to save energy than make it. Buildings account for around 70% of electrical consumption and 40% of carbon emissions in the U.S. That puts building efficiency at ground zero for strategies to reduce the dangers of climate change.
With the dark cloud of global warming upon us, we should have already achieved the critical milestone of a vigorous national energy savings policy. But that hasn't happened. Business has not responded, governmental efforts have been disjointed and even the ingenuity of American entrepreneurs hasn't figured it out yet.
Why?
Reducing energy demand through conservation is attainable, laudable and a safe investment that delivers high returns. But managing energy is also a different animal for attacking greenhouse gas emissions than supply-side solutions like renewables.
For one thing, building efficiency solutions are disjointed and span many, often unrelated applications—insulation, air conditioning, controls, lighting, maintenance and others. What ought to be a multi-faceted opportunity is instead a hodgepodge of multiple products and protocols.
It hasn't helped that building performance is not the province of the national government. Unlike other countries, state and local building codes govern building standards here at home, and this makes a coordinated conservation policy elusive.
The inefficiency of building efficiency can be attributed mostly to the one-word American business mantra:
