City Buildings Getting Greener

City of Aspen Instituting Green Building Standards

By Mitzi Rapkin, 5-23-06

The City of Aspen’s Canary Initiative Project is aimed at reducing global warming pollution, informing the public about impacts from and solutions to global warming and to advocate for action.

Taking the project to heart, the City of Aspen is currently enacting what is called a “High Performance Building Process,” to incorporate the most environmentally responsible building solutions to every construction project the City embarks on.

High performance buildings use less energy, cost less to operate and are more durable and produce fewer greenhouse gases. The short and long term benefits of instituting such a program are that more buildings don’t necessarily have to mean an addition of global warming pollution or a drain on resources.

While the plan does not prescribe specific measures, like which company to buy carpet from, it lays out a set of guidelines to follow.

“Projects are so varied,” said Dan Richardson, Project Manager for the Canary Initiative. “We can’t prescribe specific products; it’s like prescribing a diet for anyone. Each manager will have some homework to do to find what works best but then we can begin building a database of resources that will make it easier for the next project manager.”

The basic ingredients of ensuring a high performance building process include: establishing an energy budget for performance of the building, establish environmental goals and commitments early, use architects, engineers and builders with environmental design credentials and find a champion to ensure the goals are achieved. “A champion ensures that someone is looking out for that high performance,” Richardson said. “They will push the envelope for high environmental standards.”

In addition, Richardson wants to ensure that performance standards are adhered to. “You have to write this into the contract so that when it’s time for the inspector to inspect, they expect what they inspect.”

The overall building goals are energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reductions, building durability, indoor air quality, resource efficiency, adaptability for future needs and deconstructibility at the end of the building’s life.

And Richardson said, the City has to convene an initial design charrette. “The biggest failure in achieving building goals is that in the beginning not all the stakeholders are at the table.”

As the City begins to implement the plan, it will be adding to ethics that are already in place at the Aspen Skiing Company. Richardson modeled the City’s building process after one drafted by the Ski Co. Together, the City of Aspen and Aspen Skiing Company are “greening” up Aspen’s buildings, even though one of the goals of the program is to lose the term “green” because as the plan says, “high performance is more than protecting the environment, it must be part of the definition of quality from the start.”

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