Building Energy Magazine
January 2017
Imagine a City where all of the buildings are carbon neutral. Where buildings can meet their own energy need, while dramatically reducing water consumption and emissions from transportation, keeping properties and businesses competitive, and reducing costs. Now imagine that 15 cities (and growing) across North America are making these drastic changes. This is the goal for the 2030 Districts Network by the year 2030.
The 2030 District movement
The 2030 District movement is young and rapidly growing, but deeply rooted in the foundations of research on the sustainable built environment. The criteria were created in 2002 by Architecture 2030 visionary, Ed Mazria, who saw early on the need for the built environment, as a major user and producer of energy and emissions, to become part of the climate change solution. He developed goals for reduction in transportation emissions, energy consumption, and water usage that were intended to be used by the global architecture and planning community and applied to both New Construction and Existing Buildings. The 2030 Challenge was subsequently adopted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 2006.
The first District started in Seattle in 2011 using the targets developed by Architecture 2030 known as the 2030 Challenge for Planning[1]. In 2009 the City of Seattle was faced with declines in the commercial real estate market and increasing energy costs. At the same time, there was an impending building benchmarking disclosure law, and a group formed to establish common goals for building owners to work toward. They realized that together they would could go much further toward their goals than on their own. As a result, almost two years later, the first private sector-led high-performance building District, The Seattle 2030 District, was created[2]. The 2030 District set the goals and provided assistance with benchmarking, which it did anonymously for all of the building owners within their downtown boundary. The tiered goals for existing buildings ultimately target a 50% reduction in energy, water use, and transportation emissions while new construction aims to be carbon neutral. The Seattle model set the stage for the beginning of the 2030 Districts movement.
District Growth
Over the last 5 years, the 2030 District network has grown to 15 cities, both large and small, across North America. There are also several cities who are considering starting 2030 Districts and are listed in ‘emerging’ status, including: Ann Arbor, MI; Burlington, VT; Detroit, MI; Tucson, AZ, and New York City. These cities have all committed at least 5 buildings to the challenge and are working to advance the District model. Other cities around the world have expressed interest in creating 2030 Districts, including in several Canadian provinces, Mexico, Europe, and China. To date, almost 1200 properties representing 294 million square feet of commercial building space have been committed to 2030 Districts throughout North America.
District Operations
Each of the 2030 Districts operates as a public-private partnership, bringing together local building industry leaders, community groups, and government. Because the 2030 organization model is driven by the private sector rather than government, it is not subject to changing administrations and priorities, which allows for stability and longevity.
Using collective impact, Districts gather with their members to create partnerships and share best practices and resources to drive their buildings towards the goals. Beyond building owners and property managers, District membership generally includes professional partners, such as energy advisors and utilities, as well as community members, including local non-profits with shared interests. Together these members are able to share resources to meet collective goals. As an example, professional members provide a benefit or service, such as an energy audit, which can be utilized by any building owner member to assess their property to determine potential areas for improvement.
Education is another key component of the 2030 District model. Many Districts provide best practice sharing opportunities on a regular basis to their members so that they can stay up-to-date with the latest tools, technologies, and financing practices in the industry. Beyond sharing information, the meetings serve as a locus where property owners can learn from each other about solutions being deployed in their buildings in a private setting.
The climate mitigation-adaptation nexus
As the Districts progress and evolve, several cities have adopted goals and metrics beyond the Architecture 2030 Challenge for Planning. The 2030 model provides a framework that is flexible enough to provide Districts with the ability to pilot initiatives that can define and address needs specific to their local geographies. The Stamford (Connecticut) 2030 District’s approach to resiliency was highlighted at NESEA’s Building Energy Boston conference in 2016. Two other 2030 cities have explicitly created an additional goal beyond the core 2030 metrics: Seattle and Pittsburgh to address stormwater and health challenges accordingly.
The Stamford 2030 District represents the first time that a local initiative has used a resiliency framework to pursue emissions reductions and climate adaptation goals in an integrated fashion. In recent years, the small, coastal city of Stamford, Connecticut was impacted by Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Irene, necessitating the development of goals that incorporate both emissions reduction and climate adaptation. With the creation of the 2030 District in 2014, Stamford is working to connect energy efficiency, sustainability, and resiliency.
Stamford is also the second largest energy market in New England, (Boston is first) and the fastest growing. The city is also home to Fortune 500 companies as well as a broad network of small and medium-size businesses. Based on early research by the founding partners of the District, companies are facing increased calls to address resiliency; however, few have methods or systems for doing so. As a result, the resiliency goals of the Stamford 2030 District are shaped by the business community’s focus in that area, including reduced vulnerability to energy disruption by extreme weather events, supply constraints and price volatility.
To begin assessing the vulnerabilities faced by the City, in 2015 the Stamford 2030 District worked with leaders from IBM and AECOM to conduct a one-day workshop with city staff, major business representatives, and the utilities using the UN Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities[3]. The findings identified by the team prioritized the needs for the City, including: creating financing and incentives, enhancing and protecting ecosystem services, and creating long-term resilience plans that include engagement.
In order to move these resiliency priorities forward, the District will be working alongside researchers at the University of Connecticut and Columbia University in a research project funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The study will help to identify precipitation thresholds from municipal and climate station data to determine how flooding may change with future events and sea-level rise. This data will be used to inform the City’s long-term planning and the results will be shared with other coastal towns in Connecticut in order to help the region better prepare for climate change. The Stamford 2030 District will continue to work with the city and building owners to develop technical solutions to meet the resiliency goals.
Additional Indicators
The Seattle 2030 District added stormwater as a key goal in order to address issues related to the high amount of precipitation that occurs in the region. Given the density of the city, the ground is unable to absorb and filter excess rainwater which can cause combined sewer overflows that result in sanitary waste deposited into waterbodies, a growing issue in many cities. In order to address this issue, the Seattle District expanded their 50% water reduction goal to include stormwater runoff and created a tool that allows their members to measure the amount of stormwater they are managing on-site. The tool also helps owners to understand how they can achieve their goals using approaches such as bio-retention, permeable pavement, green roofs, rainwater harvesting, and detention vaults.
While outdoor air quality is partially addressed by the 2030 District’s transportation goals (CO2 reduction), indoor air quality is specifically addressed by the 2030 District in Pittsburgh, a post-industrial city. The value of indoor air quality in buildings was recently confirmed in a 2015 Harvard University study which determined that occupants in well-ventilated offices that had below-average levels of indoor air pollutants and carbon dioxide had significantly higher cognitive functioning scores[4]. Indoor air quality is also tied to building energy performance through an increased demand on HVAC systems. In order to identify indoor air quality indicators, the Pittsburgh 2030 District has partnered with The University of Pittsburgh’s Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation. The District ultimately hopes to develop a scalable Indoor Air Quality protocol against which progress can be measured.
Future of 2030 Districts
With the growth in the number of Districts, Architecture 2030 has established a 2030 Districts Network, which is a formal structure which guides new and emerging Districts. The vision for the 2030 Districts Network is to create a global brand integral in creating solutions to help the built environment mitigate and resolve global climate change. It will do this by focusing on its key goals of energy, water, and transportation emissions reductions, while also allowing cities to focus on their local sustainability needs. The network plans continued growth and will remain a leader in helping the built environment battle climate change.
[1] Architecture 2030. "The 2030 Challenge for Planning." Architecture 2030, 2015. Web. 21 Nov. 2016. <http://architecture2030.org/2030_challenges/2030_challenge_planning/>.
[2] Kalousdian, Aram. "Seattle Creates High-Performance Building District." Blog post. Sustainable City Network. N.p., 15 June 2011. Web. 21 Nov. 2016. <http://www.sustainablecitynetwork.com/topic_channels/building_housing/article_4b77db52-939e-11e0-aa0a-0019bb30f31a.html>.
[3] IBM and AECOM. Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities. Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Cities. UNISDR, 10 Mar. 2014. Web. <http://www.unisdr.org/2014/campaign-cities/Resilience%20Scorecard%20V1.5.pdf>.
[4] Allen, Joseph G., Piers Macnaughton, Usha Satish, Suresh Santanam, Jose Vallarino, and John D. Spengler. "Associations of Cognitive Function Scores with Carbon Dioxide, Ventilation, and Volatile Organic Compound Exposures in Office Workers: A Controlled Exposure Study of Green and Conventional Office Environments." EHP Environmental Health Perspectives 124.6 (2015): n. pag. Web.
All photos attributed to Architecture 2030