Practice Areas: Climate Change

Green Buildings and Green Communities

By many accounts building use is responsible for 21% of global carbon emissions. In the United States, the location of buildings is responsible for an even higher percentage of national carbon emissions. Voluntary building standards such as the US Green Building Council’s LEED™ standards have already resulted in significant changes in the building industry, but much larger changes lie ahead. Many localities are making green building requirements mandatory and new ASHRAE standards are likely to accelerate this trend.

Simultaneously, the design of cities and urban areas is increasingly under scrutiny and, led by states such as California, local planning is beginning to explicitly address the carbon impact of sprawl and transportation decisions.

These developments create both challenges and opportunities. Green buildings require an entirely new set of real estate documents – addressing construction concerns, lease and purchase risks, financing issues and operational issues. As many social benefits such as tax reductions, better mortgage terms, lower insurance rates, and higher rents, are connected to achieving green standards, there is increasing focus on the challenges of certification. Similarly, groups increasingly hope to translate improved building performance into carbon credits. On the larger project level, the ability to proceed with certain projects is constrained by their carbon impacts. Many jurisdictions are trying to revise their plans and ordinances to reduce carbon impacts.

Our services:

• assist in drafting or responding to proposals to change building codes, comprehensive plans and land use regulations aimed at aligning these with carbon reduction strategies;
• advise to owners, purchasers, lenders and tenants on construction, financing, purchase and leasing documents for green buildings;
• advise on green building liability issues for architects, engineers and property owners;
• assist in contracting in connection with carbon credits associated with green buildings;
• assist in identifying the appropriate representations that can be made in conjunction with green buildings;
• assist in the integration of building level and micro-grid distributed energy systems and the development of appropriate credits, and
• assist in creating and obtaining federal, state and local incentives for carbon neutral buildings and high performance.