Compliance is cheap

Business estimates to comply with the clean air act of 1990 to reduce acid rain put the prospective compliance cost at up to $1,500 per ton. Over the first 10 years the price per ton NEVER went above $200 and the mean and average costs were significantly less*

The laggards in the US Chamber of Commerce have been beating the governmental pavement for years creating a false relationship between GHG and carbon emissions and economic recovery. Cleaning up our act will create more jobs, not less. That's why all the clean tech jobs are in Europe and China and not here.

* Source: "Green to Gold", copyright 2006, 2009; by Daniel C. Esty and Andrew S. Winston

Efficient Buildings Pay You

Sometimes they say the devil is in the details. For those that care about sustainability and jobs, the God is in the details. Tax rules and regulations that will decrease energy use and increase jobs without sacrificing tax dollars. Its a rare, true win-win-win. Win for business, win for jobs, win for the environment and energy security. It adjusts the EPAct Section 179D from a tax deduction to a tax credit.

In previous years if you bought a $50,000 HVAC or building management system you could deduct (reduce your income) by $50,000. Assuming a 35% tax bracket this would have saved you $17,500 in taxes, making your net cost of the new system $32,500. This was still a great deal for a building owner.

The new proposal (and it is just a proposal, not law yet) will allow you to have a tax credit of the $50,000. So instead of saving 17,500 in taxes you will save the entire 50,000 in taxes, bringing your net cost on the system to ZERO.

The tax system will not suffer from a loss of revenue though. Although the building owners will pay less taxes when making the upgrades, the employers and employees doing the work will add to the tax rolls.

Barriers to Green Building Go Beyond Cost

I spend lots of time in the green building world. In my role as Executive Director at the Institute for Building Systems I talk to all kinds of people in the field and see it myself day to day. Existing regulations and inertia are as big a barrier as price.

Check out the article I just had published in Sustainable Living Magazine.

http://www.sustainablelivingmagazine.org/business/eco-business/108-builders-and-renovators-face-barriers-in-the-shfit-to-sustainability

What are all those green jobs we hear about?

Lots of news is out there about green jobs these days. I am working as Executive Director of the Institute for Building Systems. We are training some of those workers... and training people in the standards to make sure the results really are green. But building systems is only one part of the green economy. Transportation, energy, engineering, agriculture... Literally every aspect of our economy will change over the next 20-40 years. So get ready. You can see it as a problem or an opportunity. I see it as an opportunity.

Here is a good description of what these new jobs will be.