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"Sustainable buildings Law and legislation United States"
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Energy-Efficiency Standards and Green Building Certification Systems Used by the Department of Defense for Military Construction and Major Renovations
Congress has an ongoing interest in ensuring that the 500,000 buildings and other structures owned and operated by the Department of Defense (DOD) are operated effectively in terms of cost and resource use. Section 2830 of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year requires the Secretary of Defense to submit a report to the congressional defense committees on the energy-efficiency and sustainability standards used by DOD for military construction and major renovations of buildings.
DOD's report must include a cost-benefit analysis, return on investment, and long-term payback for the building standards and green building certification systems, including:
(A) American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standard 189.1-2011 for the Design of High-Performance, Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential.
(B) ASHRAE Energy Standard 90.1-2010 for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential.
(C) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver, Gold, and Platinum certification for green buildings, as well as the LEED Volume certification.
(D) Other American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited standards.
DOD's report to the congressional defense committees must also include a copy of DOD policy prescribing a comprehensive strategy for the pursuit of design and building standards across the department that include specific energy-efficiency standards and sustainable design attributes for military construction based on the cost-benefit analysis, return on investment, and demonstrated payback required for the aforementioned building standards and green building certification systems. Energy-Efficiency Standards and Green Building Certification Systems Used by the Department of Defense for Military Construction and Major Renovations summarizes the recommendations for energy efficiency.
eBook
Rethinking private authority
Rethinking Private Authorityexamines the role of non-state actors in global environmental politics, arguing that a fuller understanding of their role requires a new way of conceptualizing private authority. Jessica Green identifies two distinct forms of private authority--one in which states delegate authority to private actors, and another in which entrepreneurial actors generate their own rules, persuading others to adopt them.
Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence spanning a century of environmental rule making, Green shows how the delegation of authority to private actors has played a small but consistent role in multilateral environmental agreements over the past fifty years, largely in the area of treaty implementation. This contrasts with entrepreneurial authority, where most private environmental rules have been created in the past two decades. Green traces how this dynamic and fast-growing form of private authority is becoming increasingly common in areas ranging from organic food to green building practices to sustainable tourism. She persuasively argues that the configuration of state preferences and the existing institutional landscape are paramount to explaining why private authority emerges and assumes the form that it does. In-depth cases on climate change provide evidence for her arguments.
Groundbreaking in scope,Rethinking Private Authoritydemonstrates that authority in world politics is diffused across multiple levels and diverse actors, and it offers a more complete picture of how private actors are helping to shape our response to today's most pressing environmental problems
eBook
Shared Responsibility
Global power structures are changing. The United States and Europe are losing ground, as countries such as China and India increase their global reach. At the same time that new global players emerge, multinational corporations, global civil society organizations, and international media carve out their own spaces in international affairs. How will these changes impact the legitimacy of the United Nations? In Shared Responsibility, Carsten Staur examines the ability of the UN to combine its normative functions - defining global objectives, rules, and standards - with practical assistance for its 193 member states. Staur focuses on transformative global challenges, where the UN has the potential to play a critical role in assisting vulnerable countries in the aftermath of conflict, in further developing the concept of \"responsibility to protect,\" in creating a more forceful system of accountability for mass atrocity crimes, and in re-launching sustainable development as the future’s principal global development approach and as the basis for dealing effectively with both climate change and the responsible management of global resources. An insider's look at the UN, Shared Responsibility details the problems faced by the United Nations and presents solutions for the organization to remain relevant, legitimate, and action-oriented in the twenty-first century.
eBook
Environment and Peacebuilding in War-torn Societies: Lessons from the UN Environment Programme's Experience with Postconflict Assessment
Environmental challenges create high-stakes choices in war-torn societies. Handled well, they may create a solid foundation for peace and sustainable development; handled poorly, they risk undercutting an already tenuous peace. In this article, we identify patterns and lessons from the work of the UN Environment Programme's Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch, which has conducted postconflict assessments in several war-torn societies over the past decade. PCDMB's experience sheds considerable light on the nature of conflict-related environmental challenges, identifies possible entry points for environmental initiatives in peacebuilding, and suggests cautions about the requirements for environmental initiatives to be peacebuilding tools. We identify four themes emerging from their work: the multiple and often indirect links between violent conflict and environmental degradation; the political dimensions of environmental assessment as a confidence-building tool; resource and environmental linkages among the different segments of war-torn economies; and the environmental dimensions of reconstituting the state, regulation, and the rule of law.
Journal Article
Profitability of organic and conventional soybean production under ‘green payments’ in carbon offset programs
Emphasis on reducing emissions from the greenhouse gases (GHG), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4) has increased in recent years in the USA, primarily for industry, transportation, energy and agricultural sectors. In this study, we utilized on-farm data collected by the USDA-National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS), secured under an agreement with the USDA-Economic Research Service (ERS) to analyze the profitability of organic and conventional soybean production, based on changes that ‘green payments’ in a cap-and-trade system would introduce in agricultural markets in the USA. In particular, the analysis focused on establishing whether organic producers would be better positioned to sequester carbon (C) and reap the benefits of the C-offset scheme compared to conventional producers, given the differences in costs, management practices and environmental benefits between organic and conventional production methods. We estimated several changes in profitability of soybean producers according to management practices, incentives for the generation of offset credits, and increase in energy input prices that a potential cap-and-trade system may introduce in future agricultural markets in the USA. Survey data suggested that even with lower yields, conventional producers could profit from converting to organic agriculture, given organic price premiums. In addition, taking into consideration both direct and indirect costs, average cost for conventional-till (CT) organic soybean production was approximately 9% lower than no-till (NT) conventional production. With a C market and payments for soil C sequestration through potential Clean Energy legislation, additional profit could be accrued by organic producers, because organic production would have 28% greater ton CO2 eq. acre−1 yr−1 sequestration than conventional NT. Thus, the environmental benefits from GHG reduction could incentivize increased conversion from conventional to organic production across the USA.
Journal Article
Agency procedures for mitigating damage to cultural heritage in United States Federal and State Administrative Law
Protecting historic buildings is an essential part of protecting our cultural heritage, a key pillar in the sustainable development of our urban environment. Our historic environment binds us and adds cohesion to our society. United States law offers different levels of protection to historic properties at Federal, State and Local government levels. At the federal level, the most important tool is the National Historic Preservation Act, which creates voluntary mechanisms to identify Historic properties, foster their recovery and preservation, and protect them against adverse effects by projects where there is federal agency funding. The section of NHPA which deals with federal projects has proved to be an important, and, above all, litigious element of US Historic Preservation Law. Section 106 of the law obliges government agencies to consider the adverse effects of their actions on Historic properties, and to avoid damage, or mitigate it where some damage is unavoidable. It has been described as an obscure part of an obscure statute, which has been crucial in the protection of thousands of historic properties. In State law, similar regulation is to be found in environmental impact assessment legislation, with a good example for study being California’s Environmental Quality Act. This paper gives an overview of the procedures and protection offered by this area of United States Law, with references to case law where relevant.
Conference Proceeding
Warming Up to Climate Action: A Survey of GHG Mitigation through Building Energy Efficiency in City Climate Action Plans
With urban populations and energy requirements burgeoning worldwide, cities are increasingly important fronts in the battle against climate change. Many U.S. cities have adopted formal Climate Action Plans, with energy efficiency in buildings a prime target for action. Using grounded theory and drawing from a sample of 17 large U.S. cities, we analyzed the common characteristics of building efficiency programs, relationships with external organizations, and associated municipal governance structures that cities considered important enough to include in these published plans. We found that cities (1) applied energy efficiency policies, standards, and programs (such as the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED certification) to their own public infrastructure in an effort to \"lead by example,\" but faced challenges in extending effective policies to the private sector; (2) drew advice and support from the non-profit, academic, and utility sectors while they navigated the varied incentives and limitations of state and federal policies; and (3) had begun to develop municipal governance structures to institutionalize building efficiency practices beyond initial mayoral support. Despite the laudable initiative of cities on climate mitigation over the last few years, these nascent efforts appear more promissory than compulsory and more visionary than executable, and thus raise serious questions about their ability to produce significant GHG emission reductions without additional incentives or mandates from state and federal governments. Nevertheless, city CAPs serve as an important first step as the U.S. \"warms up\" for the long run ahead by promoting awareness of climate change issues and the potential for GHG reductions, by institutionalizing grassroots support for climate action, and by developing effective policies that can be adopted more widely.
Journal Article
Beyond the Conventional Wisdom: USAID Projects, Interorganizational Linkages, and Institutional Reform in Peru
From 1983 until 1987, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) provided support to several national level organizations in Peru's highly centralized public sector. These organizations, in turn, provided assistance and political support to decentralized development agencies called departmental development corporations (CORDES). Linkages between national and departmental-level organizations in Peru facilitated more efficient implementation of the USAID projects, capacity building in CORDES, and use of comparative advantages among the corporations and other organizations. The USAID-Peru experience suggests an alternative strategy for selecting collaborating national agencies in highly centralized political systems. An appropriate strategy is to establish or reinforce project-related units within key national-level agencies. Finally, USAID experience in Peru demonstrates that linkages can be used by international donors to support institutional reform while respecting the self-determination of recipient countries.
Journal Article