Nice and timely article.

I think becoming more sustainability minded with regard to buildings is one of the best ways to fight global warming.

In this context, you might want to refer to an excellent white paper published recently by the Gigaton Throwdown group, a group comprising of high profile professionals from a variety of industries related to cleantech. The report dwells on what amounts of investments will be required to achieve gigaton (1 billion tons) emission savings for various sources such as solarm wind, buildings etc. (You can download the entire report from here (PDF))

What I found interesting is that it is estimated to cost just $61 billion to achieve gigaton CO2 savings from use of more efficient building standards. If you think $61 billion is huge, consider how much investment it would take to achieve gigaton savings from other possibilities:383 billion for biofuels, 2.24 trillion for CSP (solar concentrated), and almost a trillion each for geothermal and nuclear.

Efficient buildings is a low hanging fruit for us in our efforts to make the world more sustainable; let's do it now.

NS @ Alternative Energy Profits

Great post!

As CEO of Irt - I would like to share our experience of the green building market here in the UK and beyond. We have patented a technique of quantifying CO2 emissions from thermal images. Available via a web portal we have a visual, quantified, simple and inexpensive tool that allows a building owner to literally see energy loss AND uniquely to see the net results on his/her bottom line.

Since 2002 our turnover has risen 20 fold. Year on year steady growth. Yes, it is easy to double something when it's small, but non the less, even through a recession we are seeing webhits and enquiries growth month on month and it is the energy sector that is growing fastest. We use the same technology to survey buildings for defects, but the energy sector now represents at least half our turnover and has an order pipeline twice that of our defect pipeline.

Why am i not telling you about the virtues of saving energy and CO2? Let me elaborate - from homeowners to tennents to portfolio managers - it is about saving money first and foremost. We in the green sector can lament the social benefits until we are blue in the face. As Jerry Maguire once said "Show me the money!". So lets focus on that together. Energy bills are soaring across the world and people have less money than ever.

If anyone wants to know more please do not hesitate to contact myself or visit our website at www.irtenergy.com or www.irtsurveys.com
Posted by Stewart Little

Very good article. Our company represents a 33 unit Beach front Condo
project in La Paz Baja Sur. We are the only Residential building in
Baja Sur to be registered for LEED certification. Showing potential
owner the long term benefits of owning a green project is challenging!
Slowly though people are beginning to understand that Green Building is
not revolutionary but rather evolutionary. Here is our site.
www.LaConchaPearl.com

best regards Rory