Download pdf - Verge and the built environment report

by ROB WATSONCEO, EcoTech International &

Sr. Contributor, GreenBiz.com

Defining and accelerating the business of sustainability.

BUILT ENVIRONMENT

AND

THE

October 2012

2 © 2012 GreenBiz Group Inc. (www.greenbizgroup.com). May be reproduced for noncommercial purposes only, provided credit is given to GreenBiz Group Inc. and includes this copyright notice.

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Researched and Written by Rob Watson

For GreenBiz Group:

Joel Makower, Chairman and Executive Editor

Derek Top, Senior Editor and Program Director, VERGE

Eric Faurot, Chief Executive Officer

Pete May, Co-founder and President

Samuel Smith, Executive Producer

Alan Robinson, VP Sales

Thanks to Our Sponsors:

Executive Summary ....................................................................................3

Buildings: Doing More with Less ................................................................5

Transportation: Access Trumps Mobility ...................................................10

Information and Communications: Catalyst & Enabler ............................15

Energy: Smarter and Decarbonized .........................................................20

Infrastructure: Falling Apart ......................................................................24

It’s the Economy, Stupid (or Is It?).............................................................29

Coda: Optimizing the Whole ...................................................................30

About the Author .....................................................................................31

About the Sponsors ..................................................................................32

About VERGE ...........................................................................................33

About GreenBiz Group .............................................................................34

© 2012 GreenBiz Group Inc. (www.greenbizgroup.com). May be reproduced for noncommercial purposes only, provided credit is given to GreenBiz Group Inc. and includes this copyright notice.

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In 2011, GreenBiz Group asked: What happens when four massive technologies (energy, information, buildings, and transportation) collide? The answer is “an unprecedented opportunity for business and sustainability” called VERGE.

VERGE refers to a vast array of products, services, and business models, and includes within its sphere a number of other trends: next-gen cities, intelligent buildings, connected mobility systems, big data, smart grids, the “share economy,” and more. Each of these things is a product of this technological/industrial convergence, and each stands to have its own profound impact on business, consumers, government, and sustainability.

Of course, VERGE is place-based — that is, it happens somewhere: a building, campus, neighborhood, city, or region. That is the focus of this report: the key trends that undergird how this technology convergence will unfold in the context of the built environment over the next few years.

The 20th century emphasized linear thinking and the efficiencies of assembly-line production. We got very good at understanding the parts and optimizing the components. Unfortunately, this came at the expense of sub-optimization of the larger system. By contrast, we believe the 21st century will be one of integration and non-linear systems thinking — a convergence of increasingly complementary parts in support of an optimized whole. The overall catalyst for this systems view is information and communications technologies, or ICT — the explosion of information-enabled products and services.

That is certainly true when it comes to the built environment. Truly competitive buildings, developments and cities are rife with connectivity that extends from the micro to the macro. Sensors and other metering technologies increasingly are becoming embedded in building equipment that can now be connected, monitored, controlled, and optimized through cross-platform management systems that allow interoperability. ICT is now facilitating and enabling the beginning of two-way flow of information and energy — a “conversation” between the electric power grid and intelligent buildings, vehicles, and devices of all kinds. And, as mobile broadband expands, all these components can be controlled at a device, building or portfolio level by a conventional smart phone, or even machine-to-machine, without human intervention.

Although the convergence of buildings with energy, ICT and transportation is just emerging, the following indicators show that it is already having a positive impact on helping companies and cities achieve their sustainability goals:

• Projected 2012 CO2 emissions in the United States are on track to be about 14 percent lower than the 2007 peak. In terms of emissions per real dollar1 of GDP, the rate has decreased steadily since the 1973-74 oil embargo — from 1.93 pounds per dollar of GDP to a forecast 0.76 pounds in 20122 — except for odd year or two when the recession sapped economic growth more than the regular improvement of energy efficiency. Energy consumption per dollar of GDP shows a very similar trend from 15.41 kBtu down to 7.48 kBtu per real dollar of GDP.

1 “Real” dollars are adjusted for inflation. We used the figures in the Monthly Energy Review (MER) September 2012 based on chained 2005 dollars. Table 1.7.

2 2012 GDP figures assume a 1.9% growth rate (Bloomberg, October 15th); CO2 figures are based on YTD fig-ures for Buildings (Residential & Commercial), Transportation and Industry derived from the MER report.

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• Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) per capita peaked in 2004 and have declined 6 percent since; total VMT is down about 3 percent from its 2007 peak. Oil imports peaked in 2006 and oil consumption peaked the year before.

• Fixed broadband penetration (defined as download speeds of at least 2 Mbps and upload speeds of at least 756 kbps) exceeds 40 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, but ranks 15th of 28 OECD countries on a per capita basis.

• Building energy use in 2012 is expected to be almost 8 percent below the 2008 peak, the lowest annual consumption this century. Commercial building energy use is almost 6 percent lower than the 2008 apex. Launched in 2000, the LEED Green Building Rating System now represents over 20 percent of new construction in the U.S.

• Residential sector energy use is forecast to be nearly 11 percent lower. The average size of a dwelling unit (weighted average including both single & multifamily) is 7 percent below its 2006 peak.

It may be tempting to dismiss many of these indicators as being driven purely by challenging economic and employment conditions, but our research indicates that, as important as the recent recession is in driving change and transforming markets, as our report indicates, there is more to these trends than that.

Building energy use in 2012 is expected

to be almost 8 percent below the 2008 peak,

the lowest annual consumption this

century.

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2012

est.

2008

2006

2004

2002

20001998

199619941992

19901988

198619841982

19801978

197619742012 est.

POUNDS OF CO2 / DOLLAR OF GDP (2005)

Pounds of Carbon Emissions per Real Dollar of GDPEnergy Information Administration, Department of Energy, Monthly Energy Review, September 2012, Table 1.7 & Table 12.1.


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The Big Picture Enabled by technology, changing demographics and individual preferences, companies are trying to squeeze more out of the space they have, rather than squeezing out more space. This trend toward greater asset utilization is most evident in the office sector, through we see signs of this in retail buildings, schools, and homes, which are increasingly becoming part-time workspaces. Most corporate real estate professionals see their portfolio contracting, not expanding, in the near term.

Average office space per person is steadily declining and forecast to drop more than 30 percent in the next five years. Big-box retailers are downsizing their stores, in some cases as much as 40 percent, and adopting urban location strategies rather than a strictly suburban/rural approach. (If this trend fully evolves, we may need to rethink the “big box” moniker.) In U.S. homes, the size of an average new residential unit is down more than 7 percent since 2006.3

The Drivers In the 2008-2011 Green Building Market and Impact Report, we wrote extensively about drivers of building energy efficiency, including the LEED Green Building Rating System and its interplay with the ASHRAE national energy standard. We believe that these standards will continue to be quite influential in the building sector and continue contributing to its lower energy intensity.

According to Richard Kadzis, CoreNet Global’s Vice President of Strategic Communications, the backdrop of continuing economic uncertainty and cost containment are two principal drivers of greater asset utilization. However, demographic trends are also playing a bigger role, with strong growth in close — in urban centers compared with suburban or far suburban areas.

For starters, commercial building vacancy rates remain stubbornly high after the official end to the recession in 2009. While there is some prospect of accelerating construction activity over the next few years, the amount of new floor space is expected to remain weak. With real estate budgets stretched, companies are cutting back on their square footage.

Technology also is enabling companies to reduce or eliminate permanent space per employee. Instead, they have unassigned space that can change daily, assigned on a first-come, first-serve basis, or depending upon the need for collaborative and team activities. ICT has facilitated both the more-efficient use of space through online reservations and also the ability to work remotely.

But ICT doesn’t do it all: There is a new job position called a “hoteling coordinator,” which has been advertised on behalf of Deloitte, Booz Allen Hamilton and Ernst & Young, among other firms with large numbers of mobile employees. And retailers are beginning to adapt a dual strategy where shoppers can come to a physical location to preview and test actual merchandise, which can be ordered online and delivered to their home with the physical stock being located in cheaper warehouse space, perhaps miles away.

Telework is growing in both government and the private sector, although there is not one fixed definition of “telework.” At one end of the spectrum is the definition where people work at home at least one day a week, a cohort that the Telework Research Network says is growing almost 60 percent per year and now encompasses 20-30 million people. More conservative estimates from IDC Research — where telecommuters work from home at least 3 days a week — as

3 Calculations based on US Census Data, Table Q1, Characteristics of New Housing

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http://retailtrafficmag.com/retailing/analysis/big_box_giants_downsize_03302011/


http://www.greenbiz.com/research/report/2011/11/07/green-building-market-and-impact-report-2011


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reported in the 2012 State of Green Business report found that telecommuting grew slightly in 2011, from 8.5 million to 8.6 million households.

Not surprisingly, telework is quite common in the tech industry, but it also has found adherents in other sectors. In addition to the reduced need for floor space, telework has been credited with reducing absenteeism, improving recruitment, particularly among younger workers who prize flexibility, and reducing turnover. Many corporate managers continue to be suspicious of telework, however. For example, per-employee savings notwithstanding, according to a study by the MIT Sloan School of Management, telecommuters — rightly or wrongly — are slightly less likely to get promoted. As the 2012 State of Green Business report noted, “Distrust among middle managers is the biggest hurdle to growing the ranks of telecommuters.”

The Impact Overall energy use for buildings should continue to decline, but energy intensity of buildings could rise as space is more intensively utilized. On a macro level, we expect that less floor area will be built for both living and commerce, which could result in lower overall real estate costs for companies. This will allow them to locate in denser, and more expensive, urban cores.

Retailers — including giants such as Walmart, Target, and Best Buy — have been shrinking their footprints for a while, gaining more revenue per square foot while reducing overhead. Indeed, some are pursuing a much more urban strategy. Downsizing and urban relocation have affected regional malls, some of which are starting to diversify to include health care and government services, even residential. This trend could have interesting implications for suburban office parks and malls, allowing them to evolve into mixed-use “town centers.”

This would not be inconsistent with residential building trends. Living units on average already are 7 percent smaller today and much more likely to be multifamily than five years ago. The amount of occupied commercial floor space per dollar of GDP is at historic lows.

Where It’s Headed According to the 2012 Human Capital and Work-Related Quality of Life survey by CoreNet, the average space allocated office workers across all companies in 2017 is forecast to be 151 square feet, compared to 176 square feet today and 225 square feet in 2010. Indeed, 40 percent of the companies surveyed by CoreNet anticipated having average office area of 100 square feet or less within five years. For companies that have adopted a comprehensive mobile technology strategy, this figure could be as low as 50 square feet per employee, according to Jones Lang LaSalle.

An office space benchmarking survey conducted by the General Services Administration showed a 2010 average of 200 square feet of usable space per person in the private sector, compared with a 190-square-feet benchmark in government.4 But the GSA office consolidation and upgrade project (currently on hold) was benchmarked at approximately 80 square feet per employee.

Key Players A growing number of companies and government departments are stressing “smaller but smarter” workplaces that rely not only on open, flexible space but also heavy reliance on telework strategies. Leaders include:

• The federal government is a major adopter of space consolidation and promoting telework. For example, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office expects to save $1.5 million a year thorough offering flexible workspace.

There is a new job position

called a “hoteling coordinator,” which

has been advertised on behalf of

Deloitte, Booz Allen Hamilton and Ernst

& Young, among other firms with

large numbers of mobile employees.

http://www.greenbiz.com/research/report/2012/01/state-green-business-report-2012

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/2012-summer/53407/why-showing-your-face-at-work-matters/

http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2012/01/18/state-green-business-2012


http://www2.corenetglobal.org/dotCMS/kcoAsset?assetInode=13497525

http://www2.corenetglobal.org/dotCMS/kcoAsset?assetInode=13497525

http://www.areadevelopment.com/siteSelection/April2012/corporate-headquarters-facility-planning-trends-26262525.shtml


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• IBM With 25 percent of its global workforce as road workers or telecommuters, IBM saves $700 million in real estate costs each year.

• Sabre Holdings—The travel firm reduced its real estate costs by 25 percent—roughly $10 million a year—through its Flexspace program.

• AT&T—Ma Bell saved $550 million per year through space consolidation.

• Nortel Network—Its telecommuting program reduced the need for 1.6 million square feet and $20 million annually in real estate costs.

Yeah, but… A study published in 2001 by Cornell University, Offices that Work, found that having open-plan offices fostered joint innovation and quick problem-solving sessions. Originally thought to lead to greater chance encounters and stimulate discussion and new ideas, the open plan office is nearly ubiquitous in today’s corporate world: Teknion corporation’s 2011 Workplace of the Future survey predicted that by 2015, more than three quarters of U.S. companies expect to use open workspaces with fewer offices.

However, the vast majority of studies show that the noise level and constant interruptions result in increased stress and lower productivity. European research shows that while employees who ask for help do better in an open space, those who supply the help can often find their productivity decline. Ironically, in order to get away from prying ears, many workers choose to discuss ideas regarding innovations and new products outside of the office.

Dr. Vinesh Oommen of Queensland University in Australia, in a literature review on the impact of open plan offices on productivity, concluded, “In 90 percent of the research, the outcome of working in an open-plan office was seen as negative, with open-plan offices causing high levels of stress, conflict, high blood pressure, and a high staff turnover.”

Some suggest that the preference and productivity of open plan offices may be a more generational and even personality issue. Gen X’ers and Gen Y’ers have grown up in a more open and collaborative setting and extroverts thrive in this type of environment, regardless of age. Older, more experienced workers, however, have lower tolerance for the hubbub of open-plan offices, and

675=2252010

528=1762012

453=1512017

Floor Space per Employee

Estimates of Floor Space Trends from CoreNet Survey

With 25 percent of its global workforce as road workers or

telecommuters, IBM saves $700 million in real estate costs

each year.

4 General Services Administration, Office of Real Property Management, Performance Measurement Division, Workspace Utilization And Allocation Benchmark, July 2012 update.

http://iwsp.human.cornell.edu/file_uploads/offices1_1238256905.pdf

http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/897705/teknion-workplace-of-the-future-survey-reveals-technology-and-workplace-trends

http://designbuildsource.com.au/open-plan-closed-office-design

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2012.00517.x/abstract

http://ideas.time.com/2012/08/15/why-the-open-office-is-a-hotbed-of-stress/

http://ideas.time.com/2012/08/15/why-the-open-office-is-a-hotbed-of-stress/

http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2012/09/05/13664477-why-your-blood-pressure-is-high-open-office-floor-plans-gaining-popularity?lite


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introverts need some sort of privacy and seclusion to be productive.

Unfortunately, green office space is not likely to solve many of the issues surrounding open-plan offices. For a variety of resource conservation reasons, the majority of green office space is open plan. A 2007 study of LEED certified office space by the Center for the Built Environment at the University of California shows that, although they perform better on most indoor environmental quality metrics, they are acoustically inferior.

Get Your Inner Geek On... According to ING Clarion Partners’ David J. Lynn, writing in the National Real Estate Investor, renewed trends in urbanization is driving change in retail strategies. Lynn uses rent growth as a proxy for both demand and overall trends in location. According to Lynn’s research, over the last five years, rent growth for central business district (CBD) retail assets has

outpaced that of the overall Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) more than half the time, as shown in the table below. In addition, the five-year forecast is for CBD rent growth to outpace that of the MSA more than two thirds of the time. Not only is the rent growth higher, but it is one a half times higher.

Past 5 Years Forecast 5 years

Rent Growth CBD vs. MSA 255% 142%

Fraction of markets where CBD growth exceeds MSA growth

53% 67%

Comparison of rent growth between CBD and MSA

MarketMSA Historical

(%)

CBD Historical

(%)MSA Forecast

(%)CBD Forecast

(%)

Atlanta -0.34 -0.88 -1.32 -0.77

Boston 2.2 3.5 0.2 1

Chicago -5.48 -5.8 -2.02 1.4

Denver -2.14 -3.3 2.3 1.2

Houston 1.6 5.3 2.89 3

Miami 2.08 7.5 2.58 2.5

San Francisco 2 10.6 0.1 0

Washington DC 1.32 9.6 1.63 1.6

Average of top 15 retail growth markets 0.55 1.42 1.49 2.11

Comparison of Growth Rates in Retail Rents

http://www.cbe.berkeley.edu/research/briefs-LEED.htm

http://www.cbe.berkeley.edu/research/briefs-LEED.htm

http://nreionline.com/property/retail/renewed_urbanization_retail_0406/


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REVERSE MIGRATIONAs urban environments become more livable, many corporations are reversing

the suburban flight of 30 years ago. Some examples:

United AirlinesThe airline has signed one of the largest leases in Chicago history in the Willis Tower, leasing 830,000 square feet through 2028.

Sara LeeIn 2005, the company moved out of its 60-year home in Chicago for Downer’s Grove, a suburb. However, the company has announced that in 2013 it plans to relocate 500–650 employees back to downtown Chicago.

Amazon.comThe online retailer’s new headquarters, totaling 1.7 million square feet in 11 buildings, is located on a Seattle streetcar line, providing direct access to the city’s airport.

Salesforce.comannounced in 2010 that the company spent more than $270 million to buy 14 acres in San Francisco’s Mission Bay to build a two million-square-foot headquarters. However, in early 2012 the company abandoned its plans for building the project, opting to remain in and expand its downtown San Francisco presence in 3 newly available buildings that would give them nearly the space of Mission Bay several years before that project would be ready. According to an article in Forbes, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff noted “We can attract extraordinary talent [to San Francisco]. It’s not Silicon Valley, the flatlands.”

Zapposis scheduled to move 1,200 employees to downtown Las Vegas in 2013 from suburban Henderson.

Motorola is moving all of its 3,000 Mobility division employees outside Chicago to downtown, taking over several top floors of the LEED-certifiedMerchandize Mart.

Many fast-growing startups are opting for downtowns, sometimes settling in sub-prime parts of town. Downtown Internet firms include:

Zynga (San Francisco) • Square (San Francisco) • Tumblr (New York) Pinterest (Palo Alto) • Twitter (San Francisco)


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The Big Picture With the advent of always-on, high-speed and mobile communication, it is possible to have nearly continuous access to people, work, goods and services from anywhere. Two very large demographic cohorts — retiring Baby Boomers (those between 47 to 67 years old) and coming-of-age “echo boomers” (a.k.a. Generation Y, ages 18 to 34) — are expressing preferences for the compact, diverse opportunities available in denser urban environments, mean that they are choosing access over mobility.

For the younger generation, this choice appears to be reinforced by the fact that in 2011 Gen Y’ers bought 30 percent fewer cars than were sold to this cohort 4 years ago, and adults in the 35-44 age range curbed their car-buying by 25 percent, while losing a large number of licensed drivers. This indicates that many younger people are eschewing the physical access from remote locations that cars gave earlier generations in favor of the access provided by virtual mobility. Public transit, car-sharing, bicycling, and walking are just a few of the preferred options for sustainable mobility among younger people.

Ania Wieskowski outlined in the Harvard Business Review the many physical, mental and cultural problems with suburban living, and notes that almost two-thirds of college-educated job-seekers locate first to where they want to be: the cities, which have quick physical access to a variety of goods and services without having to rely on a car, then they find a good job.

The Drivers Before automobiles became a dominant element of American society, if people wanted to see someone or get something, they simply walked to their neighbor’s house, or to the relatively convenient town/city center. With the advent of sprawling suburbs and automobile transportation, access, in terms of time, grew significantly in spatial terms.

Earlier this year, Time.com reporter Brad Tuttle wrote about eight key influences on America’s driving habits, which we group here by VERGE category with commentary based on our research:

ICT

• Telecommuting: As noted above, for reasons of greater access and cost savings, more and more companies are embracing at least part-time telecommuting.

•Online shopping: Online shopping continues to grow by double digits annually, but retailers are finding ways to consolidate their real estate footprint and take advantage of an online component in conjunction with their physical properties. A 2008 Carnegie Mellon study updated last year found that online shopping had a lower environmental footprint than in-store shopping principally because of the reduced transportation footprint.

• Information technology: Another side of the online shopping coin, what we call “informational access,” allows people to interact socially without being physically together.

•Home entertainment: Numbers vary, but the electronic gaming industry in the United States is 60 percent to 70 percent larger than the film industry in terms of revenue. Add to this a wide array of cable and online entertainment options and it is no longer necessary to leave the home for this type of entertainment.

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http://www.edmunds.com/industry-center/commentary/whos-not-buying-new-cars.html

http://hbr.org/2010/05/back-to-the-city/ar/1

http://moneyland.time.com/2012/04/13/off-the-road-8-reasons-why-were-driving-less/

http://www.ce.cmu.edu/~greendesign/research/Buy_com_report_final_030209.pdf


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Transportation

•Gas prices: There is no doubt that gas prices influence behavior in the short run, but as noted below, the overall cost of driving is still considerably below that of a decade ago, in inflation-adjusted terms. Perhaps the confluence of rising ownership costs and the other trends mentioned will combine to moderate, if not reverse, America’s half-century-long increase in annual vehicle miles traveled.

• Traffic: Although traffic is worse than the 1982 baseline — “wasted time” is about 15 percent greater across the 400+ urban areas studied — congestion conditions have actually improved slightly since the year 2000, according to research by Texas A&M University. Of course, your congestion may vary.

Buildings

• Shift to urban living: As noted above, the trends of urban densification and growing access to broadband information networks are affecting two of the largest demographic cohorts in the United States: retiring “empty nest” Baby Boomers and the 18-to-34-year-old Gen Y “Echo Boomers.” As part of wide-ranging livability programs, many urban areas are significantly increasing the physical and informational infrastructure to support non-motorized transportation and trips. Research by William Frey of the Brookings Institution indicates that the annual population growth rate in exurban and suburban areas has declined precipitously from over 2 percent to below 1 percent since the late 2000s. At the same time, city and high-density suburban populations have climbed significantly, from negative growth in 2006 to growth rates of nearly 1 percent today, equaling or surpassing their less-dense counterparts.

•Employment trends: Of course, employment — or lack thereof — impacts transportation trends. And although unemployment remains high, the improving job growth since 2009 has not resulted in a resumption of car travel. Interestingly, the decrease in energy and carbon emissions from transportation accelerated in 2012, which could mean that a virtuous cycle — urban job growth, substituting virtual or non-motorized access for mobility and continued improvement in auto fuel economy — will keep transportation-related energy and carbon emissions low amid economic recovery.

The Impact There are contradictory trends regarding peoples’ use of transportation services. So, while it is premature to say that America’s love affair with the automobile has ended, certainly the honeymoon is over.

On the one hand, vehicle miles traveled — both for personal vehicles as well as heavy trucks, including long–haul transport and local delivery — have declined over the last few years. Clearly, the trucking industry has been hit by higher fuel prices and the recession since 2007 but large fleets such as UPS and FedEx also have improved the energy efficiency of their fleets.

On the other hand, although fuel prices have risen sharply since 2009, the cost in inflation-adjusted dollars for driving 15,000 miles, including both fixed and variable costs, is about the same as it was in 1996 and considerably lower than it was a decade ago.

Fuel economy for the personal vehicle fleet (including light trucks) is the highest on record. If FedEx and UPS and the major airlines are any indication, there are

The trends of urban densification and

growing access to broadband

information are affecting two of the largest demographic

cohorts in the U.S: Baby Boomers and the 18-to-34-year-

old Gen Y “Echo Boomers.”

http://www.livablecities.org

http://www.livablecities.org

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2012/04/06-census-exurbs-frey

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2011/12/online-shopping-vs-traditional-shopping.html


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aggressive efforts underway to upgrade truck and air fleets, which also includes fuel-switching in ground vehicles.

Where It’s Headed We believe that workplace policy, demographic, urbanization and pricing trends will continue to put downward pressure on the use of private transportation. Non-motorized transportation, such as walking and bicycling, will continue to grow as cities become more walking and bike friendly.

Although still a relatively small portion of commuting trips, the use of mass transit for non-work-related trips has grown significantly. In addition, walking and bicycling trips are significantly above the levels of the decade ago, in part due to greater urbanization.

We believe that urbanization trends of the U.S. population will continue, though not necessarily in the denser central business districts (CBDs) that are considerably more expensive to develop. Significant opportunity remains in the CBDs of many of the northeastern U.S. cities that suffered population loss over the last three decades. But in the near future we expect to see greater development concentration in the more vibrant areas of larger cities that will cluster around the fringes of the existing fixed-rail transportation networks, such as commuter rail, streetcars and subways.

We also see huge potential for new transit patterns being developed around and between office parks and shopping malls where sufficient density exists.

On the vehicle front, one of the key takeaways from a 2012 KPMG survey of global automotive executives is that we are beginning to move into an era of car usership and out of the era of car ownership. This trend is consistent with the overall global movement of the share economy, or what the VERGE speaker, Lisa Gansky, calls “The Mesh,” the title of her 2010 book.

Key Players The ascendancy of car usership versus ownership is represented by the strong growth in car-sharing fleets and programs as well as ride-sharing options for both businesses and consumers. The website carsharing.net lists more than 150 car-sharing organizations, from national networks like Zipcar to a small local co-op in Traverse City, MI.

Region Car Sharing Program Types of Operations

U.S. Over 100 citiesWide range from small co-ops to

large for-profits

Canada Over 2 dozen citiesMostly smaller, local programs &

coops

Europe Over 50 citiesWide range from small co-ops to

large for-profits

Middle East Israel Mostly for-profit companies

Asia Singapore Mostly for-profit companies

Australia & New Zealand

Several cities Mostly for-profit companies

Several of these services have investments by the big car companies. For example, carpooling.com, a website that facilitates carpooling for over a million riders in Europe, and Car2Go both boast investments by Daimler. In Germany, BMW has launched DriveNow a carsharing service featuring electric vehicles

We expect to see greater

development concentration in the more vibrant areas of larger cities that will cluster around the fringes of the existing fixed-rail

transportation networks.

http://www.pressroom.ups.com/Fact+Sheets/240+Million+Miles+and+Beyond

http://carsharing.net

http://carpooling.com

https://www.car2go.com/en/austin/

https://www.drive-now.com


and recently debuted the service in San Francisco. Ford and Zipcar have jointly launched a program targeted at universities, and GM has investments with the peer-to-peer company RelayRides. The large rental companies are also getting into the act, with Hertz-on-Demand launching into a dozen cities.

City-Go-Round, which is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, has an excellent website (www.citygorround.org) principally dedicated to urban and suburban transit mobility that has almost 180 apps for transit (143) walking and biking (21) and driving (13).

Yeah, But… It seems almost an article of faith that fuel prices and economics dictate how much people drive. However, at the macro level, the data tells a slightly different story. In the graph below, it appears that rising cost of driving is correlated with more driving. Ironically, cost and VMT curves track almost identically, opposite of what is expected given the inverse type of relationship.

These kinds of situations are what economists call “inelastic,” where demand is not heavily dependent on price. But it now appears that some sort threshold has been reached. Perhaps there is some combination of driving costs, congestion and the availability of alternatives that is damping down total mileage.

Feet on the Street The Urban Land Institute and the LOCUS network of Smart Growth America sponsored a study of the Washington DC area with George Washington University (GWU) School of Business. It looks at the DC area as a microcosm of urbanization trends over the last decade or so. The basic thesis of the study is that regionally significant walkable areas will be the principal location of economic growth in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area and, by extension, the rest of the country. Indeed, the U.S. Conference of Mayors anticipates that over 90 percent of the growth in U.S. employment and population will occur in cities.

Based on a 2007 Brookings Institution assessment of the Washington, DC area, the GWU evaluation looks at two principal development types within the Washington Metro region: drivable suburban and walkable urban areas. On average, the walkable urban places (a.k.a. WalkUPs) are 15 times denser than the drivable suburban areas with comparable real estate premiums for the returns on equivalent amounts of land.

It seems almost an article of faith

that fuel prices and economics dictate how much people

drive. However, the data tells a slightly

different story.

$ 1,000$ 2,000$ 3,000$ 4,000$ 5,000$ 6,000$ 7,000$ 8,000$ 9,000$10,000

2011201020092008200720062205200420032002200120001999199819971996199519941993199219911990

500,0001,000,000

2,000,000

3,000,0003,500,000

2,500,000

1,500,000

Annual VMTCost of Travel (adjusted for inflation)

Annual VMT and Cost of Travel (15,000 miles) Trends29

Sources: Cost of travel: American Automobile Association, Your Driving Costs (Heathrow, FL: Annual Issues); VMT: Monthly Traffic Volume Trends, August 2012

https://relayrides.com/

http://www.hertzondemand.com/

http://www.citygoround.org/about/

http://www.uli.org/infrastructure-initiative/walkable-urban-centers-report-released-by-locus-and-uli-washington

http://newsroom.aaa.com/2012/04/cost-of-owning-and-operating-vehicle-in-u-s-increased-1-9-percent-according-to-aaa%E2%80%99s-2012-%E2%80%98your-driving-costs%E2%80%99-study/

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/travel_monitoring/tvt.cfm


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The study lists six distinct types of WalkUPs: 1. Downtown; 2. Downtown Adjacent; 3. Urban Commercial; 4. Suburban Town Center; 5. Strip Commercial Development; and 6. Greenfield. These six WalkUPs comprise less than 10 percent of the metropolitan area in Washington DC. Yet, since 2009, they account for 48 percent of all of income-generating property (office, retail, apartment, hotel) in the region, up from 34 percent in the period 2000-2008.

The GWU research found that WalkUPs are significantly more desirable and significantly more valuable economically than drivable areas.

• There is a 75 percent rental premium for office space in DC WalkUPs, compared to the region’s average rents.

• Housing for sale in DC WalkUPs is 71 percent more expensive per square foot than the average of prices in the DC metro area.

• Office, retail, apartment and hotel space in DC metro area WalkUPs has risen, from for 24 percent of new development during the 1990s, to 48 percent of all development in the cycle starting in 2009.

• WalkUPs are host to a growing share of new rental apartment development. In the 1990s, 12 percent of new rental apartment space was built in WalkUPs, but in 2012 that figure reached 42 percent. The 43 regionally significant WalkUPs identified in the report account for about 34 percent of metro area jobs in DC. Three-quarters of the WalkUPs are connected with rail transit to the broader region.

The Big Picture Information and communication technology (ICT) is enabling change in the nature of consumption and ownership, which, in turn, is having dramatic impacts on building and transportation asset utilization.

There is a 75 percent rental

premium for office space in DC in

walkable urban areas, compared

to the region’s average rents.

REGIONALLY SIGNIFICANT LOCAL SERVING

U.S. M

etro

polit

an La

nd Us

e Opt

ions

Division of Metropolitan Land Areas Between Walkable and Drivable

WALKUP(Walkable Urban Place)

1-2% of Metro Area Acreage

NEIGHBORHOOD


EDGE CITY


BEDROOMCOMMUNITY


Walk

able

Urba

nDr

ivabl

e Sub

-urb

an

DC: The WalkUP Wake-up Call, by Christopher Leinberger, George Washington University

School of Business, 2012.


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After some initial (and ongoing) false-starts, ICT is beginning to catalyze the remaking of the entire facility management industry. On the energy front, the smart grid could have a potentially similar impact depending on whether the intelligence is directed toward the building side (huge) or toward the utility side (less significant) of the meter. Although buildings hold particular promise for the efficiencies that can be realized from an ICT overlay, there is a mistaken belief that ICT alone can solve the problem. It can’t.

In sum, ICT tools are necessary, and hold considerable promise for the built environment, but insufficient without cultural or structural changes.

The Drivers One of the cornerstones in the theory of economic efficiency is that perfect information is uniformly available and that rational decisions are made solely based on that information and not subject to the context.5 One of the key explanations of economic inefficiency is the lack of information or information asymmetry. The spread of fixed and mobile broadband is putting near real-time information into the hands of more and more people.

ICT is helping reduce the risk to individuals or companies that just because you don’t “own” resources such as office space or a car, it doesn’t mean you won’t have them when you need or want them. This means it is not necessary need to over-consume or “over-own” resources just to guarantee access.

The Impact: Buildings and Urban Development Although dashboards don’t save energy by themselves, they give insights to building operators that can lead to eliminating waste. When combined with experienced and skilled building operators, these insights can lead to more efficient and effective building operations, though we would argue extent of these energy “savings” remains somewhat unclear. Most faults detected through dashboards and analytics should be caught in the course of routine building management. At the end of the day, it’s the human action that saves the energy, not the information that revealed the need to act. Clearly, good management makes a difference and improved tools simply improve management. We have argued elsewhere that the main goal of building analytics is to prevent ROI, not to create ROI.

The impact of increasing building instrumentation and control, however, is a different matter. Putting intelligence and control on the building side of the meter — at the individual building or building cluster level — in our opinion, is what the “smart grid” is all about. It’s up to buildings themselves, not the grid, to tune the size of their energy demand to their own needs. This can be helped, of course, by pricing information from the grid.

The ability to continuously and automatically commission and tune building services to their exact needs not only reduces maintenance costs significantly, but also should lead to significant improvements in energy efficiency, with the same caveats about “savings” noted above. In addition, soon we will see building energy systems integrated and controllable down to the individual device. Some highly tuned control systems are beginning to emerge, particularly in lighting and crude space-by-space HVAC control.

Transportation The Telework Research Network estimates that economic

5 If you ever want to drive a conventional economist crazy, simply refer to the willingness to pay experiments that show people are willing to pay vastly different sums of money for the identical product, simply because of where they are purchasing the product.

Info

rmat

ion

and

Co

mm

unic

atio

ns: C

atal

yst

& E

nab

ler

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Guest-Post-The-Energy-Dashboard-Delusion-Part-1; http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Guest-Post-The-Energy-Dashboard-Delusion-Part-2

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Guest-Post-The-Energy-Dashboard-Delusion-Part-2

http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2010/07/06/telecommuting-saves-companies-10k-employee-yearly


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savings of up to $10,000 per employee can be realized through a comprehensive approach to telework. These savings range from increased productivity to lower real estate costs and, on the employee front — you guessed it — lower gasoline bills and car operating expenses. According to a survey of global automobile executives done by KPMG, 63 percent think that convergence of TIME (Telecom, IT, Media, Entertainment) and the auto industry is “inevitable.”

Energy In an extensive study of the energy efficiency impacts of the smart grid, Pacific National Northwest Laboratories estimated that reductions in electricity sector energy and CO2 emissions could be reduced directly by approximately 12 percent, while the indirect impacts would be approximately 6 percent.

Where It’s Headed

• Transparency: ICT enables more freely available data and greater access to that information. Understanding operational data and how a building is managed can help maximize resource efficiency. Information about key features, such as neighborhood walkability and amenities, is readily available on the Internet, which helps focus and drive both residential and non-residential investment. Eventually, people both inside and out will know much more about the building in real time or in terms of reviews. The growing trend of benchmarking energy consumption and public access to this information will play an increasing role in real estate markets. It is very easy to see how savvy owners could promote their buildings based on publicly benchmarked performance and “crowdsourced” opinions on conditions in certain buildings, not unlike what happens now with restaurant reviews.

• Six cities: New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, San Francisco, Austin, and Seattle, have requirements for commercial buildings greater than 50,000 square feet to benchmark their energy use and to post it publicly. Some cities, such as New York, further require that energy audits and retro-commissioning efforts be undertaken. There are also some requirements for multifamily and, in the case of Austin, single-family residential buildings at the time of sale, to be benchmarked to help improve energy efficiency.

•Real-Time/Just-In-Time Management: Real-time data for building analytics as a first step in moving buildings toward “autopilot” is a scenario in which the traditional building operator could end up going the way of the telephone operator. But simply because there are no longer any phone operators does not mean that the telecom system runs itself. In the near future, different skill sets will be needed in building management that combine the ICT with hands-on field experience. This is not unlike the automotive industry, where diagnostics is now done principally or increasingly by plugging in to the dataport, rather than listening to the engine. However, the best mechanics also know what to listen for, as well as how to read and understand the computer diagnostic report.

Also in the near future, people involved with facility management would need to have a significant combination of both ICT experience and mechanical knowledge. One of our worries is that the rush toward building automation and integration through ICT is getting ahead of the ability of the operations and maintenance field to successfully provide enough people with the proper skill sets to meet upcoming needs. This is part of the potential green job deficit noted by McGraw-Hill in its green employment study. Management will

According to a survey of global

automobile executives done

by KPMG, 63 percent think that

convergence of Telecom, IT, Media, Entertainment and

the auto industry is “inevitable.”

http://www.kpmg.com/GE/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Documents/Global-automotive-executive-survey-2012.pdf

http://www.kpmg.com/GE/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Documents/Global-automotive-executive-survey-2012.pdf

http://energyenvironment.pnnl.gov/news/pdf/PNNL-19112_Revision_1_Final.pdf

http://smartbuildings1.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/the-road-to-smarter-buildings-moring-to-a-much-higher-level-of-automation/


also need to rethink its approach to facility management, recognizing that people will end up costing more on an individual basis though each individual will be able handle more floor area eventually.

Automatic continuous commissioning will be able to monitor building behavior and conditions that can be accessed by the building operations team from anywhere in the world. Self-calibrating controls, or controls that can be manipulated remotely, will increasingly replace manual and mechanical controls, but some things will still need intervention and replacement.

•Demand Response: Demand response or peak load reduction is not really “new,” with variants of this demand-side management strategy dating to the 1980s. The demand charge portion of commercial energy bills is growing rapidly, so reducing power consumption is one of the most cost-effective

CityYear

StartedTiming Activities

No. of Buildings

Austin 2009

Reporting:Commercial Buildings >75,000 ft2 June 201230,000-75,000 ft2 201310,000-30,000 ft2 2014Multifamily > 150% of average

Residential Buildings: Disclose audit results to potential buyer

Commercial Buildings: Portfolio Manager Benchmark

Multifamily Buildings: Reduce energy by 20% & disclose performance

New York 2009

2011: City Buildings >10,000 ft2

2012: Commercial Buildings >50,000 ft2

2013: Residential multifamily >50,000 ft2

Benchmarking

Tenant Submetering

Reporting

Retrocommissioning

~24,000

San Francisco 2010

Commercial building benchmarking:>50,000 ft2, October 1, 201125,000-50,000 ft2 April 201210,000-25,000 ft2 April 2013Audits begin 2013

~8,000

Seattle 2010

Phase 1: Commercial buildings > 50,000 ft2 (April 2012 data submission deadline)

Phase 2: Commercial buildings >10,000 ft2 & Multifamily buildings >5 units.

Benchmarking

Tenant Submetering

Reporting

Retrocommissioning

~24,000

Washington DC

still finalizing


2012: All Buildings >150,000 ft2


2014: All Buildings >50,000 ft2


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actions any company can take to trim its energy costs. Typical demand management measures include, among many others, letting building temperatures float during peak hours, slight dimming of lighting systems, reducing voltage at the building transformer level, and slightly slowing the speed of elevators and escalators slightly.

However, it has only been within the last few years that the process of demand response has been automated with both standalone and whole building software, such as building management systems. The modern demand management industry has evolved from a customized, expert-driven offering to one that is governed by automatic decision rules.

One of the few bright spots in the automated software front, this activity quickly became commoditized. It has made strong inroads into building automation systems and has allowed more effective management of energy costs and building peak loads, which are the principal driver of capacity additions to the electric grid.

•Collaborative Consumption: ICT also is the principal enabler of the rapidly growing share economy (or “collaborative consumption” and “peer-to-peer”) movements that are beginning to have a noticeable impact on the more efficient and effective use of transportation and building assets.

•Gamification: Still in its infancy, but Gainesville Green is an interesting website site (in beta, as of this publication) that shows what might be possible in the future for tracking energy consumption. As a study by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy noted, combining smart metering and user feedback with the ability to compare consumption with peers is the most powerful combination in reducing energy use.

Key Players

•Buildings and Energy: Groom Energy has by far and away the best representation of the key software products that form the intersection between buildings and the energy system under the rubric of their enterprise smart grid evaluation services, so we will let the picture speak the thousand words. (See graphic on next page)

Yeah, But…The Dilemma of Big Data Analytics experts at IBM’s Smarter Buildings initiative have noted that a single decent-sized building can have almost 10,000 data points producing meaningful information at 15-minute, or less, intervals, producing nearly a million data points every day. EnerNOC, the demand management and energy efficiency company, manages over 23 GB of data per day across its 13,000 building network. This quantity of information brings up several challenges:

• Verifying: Data is produced by sensors, which have been often sold on lowest price, that are not terribly accurate or reliable. You know the drill: garbage in, garbage out, and in a building with thousands of sensors, that can be a lot of garbage.

• Storing: Much less of an issue now, except for that pesky cost thing.

• Managing: The next big challenge with this amount of data is that it needs to be managed and analyzed in a way that can produce useful

It has only been within the last

few years that the process of demand response has been

automated with both standalone

and whole building software, such as

building automation systems.

http://gainesville-green.com/

http://aceee.org/press/2010/06/aceee-study-finds-smart-meters-not-smart-enough-slash-re


http://www.groomenergy.com/enterprisesmartgrid.html

http://www.groomenergy.com/enterprisesmartgrid.html


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information. This is where building analytics and network operation centers (NOC) have the greatest benefits, so long as the analytics and NOCs are developed by or staffed with competent people, which continue to be in insufficient supply.

• Interpreting: Alluding to the current and looming shortage of qualified green professionals in the building sector noted by the McGraw-Hill study mentioned below, the ability to analyze and interpret the data that’s being provided is another challenge.

• Action: Often the Achilles heel of the Big Data dilemma, as many of the dashboard companies have discovered to their chagrin. Just because information is provided, does not mean that building operators have the time or the training to respond to it.

Groom Energy’s Brilliant Graphic of the Building-Related IT Space


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The Big Picture As technology and data intelligence spark convergence trends in buildings, information and transportation, it makes sense to conclude with the energy impacts needed to deliver lean, efficient new products and services. When combined with a significant shift to electricity generation from natural gas and the growing contributions of wind and solar, the overall impact of convergence is a much lower carbon intensity, or the “decarbonization” of a more intelligent energy system.

As a result, U.S. carbon emissions in 2012 could end up as low as 1993 levels — 14 percent below the 2005 peak, and total energy consumption is approaching 1992 levels. The carbon intensity of the economy is at its lowest point since comprehensive carbon emissions data has been gathered at an estimated 0.76 pounds of CO2 per real dollar of GDP, compared with the nearly two pounds of CO2 per inflation-adjusted dollar in 1973.

The Drivers The principal drivers of decarbonization of the U.S. energy sector are twofold. Most influential has been the significant shift in the national fuel mix, which has been underway since 2005. The second element is the growing embedded intelligence in buildings and cars that is fostering a multidirectional “conversation” between and among individuals, buildings and the electricity and roadway grids.

The change in the fuel mix has two principal components. First, the dramatic shift toward wind and solar energy, which has grown by approximately 60 percent over the last seven years; renewable energy’s share of electricity generation has grown from 8.5 percent to nearly 14 percent overall; and second, the shift away from coal and residual oil toward natural gas.

Concerns about domestic energy security, as well as unmanageable climate change, has resulted in a multitude of U.S. state policies promoting renewable energy through the use of regulations that require a minimum percentage of power supply be provided from renewable sources. As scale has grown, renewable-energy costs — both from international and domestic producers — have come down significantly.

Energy markets are becoming increasingly global, even for fuels such as coal and natural gas. These global markets, in turn, are having an increasing impact on U.S. domestic energy markets. On the fossil fuel front, coal prices have risen dramatically, about 30 percent in real terms since 2005. This has been driven by increased demand in China, rising mining costs as high-quality coal becomes harder to find and mine, increased coal transportation costs and aging, inefficient coal-fired power plants that are no longer competitive with modern high-efficiency gas–fired equipment. At the same time, natural gas prices have declined by almost 50 percent due to the rapid growth of the shale gas resource.

Continuing declines in the cost of renewable energy technology, combined with pending enactment of EPA regulations governing carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants, is likely to prolong, perhaps even accelerate, this fuel-shifting trend. It remains to be seen what impact environmental regulation and deepened extraction experience will have on the shale gas resource and on these price and fuel mix trends.

Ene

rgy:

Sm

arte

r an

d D

ecar

bo

nize

d


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The Impact Total carbon emissions for the United States in 2012 are on track to be 6 percent lower than 2011 figures, in spite of forecast economic growth of about 2 percent. If current energy consumption trends persist, 2012 energy use will be about the same level as in 1992, 3.6 percent lower than in 2011. Year-to-date figures show energy consumption declines across all sectors, with the largest decreases coming in the building sector. Compared with peak carbon dioxide emissions, 2012 could result in about 900 million fewer tons emitted than the 2007 peak year.

2012 commercial building energy is anticipated to be over 5 percent below the 2008 peak, while residential building energy could be as much as 10 percent below its 2010 peak.

2005

2006 2007

2008

2009 2010 2011

2012

950

1,000

1,050

1,100COMMERCIAL SECTOR CO2 EMISSIONS (MILLION TONS)

U.S. commercial sector emissionsEnergy Information Administration, Department of Energy, Monthly Energy Review, September 2012, Table 12.3. Carbon Dioxide Emissions From Energy Consumption: Commercial Sector

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

2006

2004

2002

20001998

199619941992

1990 2010

2012

est

2008

TOTAL US CO2 EMISSIONS (MILLION TONS)

Total U.S. CO2 emissionsEnergy Information Administration, Department of Energy, September 2012 Monthly Energy Review, Tables 12.1 and 12.7.


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Where It’s Headed We believe that for the near- to mid-term, the rate of decarbonization will accelerate due to a combination of continued fuel-mix changes and growing energy efficiency. With more than 1 gigawatt of solar power coming online in California and the U.S. Southwest, the era of cottage solar is over. For the foreseeable future, we expect that the energy intensity of the U.S. economy will continue to decline, perhaps at an accelerated rate due to recent sharp price increases and the adoption of policies and programs that promote energy efficiency.

We do not see any letup in the pressure on fossil fuel prices due to continued growing — albeit at a slower pace — demand in the developing world. To the extent that economic recovery continues, its impact on total energy consumption will be the result of the horserace between continued price- and technology-driven efficiency improvements and increases in production.

Key Drivers In the industrial sector, energy pricing will continue to be the biggest driver of energy and carbon intensity. However, in the buildings and transportation sectors, we believe that a combination of regulatory push and market pull will be the major influences.

The recently adopted fuel-economy standards will provide strong impetus to car and light truck manufacturers to produce more efficient vehicles, and impetus that will be strongly supported by continued increases in real energy prices. For buildings and utilities, price signals will continue to be mixed but the regulatory direction should continue to push firmly toward greater efficiency in consumption for buildings and electricity production for utilities.

The trend toward benchmarking and reporting initiatives — spurred by groups such as the Carbon Disclosure Project and the Global Reporting Initiative — are moving to the built environment. Cities will be playing an increasing role through the mandatory energy benchmarking programs that have been adopted by several major U.S. cities, New York being the most prominent among them.

TRANSPORTATION CO2 (MILLION TONS)

U.S. Transportation CO2 Emissions

2005

1,850

1,900

2006 2007

2008

2009 2010 2011

2012

1,950

2,000

2,050

Energy Information Administration, Department of Energy, Monthly Energy Review, September 2012, Table 12.5. Carbon Dioxide Emissions From Energy Consumption: Transportation Sector


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It is too soon to appreciate the impact this reporting will have on the actions of building owners, but as we’ve seen in the past, companies are eager to be seen at the top of such rankings — or at least not at the bottom.

Yes, and… Above we discussed the impact of energy analytics, demand response, smart grid in the context of ICT and Buildings, but what about smart meters? We believe that we will see some impact of smart metering on residential energy use. In spite of pockets of resistance, smart meters are approaching the magical 20 percent penetration level that usually signals the beginning of mass adoption. Some forecasts put smart-meter penetration at up to 75 percent within five years.

Our take is that smart meters are necessary, but not sufficient: Research by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy indicates that real-time feedback programs have the potential to decrease energy consumption by up to 12 percent, but that smart meters by themselves are not sufficient to result in these kinds of savings. ACEEE found the most effective combination to be persistent, regular feedback on energy use and benchmarking with neighbors.

If utilities were to further integrate energy efficiency with their smart-metering programs, we believe they could have a very strong impact on building energy consumption in the near to mid term.

Bright Spot for Renewables The combination of rapidly falling PV panel prices, growing access to the utility grid, aggressive purchasing programs as part of state renewable energy portfolio standards and increased credit for renewable energy in LEED has led to a dramatic increase in building-integrated solar and wind in just two years: from zero percent of of Commercial Sector renewable energy to over 1.5 percent through mid 2012.

Although it remains tiny compared to the total energy use of the commercial sector, the tenfold growth over the last 18 months is remarkable. Similarly, the integration of wind energy in buildings has also grown fivefold during that period. These trends are reflected in projects that are certified to LEED, which have shown strong increases in receiving direct renewable energy credits.

Smart meters are approaching the

magical 20 percent penetration level

that usually signals the beginning of

mass adoption.

0.2%

0.0%

0.4%

0.6%

0.8%

1.0%

1.2%

Onsite Wind

BIPV20

12 Jun

e

2012

May

2012

April

2012

March

2012

Febr

uary

2012

Janua

ry

2011 T

otal

2011

Dece

mber

2011

Nove

mber

2011

Octo

ber

2011

Sept

embe

r

2011

Augu

st

2011

July

2011

June

2011

May

2011

April

2011

March

2011

Febr

uary

2011

Janua

ry

EIA Monthly Energy Review, September 2012, Table 2.3. Commercial Sector Energy Consumption

COMMERCIAL SECTOR RENEWABLE ENERGY FROM BUILDING-INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGY




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The Big Picture Concern over infrastructure is a little like concern over the weather: Everybody talks about, it but nobody feels they can do much about it. Most assessments of infrastructure quality in the United States give it very poor grades. Indeed, crumbling conventional infrastructure will both be accelerating and hindering the convergence trends described in this report.

Typically, infrastructure refers water, energy, transportation, and other large-scale systems. There is no doubt that these “pipes, wires and lane miles” are critical in day-to-day commerce and overall quality of life. But because VERGE is about integration across silos, we believe that a broader definition of infrastructure is warranted. So we include information and communication technology and green building industry expertise as “infrastructure.”

Based on the most recent infrastructure report from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the overall infrastructure grade for the United States was a “D.” This report was completed in 2009 and is likely representative of infrastructure conditions in 2007–2008. Since 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 put about $100 billion dollars into improving energy, water and transportation infrastructure, but that is miniscule compared with the $2.2 trillion infrastructure repair and upgrade overhang estimated by ASCE.

In some ways, the fast-growing ICT infrastructure is substituting for, or at least mitigating the need for, conventional infrastructure in transportation and, to a less direct extent, energy. With new access to disruptive transportation options, and as we tap energy efficiency as the “fifth fuel,” the infrastructure to deliver these services will become increasingly important.

The Drivers Budget pressures and political tension between the state and national level in the United States have conspired to take hostage the maintenance of what we think of traditionally as infrastructure.

As the potential for ICT becomes more fully integrated into building and transportation assets — on top of growing entertainment demands — the burden on communication infrastructure will grow. Moreover, serious inequalities between urban and rural areas and a generally below world-class level of service will also put pressure on ICT corporate infrastructure.

Infr

astr

uctu

re: F

allin

g A

par

t

Grade VERGE Impact

Bridges C Transport (direct); Buildings & Energy (indirect)

Dams D Energy (direct); Buildings (indirect)

Drinking Water D Buildings (direct)

Energy D+ Buildings, Transport, IT

Rail C Transport

Roads D Transport (direct); Buildings, Energy (indirect)

Solid Waste C+ Buildings (indirect)

Transit D Buildings, Energy, Transport

Wastewater D Buildings

Selected Infrastructure Category Grades and their Impact on VERGE SectorsAmerican Society of Civil Engineers, America’s Infrastructure Report Cards

http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/report-cards

http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/report-cards


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Communications infrastructure outside of rural areas has been growing steadily and government stimulus has helped bridge some gaps in the market. However, a recent report from the New America Foundation found that U.S. broadband access and speed was more limited than in several Asian and European cities. Studies show U.S. cities ranking near or at the bottom from the perspective of services received per dollar spent.

The Impact Based on conditions in 2009, the New America Foundation estimated that the annual cost of the deficient infrastructure in the United States approaches $200 billion. Not surprisingly, the largest chunk (more than half) comes from the nearly five billion hours that Americans waste in traffic. Aviation delays similarly cost Americans a considerable amount of time, while poor energy infrastructure results in excessive transmission and distribution losses and deteriorated power quality.

It is somewhat ironic that the economic loss attributed to America’s poor water and wastewater treatment infrastructure is among the lowest of the eight key infrastructure categories investigated. The irony is that although the economic losses are among the lowest of the categories, the cost to upgrade this infrastructure will be among the highest.

There is also a human infrastructure problem. A recent McGraw-Hill study found that in both the design and construction fields, there is a strong belief that there will not be adequate expertise or experience to meet potentially growing needs as soon as 2014. In particular, given the projected rapid growth of green construction as the recession recedes, the Smart Market Report envisions a shortage of design and construction expertise in the green area, which it projects will grow more rapidly than the construction sector as a whole. McGraw-Hill predicts that as Baby Boomers approach retirement age, a fair amount of experience and institutional knowledge will be lost; moreover, some believe that work in the buildings sector is not as attractive to the incoming generation of workers as it has been in the past.

There is no doubt green building will continue to provide opportunity for people in the design, engineering and construction industry. But the question remains whether there is enough opportunity to keep this industry expertise ready and available when needed. Lack of expertise can cause issues with good integrated design and engineering, which means that the savings opportunities from green

Based on conditions in 2009, the New

America Foundation estimated that the annual cost of the deficient

infrastructure in the U.S. approaches

$200 billion.

Infrastructure Category

Annual Efficiency Loss ($ billion)

Aviation $33

Bridges $8

Drinking Water $3

Energy $25

Roads/Transit $115

Total $184

Annual Cost of Inadequate InfrastructureNew America Foundation: Costs of the Infrastructure Deficit

http://newamerica.net/publications/policy/costs_of_the_infrastructure_deficit


https://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=18984






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design and retrofit can be reduced. Indeed, we believe that the inadequate intersection between people with expertise across ICT and buildings is why we are likely to see the demise of many energy-benchmarking tool companies in the near term.

Where It’s Headed Overall, the infrastructure picture is grim. There is a huge price tag in providing what are generally accepted as public goods, where the tragedy of the commons makes it justifiable to take out more than is being put back in.

For certain kinds of infrastructure, there will be something of a horserace between the degree to which infrastructure services can be replaced or mitigated virtually – most likely in the roads/transit and energy categories – and the degree to which they deteriorate.

Continuing trends in deteriorating infrastructure will benefit services that are supported by IT and accelerate the asset consolidation in buildings and transportation that are facilitated by this technology. It also could accelerate some of the more demographic and macroeconomic trends in urbanization.

The biggest wildcard has to do with water and sewer infrastructure. Failure to maintain this infrastructure adequately could affect development trends in the built environment, particularly in a world with the potential for more frequent and severe storms.

Key Players By its very nature, infrastructure is principally driven by government entities, even though private companies may implement infrastructure projects or policies. Thus, the principal players are those entities at the municipal, state and federal level that regulate infrastructure.

In recent years, there has been a growing trend in privatizing certain types of infrastructure, principally in the solid-waste collection and recycling industry. However, there is growing privatization of water and sewer, with mixed results.

The 2006 U.S. Conference of Mayors resolution on green infrastructure is intended to promote investment in natural systems to treat and store rainwater and stormwater, as well as reduce urban heat islands. In addition, there is concern by the mayors’ group that investments in transit and transportation infrastructure will not keep pace with the growth needs of cities.

The National Governors Association in 2009 put together a vision document for infrastructure in the 21st century that emphasized the need for innovative financing, demand reduction as a means of making investments go further, prioritization of environmentally beneficial alternatives and better coordination with different agencies and levels of governments when delivering infrastructure projects.

Federal funding of infrastructure tends to play a somewhat perverse role in the problem of its deterioration. Federal funds are almost never available for maintenance programs, which means that states and municipalities are responsible for shouldering the cost of operations and maintenance. In practice, with deferred operations and maintenance, the need for capital improvements accelerates, for which funding is often inadequate or unavailable.

Deteriorating infrastructure will

benefit services that are supported by IT

and accelerate the asset consolidation

in buildings and transportation that

are facilitated by this technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons


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Yeah, But… It is curious to note that communications infrastructure is not included in this evaluation. The FCC produces an annual report on access to high-speed communications, including broadband Internet. Generally, the access to modern telecommunications infrastructure is weakest in the far suburban and rural areas, principally due to the relatively low density and high cost of providing the service. It is for this reason that the ARRA emphasized these investments.

Green Jobs and the Built Environment McGraw-Hill projects that by 2015 the green building market size will exceed $120 billion, representing 48 percent of the nonresidential market. This means that nearly 900,000 green construction jobs could be created in just the next couple of years. A significant minority of professionals surveyed for the report believe that having green job skills will convey significant benefits. About 43 percent believe that more jobs will be available for green skills workers, while 41 percent overall believe that having green skills will result in better career advancement opportunities and almost 30 percent believe that greater job security will result.

Hiring experienced people, particularly in the construction trade, is forecast to be these most significant personnel challenge in the near future. The survey also found that having a professional certification conveyed significant benefits in knowledge that can be applied on the job, as well as the opportunity for being hired and advancing within the profession.

McGraw-Hill projects that by 2015 the green building market

will exceed $120 billion, with nearly

900,000 new green construction jobs.

http://www.fcc.gov/reports/eighth-broadband-progress-report


In identifying some of the trends in this report, one big challenge has been ensuring that they could not be dismissed with “It’s just the recession.” While recent economic conditions have influenced some of these trends, our research identifies fundamental changes that go beyond the recession’s influence.

Consider energy. There is no doubt that recent economic conditions have affected energy supply and demand. However, we believe that there is more going on here than simply dollars and cents. At the macroeconomic level, the relationship between energy prices and behavior is much weaker than most people assume, as shown in the figures below.

The inflation-adjusted cost of energy in real terms has varied fairly dramatically over the last 40 years, in some periods doubling, and falling by as much as a third during other times. Given these large swings, one could be forgiven if it were supposed that overall energy use or the energy intensity of the economy were also to vary widely. But, as we see in the chart below, this is not the case when it comes to the energy intensity of the economy.

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ENERGY COSTS PER MMBtu (all sources, Real $)

Cost of energy in Real Dollars per Million BTU

Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Review 2011,Table 3.3 Consumer Price Estimates for Energy by Source, 1970-2010

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KBTU/$ GDP (Inflation Adjusted)

Energy Intensity of the US Economy kBtu/$ Real GDP EIA DOE Monthly Energy Review September 2012, Table 1.7.

Primary Energy Consumption per Real Dollar of Gross Domestic Product


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This chart shows that since the 1973 oil embargo, the U.S. economy has more than doubled in efficiency (15.41 kBtu/2005$ GDP vs. 7.48 kBtu/2005$ GDP). In spite of gyrations in energy prices both in real and nominal terms over the past 40 years, the decline of energy intensity in the economy has been almost a straight line, with a couple of small pauses around 1986 and 2009. To the extent that the line deflects at all from a straight decline, it has mostly to do with capital replacement cycles and the rate of GDP growth.

Not surprisingly, once a more efficient process has been put in, it stays in — until it is replaced by even more-efficient equipment. Federal policy and standards on appliances and equipment, as well as building standards, have been quite influential in the building sector in entrenching efficiency gains by incentivizing good equipment and ridding the market of the least-efficient technology.

As discussed earlier, some behaviors, such as driving, have been shown to be fairly inelastic, but vehicle miles now appear to be substituted in some cases with virtual access to work and shopping, even though the cost to drive 15,000 miles continues to remain below historic levels.

The extent to that there is a correlation between price and macroeconomic efficiency, it appears to be weak. It is clear that there are other drivers, several of which we have described in this paper.

What’s interesting is when you combine the two datasets to derive the energy cost to create a dollar of GDP. As shown below, the real cost to generate a dollar of real GDP has averaged around 13 cents over the last 40 years.

If macroeconomic price influences on overall energy use are weak, perhaps microeconomic forces play a larger role. In real (inflation-adjusted) terms, median household incomes have been declining overall since 1999, and today are approximately at 1989 levels. It is tempting to assign some of the resource consumption turnaround we’ve seen to the fairly rapid decline in median household income (inflation adjusted), but if we look at the inflection points of many of the sectoral trends, they do not precede or lag the income profile in any predictable way.

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2009200720052003200119991997199519931991198919871985198319811979197719751973

REAL $ ENERGY COST/ REAL $ GDP

Real $ Cost to Generate Real $ of GDP


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Winston Churchill famously said, “We shape our buildings, then our buildings shape us.” VERGE recognizes that this co–creation between human technology and human society is going forward on a much larger and increasingly cross-silo way as ICT breaks down barriers between the interaction of buildings, transportation and infrastructure. There is also no doubt that this vibrant mash-up of historically isolated sectors is reshaping the way we live and interact.

Although there is still a lot of “noise” resulting from the transition from an extraction economy to a regenerative economy, we believe that a signal is beginning to emerge in some of the trends we’ve identified in this report.

We firmly believe that all significant business and environmental opportunity in the 21st century will come from understanding and exploiting the interactions between multiple systems and optimizing the whole, rather than simply a component or two. We believe that the dynamic interplay between large systems can be influenced with approaches to problems that unravel multiple issues with a single solution.

VERGE is about exploring, identifying and implementing the opportunities that arise only when we look at the bigger picture. It is this integrated vision that represents the clearest hope for a positive future, and truly sustainable business.

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Rob Watson is a Senior Contributor to GreenBiz.com. Described by Thomas Friedman as “one of America’s best environmental minds,” Watson also serves as the Chairman, CEO & Chief Scientist of the EcoTech International Group, which delivers green building operations and design optimization, helping companies and organizations to cost effectively minimize their buildings’ environmental footprint and operating costs.

Under Rob’s direction as the “Founding Father of LEED” and as its national Steering Committee Chairman from 1994 to 2006, the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system became the most widespread and fastest-growing standard by which green buildings are measured worldwide. A pioneer of the modern green building movement for 25 years, in 2007 Rob founded the EcoTech International Group to meet the fast-growing global demand for green building technologies and services. Rob is the 2013 recipient of the International Award of Excellence in Conservation from the Botanical Research Institute of Texas and a semifinalist of the 2011 Zayed Future Energy Prize for Lifetime Achievement.

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Johnson Controls is a global diversified technology leader serving customers in more than 150 countries. Our 162,000 employees create quality products, services and solutions to optimize energy and operational efficiencies of buildings, automotive batteries, advanced batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles, and interior systems for automobiles. Our commitment to sustainability dates back to 1885. In 2012, Corporate Responsibility Magazine recognized Johnson Controls as the #5 company in its annual “100 Best Corporate Citizens” list.

As a global specialist in energy management with operations in more than 100 countries, Schneider Electric offers integrated solutions across multiple market segments. Through our Smart City solutions, we deliver urban efficiency – today. With more than 200 projects across the world, we know how to help cities optimize their energy, transportation, water, buildings and services - and build their future. We make smarter cities a reality.

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Since June 2011, VERGE conferences have traveled the globe, with events in Shanghai, London, São Paulo, Washington DC, and San Francisco — all simulcast to a global audience via a highly-interactive virtual environment. VERGE has brought together thought leaders, business executives, city managers, and thousands of practitioners energized by the opportunities created at the intersection of energy, information, building, and transportation technologies.

At VERGE conferences, presenters offer fresh perspectives on the innovative ideas, convergence opportunities, and enabling technologies shaping our future. You’ll learn about new innovations, real-world challenges, and what the future holds within the four VERGE domains: •Energy — Corporate energy management, demand response, policy and

regulation, integrating renewables, innovative financing•Buildings and Facilities — Building, automation, smart cities, public-private

partnerships, and organizational change•Information and Communications — Cloud computing, big data, open

platforms, M2M and the Internet of Things, analytics & actionable insight•Transportation — Connected cars, vehicle-to-grid, V2V, peer-to-peer car

sharing, fleet management & logistics

David Bartlett

Select speakers from previous VERGE events

Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute; Robin Chase, Buzzcar; Dennis McGinn, ACORE; Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Media; Jennifer Pahlka, Code for America; Daryl Dulaney, Siemens Industry; Carl Bass, Autodesk; Jon Wellinghoff, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; Melanie Nutter, City of San Francisco; Steve Case, Revolution LLC; Alex Laskey, Opower


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The GreenBiz Executive Network is a unique and powerful peer-to-peer networking forum for senior sustainability professionals at large companies, backed by the depth of GreenBiz and an experienced team of researchers and facilitators. Visit www.greenbiz.com/gben to learn how to join the leading peer network of companies driving the sustainability agenda.

GreenBiz Group is a media, events, and research company whose mission is to define and accelerate the business of sustainability. It does this through a wide range of products and services, including its acclaimed website GreenBiz.com and e-newsletter GreenBuzz; twice-monthly webcasts on topics of importance to sustainability executives; conferences and events, such as the State of Green Business Forum, the GreenBiz Innovation Forum, and VERGE; research reports, such as the annual State of Green Business and the Green Building Market & Impact Report; and the GreenBiz Executive Network, a membership-based peer-to-peer learning forum for sustainability executives. GreenBiz Group was co-founded by veteran sustainability writer and speaker Joel Makower and B-to-B publishing executive Pete May. Eric Faurot, who has built and run some of the tech world’s leading conferences and expos, rounds out the executive team.

Defining and accelerating the business of sustainability.