On Tuesday 20 October, Vice President Biden announced a Federal program to retrofit existing homes and buildings to make them more energy efficient. The intention, as described in the ‘Recovery Through Retrofit Report’ released on the same day is to help create ‘green sector’ jobs while addressing an important environmental issue—greenhouse emissions.
Approximately twenty percent of the United States carbon dioxide emissions are generated by the nation’s 130 million homes. The programs goals are to reduce home energy use by 40% by 2020 which would lower greenhouse gas emissions by up to 160 million metric tons. By any measure that is a significant amount. The added benefits of jobs creation and reduced energy bills of up to $21 billion annually make this one of the more synergistic programs to come out of Washington in years.
The growing green home industry, which is currently at the early adoption lifecycle, will receive a much needed boost into mainstream real estate markets. This is a great idea and a great program using business and commerce to solve real world problems with triple bottom line solutions—people, planet, profit.
We must remember, however, the business dynamics and corresponding business models that will be created must become self-sustaining as quickly as possible. If not, it could be destined to become another great government program that fizzles when the funding sources dry up or new politicians are elected.
Green house gases are not a political issue and we cannot buy our way out of the hole we have got ourselves into. But we can solve prove problems with innovative solutions that creates value while improving the quality of life for everyone. We’ve done it before and we can do it again.
The White House report can be downloaded here.
Information on Energy Efficient Real Estate: E3GreenHomes.com
