EESI Board Chair Jared Blum Says Green Building Standards Can Deliver Globally

Key Highlights:

• Jared Blum, the chair of EESI’s board of directors, contributed to a debate-style book chapter on the benefits of green building standards for developing countries.
• Green building standards are guidelines for designing, constructing, and maintaining environmentally friendly buildings.
• Blum believes that green building standards like LEED and BREEAM should be implemented at a large scale in developing countries, since they are tested, successful tools for mitigating carbon emissions. 

Debating Disaster Risk: Ethical Dilemmas in the Era of Climate Change is a new book that explores the ethical issues inherent to disaster preparation and recovery in a world affected by climate change. Each of its 11 chapters is organized around a debate between two experts with different perspectives on a given climate topic. One of those 22 experts is Jared Blum, who chairs EESI’s board of directors and spent many years working in the fields of energy efficiency and building resilience.

In chapter 10, Blum and his debate opponent, David Wachsmuth, the Canada research chair in urban governance at McGill University, tackle the question, “Should construction and urban projects in developing countries adopt green building certifications created in developed and industrialized nations?”

Blum argues for the benefits of green building certifications. During his years as president of the Polyisocyanurate Insulation Manufacturers Association (PIMA), Blum became an expert in green building standards, including the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), and the passive house building standard. Buildings have a direct impact on the environment through their construction, maintenance, and destruction. They use energy, water, and materials, and produce waste and emissions. Green building standards were created to mitigate the negative environmental effects of buildings, especially large, energy-intensive ones. Green building standards like LEED are voluntary and act as guidelines for designing, constructing, and maintaining environmentally friendly buildings. However, national and local governments can create economic incentives (e.g., tax credits, expedited permitting, fee reductions) to encourage developers to meet such standards. 

Structure and Main Points of the Debate

Each chapter is structured as a formal debate, hosted by a moderator, between two internationally known experts.  The moderator provides an introduction to the topic, and each author makes their opening remarks. The authors then rebut each other’s argument. Finally, they both make closing statements. After this, there are closing remarks from the moderator, including the announcement of the debate’s winner, based on a poll of participants’ opinions on the topic before and after reading the chapter. Comments from students and scholars intersperse the chapter as they react to particular arguments.

Blum states that developers should use existing, tested green building standards to improve building sustainability and lower emissions in developing countries, which are generally defined as having lower standards of living, insufficient infrastructure, and non-industrialized economies. In particular, Blum notes that building standards could help address the air pollution issues plaguing China and India, the two largest developing nations by population. 

“Using comprehensive and voluntary standards or rating programs could help [developing] nations address additional critical issues such as water quality and efficiency, safe indoor air quality, and waste reduction,” writes Blum. He adds that, because of the ongoing industrialization of these countries, they may still be able to avoid some of the mistakes that caused the carbon footprints of industrialized countries to skyrocket, like an overreliance on fossil fuels and energy-inefficient buildings. Of course, as Blum explains, programs like LEED would not be a perfect fit for every country, so they should pick and choose aspects of different building standards to suit their needs.

On the other hand, Wachsmuth argues that programs like LEED and BREEAM overstate their sustainability value, regardless of where they are implemented. He also argues that the environmental cost of transporting the materials needed for green building construction outweighs any possible environmental benefits. Finally, he writes that countries should develop their own standards instead of using pre-existing ones.

Blum highlights the international roots of green building certification programs, tracing them back to the 1987 Montreal Protocol and the 1992 United Nations “Earth Summit.” He emphasizes that developing countries could avoid the pitfalls that developed countries experienced when creating green building standards by using tested methods instead of creating completely new approaches. In response, Wachsmuth expresses concerns that green building standards would be used primarily by developers of expensive buildings, benefiting only a select few users. Instead, he believes that countries should invest money into smaller-scale equity-based urban environmental policies, like green transportation or community gardens.

Lastly, Blum describes the robust process used to develop green building standards. He argues that assessments created and implemented by communities can help to avoid the potential equity issues that Wachsmuth flagged. Blum notes that the climate crisis is only going to worsen, so “all tools should be welcomed” in the fight against climate change. Wachsmuth concludes by reemphasizing his stance that equitable urban sustainability policies are more important than green building standards.

Blum’s Reflections

Now that the book is out (more than two years after Blum first wrote his arguments), he continues to reflect on his position. Blum believes that green building standards need to become popularized enough for people to implement and promote them without the need for regulations or financial incentives. This popularization of green building standards could occur through higher visibility on the global stage, especially at the annual U.N. climate negotiations.

Although Blum stands by his original arguments, if he could go back and write them again, he would add a few points. First, he would highlight examples of the successful integration of green building standards in developing countries, such as the 1,121 successful LEED projects in mainland China and the 323 successful LEED projects in India. He would also highlight the loss of life and disaster recovery costs that could have been prevented had buildings been constructed to higher standards. Finally, he said he would argue for an examination of the ethics of introducing Western methods to non-Western countries in addition to the ethics of providing and promoting climate solutions in general.

Ultimately, Blum wants to emphasize that climate change impacts everyone. “Most people are being actively affected by climate change, and it will get worse if we don’t invest in green building standards and other climate solutions,” he said. Because of the immediacy of the crisis, Blum believes that international policymakers fighting climate change need all of the technology and assistance they can get. Blum is optimistic that green building standards will globalize and push the world toward a more sustainable future. 

Author: Olivia Benedict