When LEED isn't enough November 02, 2007

From Environmental Building News:
"As the world's first LEED Platinum building, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Philip Merrill Environmental Center is loaded with green features: photovoltaic panels, rainwater harvesting, composting toilets, and bamboo flooring, to mention just a few. However, moving the organization's staff of around 100 into the new building meant that many employees who had been able to walk to work in the older downtown facility now have to drive roughly ten miles to get there...the additional energy use from more employees driving to work may well exceed the energy savings realized by the green building."

"That's right - for an average office building in the United States, calculations done by Environmental Building News show that commuting by office workers accounts for 30% more energy than the building itself uses. For an average new office building built to code, transportation accounts for more than twice as much energy use as building operation."

This is rather scary, and the whole article is worth a read. The basic message is that locating buildings in an urban, interconnected context is energy efficient.

The complete article:
Environmental Building News, vol.16 , issue 9 (Sept. 2007)