The Next Green Explosion?

Retrofitting May Be the Most Sustainable Building Practice of All

By Elizabeth Hewitt, LEED AP and Whitney Barrat, LEED AP

Sustainability isn’t a strange term anymore, but as the market continues to shift in favor of building green, people are asking, “What is the future of greening existing buildings?”

The United States Green Building Council reports that buildings in the U.S. account for 70% of electricity consumed, over 12% of all potable water and 40% of raw materials used globally. Along with all that usage comes the opportunity to evaluate the benefits of a retrofit against those of a demolition and rebuild. 

“The greenest building is one that is already built,” is now a well-known saying written by Carl Elefante, AIA, LEED AP, director of sustainable design at Quinn Evans Architects in Washington, D.C. That means the construction industry has developed an ever-evolving pool of information documenting the benefits of building green or retrofitting a building to become green.

The Watchcase Factory is an existing 19th Century Superfund site in Sag Harbor, NY that is in the early stages of being renovated into a 63-unit residential building. The project team is seeking LEED Gold certification. (Image courtesy of Beyer Blinder Belle.)

“Existing buildings are preferable, and there is something to be said for that,” says Rohit Aggarwala, director of New York City’s Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability.” If you were to demolish an existing skyscraper in order to replace it with a more efficient building, that’s not necessarily the way to go.” 

Buildings account for nearly 80% of New York City’s carbon emissions and 39% of all CO2 emissions in the U.S. Like many cities, New York has set ambitious goals for decreasing emissions, which means taking a good look at its current building stock.

“In order to make any net decrease in carbon emissions, water use or electricity use, we have to go after what's already there,” says Russell Unger, executive director of the USGBC’s New York Chapter. “From a policy standpoint this is absolutely crucial.”

Aggarwala agrees. “Unlike a city like Phoenix or LA, where it is a lot more feasible to do a tear-down, in a city like New York, with skyscrapers and density, we are a lot more reliant on our existing stock,” he adds. “Under PlaNYC, we calculated that 80% of the building stock that will exist in 2030 already exists today.”

This places tremendous responsibility—or, some would say, opportunity—on the building community in the coming years.

Aggarwala adds that regardless of the now-slowing rate of new construction after an unprecedented boom in the city, the market for energy-efficient existing buildings will continue to grow. “Energy prices are soaring, and smart building owners will make their properties more efficient,” he says.

Aggarwala says that particularly when the market is strong, architects and contractors will not build inefficient new office buildings—they’ll build top-of-the-line green. “Which means older buildings will have to invest to keep up,” he adds.

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Meanwhile, tenant demand for sustainability features in existing buildings is still increasing, making the real estate industry key in the growth of green. 

“The question is no longer if Class A buildings will go green, but when will the rest of the market follow suit,” Unger says. “Many developers are now saying in order to be Class A, you increasingly have to be green.”  

Aggarwala says tenants themselves are becoming more aware of their carbon footprint, and “this is driving them to ask more of their buildings.”  

Connecticut’s O&G Industries, a contracting and construction management firm, has seen its green work increase over the last few years and is currently working on an adaptive reuse project aiming for LEED gold in Lakeville, Conn. A former gymnasium on the site of the private Hotchkiss Preparatory School is being converted into a faculty and alumni facility with residential, event and meeting space.

The project incorporates rapidly renewing cork flooring, a comprehensive construction waste recycling plan and advanced third-party commissioning.

“The main motivation behind taking this project green was client-driven,” says Jason Travelstead, O&G’s assistant vice president of operations. 

Paul Allegretti, senior managing director at global brokerage and real estate firm CB Richard Ellis in New York, says he hasn’t met a client who isn’t open to the idea of sustainability. “They are naturally interested in it,” he adds. “If there is not an additional cost in going down the green path, they are open to the discussion because they recognize the importance of the issue.”     

The challenge for building owners, then, is balancing the added cost of retrofitting with either long-term financial savings from systems upgrades, or with the benefits gained by offering a more attractive space to green-minded tenants.  

“Costly retrofits by building owners are challenged when the prime beneficiaries of operating cost savings are the tenants,” says Thomas Scarola, Tishman Speyer’s director of engineering. He says that “green leases,” in which owners and tenants mutually agree to restrict energy use, are a means to jointly address this challenge.  

“The most effective means of reducing energy in existing buildings remains building operations and tenant conservation measures,” Scarola says. “Only through combining retrofits with operations can energy reduction goals be met.”

Allegretti says building owners can see paybacks in operating costs by weaving green improvements into imminent capital projects. “Where possible, people are retrofitting green when equipment ages and becomes inefficient or needs replacement,” he says. “This offers a window for a greener strategy.”  

Scarola cites corporate eco-responsibility as a key factor in the continued growth of green. CB Richard Ellis has committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2010.  And corporations—the market leaders and drivers— are increasingly participating in energy-reduction programs like LEED, the Energy Star Rating program and the Clinton Climate Initiative's Building Retrofit Program, in which Tishman Speyer has enrolled its  Rockefeller Center and 520 Madison Avenue properties.

Goldman Sachs, a leader in corporate responsibility, is on the same page. “Everything I do is not [LEED] certified per se, but the firm requires us to report on the products we use and the amount of money as a percentage of hard costs that went to recycled products,” says Renee Charles, vice president of capital projects at Goldman Sachs in New York. “They want us to do everything we can. We have savvy investment clients who’ve said to us, ‘we think you should pay more attention to green.’”