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www.read-wca.com❖
Energy efficiency aside, reducing noise could cut down
on NIMBY fights when it comes to getting wind projects
built, and could perhaps allow the turbines to be built
slightly closer to where people live.
Here, Mr Levitan may be over-optimistic. While largely
anecdotal, reports of health problems traceable to
wind turbine noise (and of ‘shadow flicker,’ the strum
of shadows and reflections cast by the whirling blades)
are persistent and worrisome.
What is clear, in Mr Levitan’s view, is that ‘cutting down
on noise would benefit pretty much everybody, whether
or not they live near turbines.’
‘Toxic tower’
Green? Greenish? Or quite otherwise?
Challenging the environmental credentials
of a much-praised building in Manhattan
When the Bank of America Tower on New York City’s
Avenue of the Americas was dedicated, in 2010, the
billion-dollar, 55-storey crystal skyscraper was hailed
as one of the world’s most environmentally responsible
high-rise office buildings. In two powerful endorsements
of its greenness, it was awarded Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification —
the first ever for a skyscraper; and it had as a tenant the
environmental movement’s biggest celebrity, former US
vice-president Al Gore.
However, according to data released by New York City in
autumn of 2012, the building termed by its developer ‘the
most sustainable in the country’ in fact produces more
greenhouse gases and uses more energy per square foot
than any office building of comparable size in Manhattan.
It uses more than twice as much energy per square foot
as the 80-year-old Empire State Building. And it also
performs worse than the Goldman Sachs headquarters,
perhaps its closest counterpart in the city – and with a lower
LEED rating.
Writing in the
New Republic
this past summer, New
York-based journalist Sam Roudman declared that the
energy inefficiency of ‘Bank of America’s Toxic Tower’
is not “just an embarrassment: it symbolises a flaw at the
heart of the effort to combat climate change.” (‘New York’s
‘Greenest’ Skyscraper Is Actually Its Biggest Energy Hog,’
28
th
July).
Supplying some context for his indictment, Mr Roudman
noted that buildings contribute more to global warming than
any other sector of the world economy.
In the US, they consume more energy and produce more
greenhouse gas emissions than every car, bus, train and
jet plane combined; and more, as well, than all American
factories, taken together. “When we’re not travelling
between buildings, we’re inside them,” he wrote. “And that
requires energy for everything from construction to heating
and cooling to running appliances.”
How, then, could the Bank of America Tower have
commended itself to the non-profit US Green Building
Council (USGBC), which unveiled LEED in 1998 as a way to
measure a building’s environmental footprint?
This has grown into the most popular certification system
anywhere for green buildings, with some 50,000 structures
either certified or in the certification process globally.
“A stamp from LEED signals ‘green’ to the public, and
it’s good for more than just [public relations],” wrote
Mr Roudman. “Some certifications can be cashed in for tax
credits. In fact, many cities, states and federal agencies now
require new buildings to work with LEED.”
Going platinum
The explanation for the Bank of America Tower’s LEED
certification may be found in the programme’s point
system, which takes into account such factors as building
materials, air quality, water conservation and – of course –
energy performance. When enough points are accumulated,
the project is rated Certified, Silver, Gold or Platinum (the
highest rating).
While LEED has helped create a market for sustainability,
Mr Roudman asserted that real-estate developers
have been able to rack up points for relatively minor
environmental interventions. He cited a
USA Today
series
from October 2012 which found developers accruing points
by posting educational displays throughout a building and
installing bike racks.
The 50 points earned by the Bank of America Tower
(two more than needed to be certified Platinum) included
those awarded for building near public transportation;
protecting or restoring habitat in Bryant Park, the
landmarked public space under its windows; and working
with a LEED-accredited professional.
This last was ‘most important,’ according to Mr Roudman,
who wrote: “LEED certified the building under its
programme, which it designed for developers who have
either no clue or no control over what their tenants might
do inside the building.” While its owner presumably knew
what would be going on inside the Bank of America Tower,
the developer and architect had no control over how much
energy would be required to support those activities.
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As noted in ‘New York’s ‘Greenest’ Skyscraper,’ the
biggest drain on energy in the Bank of America Tower
is its trading floors: giant fields of workstations with five
computer monitors to a desk. Assuming no one turns
these computers off, in a year’s time one desk uses
roughly the energy that would keep a 25-mile-per-gallon
car engine going for more than 4,500 miles.
The servers supporting all those desks also require
enormous energy, as do the systems that heat, cool and
light the massive trading floors after normal business
hours. These spaces take up nearly a third of the Bank
of America Tower’s 2.2 million total square feet.
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Mr Roudman acknowledged that many of the Bank
of America Tower’s ‘bells and whistles’ prevent it
from consuming even more energy – and much of the