Long the city of high crime, poverty and neglect by the federal government which calls it home, Washington D.C. has passed some of the most progressive sustainability regulations in the country since 2006. For example in December 2006, Washington mandated, among other things, that private buildings 50,000 square feet or larger have to submit a checklist of green features by 2009, and meet LEED NC 2.2 standards by 2012. In addition to green building regulations, Washington has enacted comprehensive sustainability legislation, including a Clean and Affordable Energy Act, a Green Summer Jobs bill, a Climate Initiative and stormwater and water quality regulations.
I spend a lot of time counseling legislators on how to get legislation -- often far less comprehensive -- enacted, so I wanted to speak to the team behind the Washington legislation to find out what was working and what was not, and how it all got legislated in the first place. Alan Heymann, public information officer for the
District Department of the Environment (DDOE), set up a conference with Brendan Shane, director of the Office of Policy and Sustainability, Shane Farthing, development coordinator, and Stella Tarnay, green building coordinator, for an inside look at the state of sustainability in the nation's capital.
According to the DDOE representatives, "In general, the D.C. area is very proactive on green buildings. We have per capita largest number of green buildings. The climate for green buildings has been very good. We have gotten a lot of cooperation with industry on these measures."
That cooperation was apparently critical to passing the green building act. The District government involved the private sector in the discussions that led to the green building act as early as 2004, and most of Washington's 300 registered LEED projects are private.
The private sector and the federal government acted as "pull" factors driving the green building act. "We have the benefit in the District of the federal government demanding LEED silver or higher, and the city government is demanding LEED certified or silver for any space it rents," the DDOE team said. "So the government, both federal and city, is helping the demand."
The green building act then came along as an additional push to build green.
"A specific set of developers really went out in front of the green building movement, but through the Green Building Act, the private sector saw that it was a regional and local priority," the DDOE representatives said. "The act had an educational component, as well. Once you become educated about green buildings as a developer, you are going to see the benefits."
Green building advocates and politicians were also a part of the equation.
"In terms of the inspiration for the green building act, it came from outside of government from a group of outside advocates to the
Council of the District of Columbia to move green building discussion along," said the DDOE team.
Councilman Jim Graham and others were proactive in getting the green measures passed; the Green Building Act was approved unanimously. New Mayor Adrian Fenty and City Administrator Dan Tangherlini also have been highly supportive of the green efforts.
The establishment of the DDOE was another important piece to moving forward with Washington's larger ambition to make the nation's capital the greenest city in the country.
"Now, we have the first urban president, one who has made sustainability a priority," the DDOE representatives said. "We want to set an example for the entire country." Green building, stormwater management, energy conservation and renewable energy are priorities for the DDOE. "The Green Building Act was the first piece of legislation in the area. A lot of these other pieces are moving right now." Just last month, a new piece of legislation was passed to improve stormwater management in the District.
Implementation of the green building law has not been without its critics.
To enforce the green building law, Washington requires a bond for each project that is forfeited if a project does not meet the green building requirements. The surety industry has criticized the drafting of the legislation, saying that the law is ambiguous as to which member of the development team -- building owners, contractors or architects -- must fund the performance bond and bear the risk of forfeit in the event of noncompliance. The DDOE green team said that they were in the process of "working out the implementation of the bond." According to them, the bonding requirement is "not very high on our priority list" because it will not be implemented for a few years.
Cultural change in Washington city government also was a big challenge.
"We needed to build a culture of innovation and get people in city government looking for ways to build green proactively," the DDOE team noted. "This includes getting project managers for schools to be proactive about getting buildings built green, getting permitting agencies to be partners to be sure all projects that come through their agency are as green as possible. It is a big cultural shift. Through the Green Building Act and Energy Act, we had to get people who were used to looking at buildings for safety to be looking more closely at how buildings are performing from an energy standpoint and determining whether they are healthy buildings to live and work in."
To address this, the city now has an interagency working group that convenes weekly to discuss how to improve sustainability. "We have a bunch of professionals who are trying to one up one another on who can be more green," said the DDOE team. "It's a very exciting time at the District."
Staffing has presented yet another challenge. The DDOE was created in 2006. According to the DDOE representatives, "There is a lot of momentum, but we are on a very steep curve and people are working as hard as they can because we have a lot of ground to cover."
The economy has taken its toll as well. The green building program has lost some of its funding "which was going (to be used) to hire contractors for education and outreach, so now we have to do it ourselves," the team said. However, due to the slowing of green building in the District, "We have more time for education and capacity building due to the economic slowdown, but we don't have the resources we would like to have to do it."
Undaunted, the DDOE green building advocates keep pressing forward with the sustainability agenda. They plan an agencywide education program for building and inspections personnel, including education on LEED, Energy Star and the newly implemented green building codes. The goal is to have every staff person involved in buildings -- from public projects managers to permit reviewers to inspectors -- to be "literate in green building." DDOE plans a focused education push on LEED, Green Communities, Energy Star and green codes for spring 2009.
Many people anticipate the change Barack Obama will bring to Washington, but it terms of sustainability, change has already come.
Shari Shapiro, J.D., LEED AP, is an associate with Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel LLP in Philadelphia. She heads the company's green building initiative and writes about green building and the law on her blog at http://www.greenbuildinglawblog.com.
