The City-County Building Downtown has reduced its energy consumption by 47 percent, measured against a national average of other, similar government office buildings. Two parking garages on the North Side have installed new lighting technology and cut their electric bills by 49 and 34 percent.
Even the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, one of the largest “green” buildings in the U.S., has reduced its energy costs 25 percent in the last year by investing in new energy efficient technology.
Those energy use reductions highlight the annual progress report of Pittsburgh’s 2030 Challenge, a national program with a goal to demonstrate that reducing energy and water consumption 50 percent by 2030 in the built environment is both possible, responsible and economically desirable.
According to the report, released Wednesday by the Green Building Alliance and the Pittsburgh 2030 Districts, energy consumption is down 6.3 percent and water consumption has been reduced by 53 million gallons or 10 percent. Those energy reductions are equal to the annual electricity use of more than 5,500 homes. The water savings could supply 262 homes for a year or be enough to do 1.3 million loads of laundry.
“The 2030 Challenge allows us to work with building owners to drive down water and energy use,” said Anna Siefken, Pittsburgh 2030 district director.
This year’s report is the first to include the program’s greatly expanded boundaries that take in buildings in Oakland and the Uptown area, including Duquesne University. As a result, the number of building owners voluntarily participating in the program has risen from 39 in 2013 to 85, and the number of buildings is up from 110 to 436, together providing 65 million square feet of office space.
Ms. Siefken said the greatly expanded geographic area increases the opportunities for significant energy and water use reductions. Energy use in enrolled buildings Downtown is already 18 percent below the national baseline, but it’s above that baseline in Oakland. She said the program remains on target to reduce the overall energy use for both districts by 10 percent by the end of this year.
“We see a tremendous opportunity to work with you on some very different types of buildings in Oakland,” Ms. Siefken told an audience of about 200 in the PPG Wintergarden for the report release, citing the different energy and water use needs of laboratories, hospitals and classrooms.
Buildings are a major user of energy and water world wide, according to Architecture 2030, a non-profit organization established in 2002 to address global warming and climate change issues. Nearly half of all the energy produced each year in the U.S. is used in the built environment -- about the same amount of energy consumed by transportation and industry combined.
In 2006, Architecture 2030 issued the 2030 Challenge “to transform the built environment from the major contributor of greenhouse gas emissions to a central part of the solution to the climate and energy crises.”
Pittsburgh signed on to the challenge in 2012, and is now one of 10 cities to establish the public-private partnerships of property owners and managers, universities and governments, collaborating to reduce energy and water use and manage transportation costs.
The challenge has already provided real energy savings at eight of 11 city, county and parking authority buildings enrolled in the challenge, and will provide guidance on future energy efficient retrofits and renovations, according to Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, who voiced support for the program at the Wintergarden event.
“Next year we’ll be doing a facilities management plan to decide which buildings to keep, which to sell and which to give away,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “We will lead by example. … We’ve got a lot of improvements to make and we want to make those improvements.”
Mr. Peduto pointed to the 47 percent energy savings at the City-County Building, and said, “If government can do it, you can too.”
First Published: May 2, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
