Tuesdays at APA: The Greenest Building

Each year in the U.S., approximately 1.7 billion square feet of
buildings are demolished and approximately 5 billion square feet
of newly constructed buildings are added to the total building
stock. Until recently, the environmental impacts of this cycle of
demolition and new construction have been poorly understood, as
were the opportunities to gain carbon savings through building
retrofit and reuse.


Earlier this year, the National Trust for Historic Preservation
released "The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental
Value of Building Reuse," the most comprehensive analysis to date
comparing the environmental impacts of new construction compared
to retrofit and reuse of existing buildings. Commissioned by
Preservation Green Lab, a project of the National Trust for
Historic Preservation, the study found that building reuse
typically offers greater environmental savings than demolition
and new construction and that building reuse and retrofits
substantially reduce climate change impacts.


Patrice Frey from the National Trust for Historic Preservation
provided an overview of the study's findings and discussed how
the study's data and methodology can be applied to the work of
planning professionals.