Press Release
12/11/09 – Mayor Gavin Newsom today announced that San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid has achieved the prestigious Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council in recognition of energy and environmental upgrades. Additionally, Mayor Newsom’s Green and Existing Building Task Force released recommendations for greening the city’s existing building stock.
“Commercial, industrial, and municipal buildings account for 63 percent of building-sector emissions,” said Mayor Newsom. “In order to make a difference in fighting global climate change we must address San Francisco’s existing buildings. The Transamerica Pyramid is synonymous with San Francisco’s skyline, and it is now an even more fitting emblem for the City, by reflecting our core green values.”
Mayor Newsom convened a task force to recommend how the city, in partnership with the private sector, can accelerate improvements in energy and resource efficiency of existing commercial buildings in San Francisco. The Task Force is comprised of 19 key stakeholders from San Francisco’s building ownership, developer, financial, architectural, engineering, legal, utility, and construction communities.
Recommendations include requiring building owners to conduct an energy audit to identify all cost-effective ways to reduce energy use, and requiring reporting of each nonresidential building’s energy performance annually. The Task Force proposes making energy use data available to the public by requiring disclosure of energy performance and carbon emissions annually. This would incentivize buildings owners to maximize environmental performance, and let potential tenants or buyers understand which buildings are most energy efficient, just like a car buyer would consider miles per gallon.
Services offered by the Department of the Environment’s San Francisco Energy Watch program and Pacific Gas and Electric Company can cover 40 percent to 75 percent of audit costs. The City is also exploring additional financing options to help offset costs building owners might incur in conducting energy efficiency retrofits.
The Task Force set a goal of cutting total energy use in existing commercial buildings 50 percent by 2030, an average of 2.5 percent per year. The Environment Department estimates that this would reduce San Francisco’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by more than 70,000 tons per year, equivalent of a taking 17,500 automobiles off the road permanently each and every year.
To read the full Task Force report please go to:
http://www.sfenvironment.org/downloads/library/sf_existing_commercial_buildings_task_force_report_1.0.pdf
To read the Task Force Executive report please go to: