Carbon emissions and greenhouse gas studies in new developments

By Jennifer Popovec

During hearings to review Plum Creek Timber Co.’s massive housing development in Maine’s north woods, the Maine Land Use Regulation Commission posed a thought-provoking question to the Seattle-based developer: What’s the carbon footprint of your new project?

The Land Use Regulation Commission, known as LURC, is not the only municipality to ask that particular question. But it is an issue that more developers will have to address in the not-too-distant future by conducting a carbon emissions study, also known as a greenhouse gas analysis.

Carbon emissions studies are relatively new, at least when it comes to commercial and residential developments. While scientists have long studied global warming and greenhouse gases, most of the research was limited to the industrial and manufacturing sectors. In fact, transportation—cars, airplanes, trucks—is widely considered the No. 1 cause of carbon emissions, which is why the EPA passed the 1970 Clean Air Act to evaluate and track transportation-related emissions.

Tracking carbon emissions created from buildings, however, is uncharted territory. Existing research is vague, since few building owners know the true carbon footprint of their properties. However, buildings are increasingly being blamed for climate change, and as such, there’s a push to require developers to measure the carbon footprints of their projects.

These studies look at three things: the emissions created by buildings; the emissions generated from transportation to and from a project; and the impact of deforestation on specific sites. In the case of Plum Creek, the deforestation component had a bigger impact on estimated emissions than the buildings or the cars.

Experts estimate that a carbon emissions study likely costs less than 1 percent of a total project cost. So, for a $500 million project, the study would cost less than $5 million—a seemingly astronomical number, but a bargain when you consider the scope of such a massive project.

The practical use of an emissions study is simple: It arms planning commissions with the long-term environmental data they need to approve a development, require it to be redesigned, or reject it, says Kent Portney, a professor at Tufts University’s International Environmental and Resource Policy Center. But for developers, the impact could be more profound.

SETTING A PRECEDENT

What happened with Plum Creek is indicative of the direction many municipalities are taking. In that case, the carbon analysis study was conducted by Environment Northeast, a Boston-based nonprofit environmental research group.

The study, which director Daniel Sosland says cost Environment Northeast about $10,000, found that Plum Creek’s plan to clear 14,000 acres of forest was the largest source of carbon emissions. The plan to build 2,300 apartment units and homes could generate up to 500,000 metric tons of carbon-dioxide emissions over 50 years—the equivalent of nearly 65,000 Chevy Malibus each driving 10,000 miles. But those emissions could be mitigated by clustering buildings, Sosland says.

Plum Creek, which did not return calls from Developer, has disputed the findings of the Environment Northeast study. At a private hearing, the company asserted that the study doesn’t take into account their preservation efforts. A company representative pointed out that “more than 400,000 acres of land will be permanently conserved in perpetuity for sustainable forestry, representing the second-largest conservation easement in U.S. history. It’s quite a phenomenal carbon outcome.”

Still, Plum Creek isn’t just questioning the study findings, says Beth Nagusky, director of climate change for Grow Smart Maine, a nonprofit environmental group that testified at the hearings to advocate for the project becoming greener. She says the developer is challenging LURC’s legal position to include a greenhouse gas study as part of the approval process.

While many municipalities have committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the World Mayors and Local Governments Climate Protection Agreement, only a handful of states have passed legislation that allows cities to require climate change studies as part of the development approval process. In other words, cities and states may want developers to show how carbon-intensive their projects are, but they don’t have the legal right to demand that information. Nor do they have the ability to deny projects based on their carbon footprint.

CALIFORNIA LEADS THE WAY

Despite this, many states are moving successfully in that direction. California is perhaps the best example. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), signed into law by Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1970, requires state and local agencies to evaluate the environmental impact of proposed projects and adopt all feasible measures to mitigate that impact. In 2006, the state also passed the Global Warming Solutions Act, which requires California to cut its greenhouse gas emission to 1990 levels by 2020.

Together, these two laws allow California to demand that its cities reduce carbon emissions. What’s more, they give local municipalities the authority to demand greenhouse gas studies from developers as part of environmental impact reports.

And California is enforcing these laws. Recently, state Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. settled a global warming lawsuit that the state filed against San Bernardino County. The lawsuit asserted that San Bernardino’s land plan through 2030 did not analyze the effects of development on global warming, nor did it identify feasible mitigation measures. Th e settlement agreement established the world’s first greenhouse gas reduction plan, one that identifies emissions sources and sets reduction targets for the county.

To date, Brown has submitted formal comments to 30 jurisdictions throughout the state under CEQA, encouraging them to evaluate and avoid or reduce CO2 emissions generated by land use and development. The movement has caught fire on the local level as well. More than 120 California cities have joined the Cool Cities campaign, which commits the local jurisdictions to take concrete steps toward fighting global warming including the development of greenhouse gas emissions inventories and a Climate Action Plan.

“We are starting to see more environmental impact reports that include carbon analysis and address greenhouse gases,” says Janill Richards, deputy attorney general for the state of California. “We’ve seen a fundamental change in the way people are doing their reporting in California.”

Since March 2007, more than 200 documents that address greenhouse gases have been submitted to the attorney general, Richards says. However, she notes that finding professionals with the experience to conduct such studies is challenging and an added expense for developers. While in Plum Creek’s case Environment Northeast got a grant from Grow Smart Maine to pay for the study, experts say that in the future, developers will be on the hook to pay for these carbon emissions studies as part of their permitting expenses.

“If you look at past environmental impact studies, they did not address carbon emissions because developers didn’t have to include them,” says Reid Ewing, executive director of the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education at the University of Maryland, College Park.

But Ewing predicts that emissions studies will be required for most, if not all, large projects within the next five years. “These studies are the only way states and cities are going to be able to monitor and estimate their carbon impact and achieve their reduction targets,” he says.

A Green Footprint

As carbon emissions and greenhouse gas studies become commonplace, ask yourself these three questions.

Is the study required or preferred? More and more cities and states have man-dated that such studies be a required part of the approval process. Others simply prefer to have the additional information at hand. Know where your municipality stands.

Who will pay for the study? Experts say that emissions studies cost about 1 percent of a project’s total cost.Thatcan be a burden for developers. Look into government-backed grants and work with city officials to see if they can alleviate some of the expense.

What do we do with the study once it’s complete? Doing an emissions study could be a way to learn more about the development process as a whole. Use the information culled as a stepping stone for more research. And market the findings of the report—especially those that identify the contributions of your development—to the public.