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SALT LAKE CITY — All buildings funded by the Redevelopment Agency of Salt Lake City will be required to pass a strict guideline to be more energy-efficient and "climate-friendly," agency leaders announced Wednesday.
The motion, which went into effect immediately, is a move aiming to get all city and RDA-funded buildings emission-free by 2023, meeting a goal previously outlined by Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, who also serves as the RDA's executive director.
Under the new sustainable development policy adopted by the RDA, any new construction project receiving RDA resources, including funding, and any rehabilitation project receiving at least $200,000, must be designed to reach an Energy Star score of 90 or higher.
The federal Energy Star Score uses building size, location, occupancy, source energy and other information to judge energy efficiency. It runs on a one to 100 scale, with anything 75 or higher considered "a top performer," according to the program, which is run by the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy.
New buildings or rehabilitation projects receiving at least $900,000 from city or RDA funding can't have any on-site fossil fuel combustion, such as natural gas or propane, and the projects must be enrolled in the city's Elevate Buildings initiative. That program started in 2016 in an effort to "increase energy efficiency, while bolstering economic development, improving air quality and decreasing energy waste," according to the city's website.
There are also incentives for buildings that have 100% electricity supplied by renewable energy sources.
The EPA reports that about 6% of all 2010 global greenhouse gas emissions came from buildings. That calculation was based on onsite energy generation and burning fuels for heat in buildings or cooking in homes.
But some groups say that buildings are responsible for more than that, especially taking into account construction emissions and the energy needed to light up buildings, which aren't calculated in that EPA figure. Architecture 2030, a nonprofit climate group, estimates that buildings account for closer to 40% of global emissions when taking into account those other variables.
That's the figure that city leaders say they want to reduce.
"Reducing emissions from our buildings is vital to our air quality and climate," Mendenhall said in a statement Wednesday. "This new RDA policy is exactly the kind of common-sense actions that local governments can take to safeguard our communities' health and well-being. I'm proud to see the RDA leading the way for Salt Lake City."
The plan garnered the support of the Utah clean air group UCAIR, which provided a financial grant to the RDA. Kevin Emerson, the director of building efficiency and decarbonization for the nonprofit Utah Clean Energy, also applauded the decision, saying the measure will help improve air quality in the city.
"Net-zero buildings are critical to addressing climate change and these incentives will spur designers, contractors, and developers to go net-zero wherever possible," he said, in a statement.
