HY-brid/

The following is a guest blog authored by Paul von Paumgartten. Read more about Paul at the end of the post.

It’s hard to believe it’s been 7 years since the 1st Greenbuild in Austin, Texas. In 2002, a little more than 4,000 people attended and there were only a few hundred exhibitors. By the way, we (the USGBC) were thrilled with those numbers for a first year show. This year in Phoenix, we had over 25,000 attendees and more than 1000 exhibitors. Even in a down economy, the “green building movement” is alive and well. There is, however, a major shift occurring in the green world. For the last decade, the green building movement has been dominated by the design community and construction of new buildings.

The focus is now shifting to the existing building market. One obvious reason is the devastating decline in the new construction market. The economic downturn is not expected to turn around anytime soon so the new construction industry is turning to the existing building stock for relief. The challenge for them is that the existing building market is totally different— different players, different drivers, different buyers, different everything. That isn’t stopping everyone from moving in that direction though. One only has to look at the size of our existing building stock – 4.7 million commercial buildings, 70 billion square feet, and the majority use 30% more energy than they need to.

The new trend could be called Retrogreening – the retrofit and greening of existing buildings. The blending of energy efficiency and high performance green buildings was featured in several Greenbuild education sessions. One in particular presented two iconic projects – The Empire State Building and the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower). These highly successful projects are using the retrogreening process to harvest significant energy and operational savings while going through Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. This is clearly an idea whose time has come. One begins to wonder if Greenbuild would be better named Greenbuilt – just a thought.

About Paul von Paumgartten
Senior Green Building Adviser, Johnson Controls, Inc.

As Senior Green Building Adviser for Johnson Controls, Paul von Paumgartten develops business opportunities while leveraging the company’s energy efficiency and environmental record. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and he is also Board President of the Energy Services Coalition. Through his efforts, he assisted Johnson Controls in earning the ENERGY STAR® 1999 Ally of the Year and 2001 Partner of the Year awards. With the USGBC, he is Co-chairman of the LEED–Steering Committee and the committee for developing LEED for Existing Buildings.

Previously, Mr. von Paumgartten served the Building Efficiency, as the National Manager, Lighting Services, and as Director of Performance Contracting. Before joining Johnson Controls, he was in management positions with McGraw Edison Company; and President of his own consulting firm, Productive Environments.

If you’ve thought about Retrogreening, or if you have already taken some steps to make your building more efficient you should be letting your stakeholders know. If you would like to know how, or if you simply want to learn more about HY-brid, send us a message, we would like to hear from you.

Categories: Event Writeups, Paul von Paumgartten, green marketing