Green Housing: From Good Idea to Good Business

Architects, not automakers, have the power to halt global warming
By Clay Dillow,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 15, 2008 11:56 AM CDT
Green Housing: From Good Idea to Good Business
Brad Pitt walks to a news conference with Global Green USA in front of an environmentally friendly house under construction in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2007.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

With US homes on average twice as large as they were 50 years ago—and, of course, dwarfing those in all other developed countries—rethinking our idea of "home" is as crucial to cutting global warming as switching to a smaller car, says architect Edward Mazria in Fast Company. Half of all greenhouse gas emissions are building-related; residential buildings make up 21% of national energy consumption—almost as much as transportation.

Mazria sees the need for change as a huge opportunity as well as a necessity: a $21.6-billion one-year investment in building efficiency would create 216,000 jobs, cut CO2 emissions by 86.7 million metric tons annually and save consumers $8.5 billion, he estimates. “We will not only solve global warming, we will set up the US for unprecedented economic success,” Mazria says. (More architecture stories.)

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