Environmental group says green buildings could stimulate economy

With energy prices rising, the economy slowing and worries about global warming growing, an environmental advocacy group says increasing energy efficiency in buildings and homes could help with all three problems.

A report issued by Environment Illinois today outlines energy efficiency opportunities in three Midwestern states -- Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Increasing energy efficiency in residential, commercial and industrial construction; replacing inefficient appliances; and upgrading existing heating, cooling and lighting systems could create jobs, Environment Illinois said. It would also save Americans money they could spend in other ways, and help ease global warming, the report said.

"In some ways, it feels like energy efficiency is the least sexy of all of our global warming strategies, and yet it offers the biggest bang for the buck," said State Rep. Julie Hamos, D-Evanston, who has sponsored energy efficiency legislation in the Illinois House.

In Illinois, for example, the report found that if all commercial buildings improved the efficiency of their lighting systems by 40 percent, it would reduce pollution at levels comparable to removing about 800,000 cars from the road.

The report found that requiring all new residential furnaces to be 20 percent more efficient by 2020 would save enough natural gas to supply more than 100,000 homes annually.

And building new Illinois homes under the latest energy efficiency code would save homeowners up to $466 annually in utility costs, helping financially strapped homeowners pay bills, Environment Illinois said.

But the focus of a news conference to publicize the report -- held in the lobby of a downtown office building heralded for its "green" design -- was getting Hamos' legislation passed into state law.

Illinois is one of only a handful of states nationwide that lacks statewide energy efficiency standards for new residential construction, according to Environment Illinois attorney Brian Granahan.

A Hamos-sponsored bill called the "Energy Efficient Building Act" passed the Illinois House in 2007, but has yet to be assigned to a Senate committee.

It would adopt as the residential energy efficiency building code the most recent version of the International Energy Conservation Code, which is created by a Washington, D.C.-based group. The latest IECC has been adopted by more than a dozen states, Granahan said.

The Home Builders Association of Illinois has lobbied against the legislation, believing local governments should set energy efficiency standards, said Bill Ward, the group's director of governmental affairs.

Ward admits that currently there are few, if any, municipalities outside the Chicago suburbs that have enacted the standards for new homes. Those with efficiency codes enacted are in "more affluent neighborhoods," he said, where governments have decided "citizens of their community can afford it."

With the demand for new housing plummeting, Ward said now is not the time to propose increases in building code standards "that will raise the price of homes in Illinois across the board."

Ward said while energy efficiency moves might save energy, he doubts it makes up for the extra money homeowners lay out to purchase items like energy-efficient appliances or additional insulation.

"The bottom line is our (members) reflect what the market is asking for and the consumers are not willing to roll the dice that these things that proponents say will save them money really do in the long run," he said.