Naperville engineer to speak on 'Sustainable Building' at Aurora GreenFest

"The greenest building is the one that already exists." - Carl Elefante, FAIA, 2007.

Many people cherish living or working in older buildings made with quality materials like brick and plaster. But every year thousands of old buildings are replaced with new construction.

As the above quote makes clear, there is a better way.

That's the message from Naperville's Bill Simon, who is active in both NEST (Naperville Environment & Sustainability Task force) and Naperville Preservation Inc., where he is a member of the board of directors along with: Becky Simon, president; Jane Burke, vice president; Ted Slupik, treasurer; and Tom Ryan, chief preservation officer. Other board members are: Joe McElroy, Ron Keller, and Philip Buchanan, all Naperville residents.

Simon agrees that Elefante's statement seems surprising at first, but he will explain as one of the speakers at Aurora GreenFest on Saturday, May 13. The annual festival will be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Prisco Community Center at Lake and Illinois streets. In his program at 1:30 p.m., Simon will speak on "The Most Sustainable Building is the One Already Built."

"At first you might think, 'What? How can that be? What about those leaky windows, that lack of insulation and those old heating and cooling systems?' that cause problems in older buildings, Simon told the Naperville group.

However, as architect Elefante put it, "Retrofitting existing buildings to meet high performance standards is the most effect strategy for reducing near-and mid-term carbon emissions, the most important step in limiting climate disruption."

Two concepts - embodied carbon and adaptive reuse - are key to understanding how historic preservation and energy conservation complement each other. Embodied carbon refers to emissions arising from the manufacturing, transportation, installation, renovation and disposal of building materials. "When we build buildings, a lot of the materials that we use release carbon dioxide," according to Simon, a chemical engineer.

Simon quotes Bill Gates, who wrote, "Making one ton of steel produces about 1.8 tons of carbon dioxide."

According to the International Energy Agency, 40% of the world's carbon comes from buildings, either operations or new construction.

The other concept, adaptive reuse, can also be called "repurposing," as in finding new uses for existing buildings. Naperville examples include Old Nichols Library, now an Italian restaurant, and the former main post office at the corner of Washington and Van Buren, where a smaller postal facility now shares space with Naperville Bank & Trust.

On east Jefferson Street is the Truitt House, designed by architect Harry Robinson, who worked for Frank Lloyd Wright. Built for Naperville's first doctor, the prairie style building is now an office building for North Central College.

Simon also cited the example of an airplane hanger that has been repurposed today as the Los Angeles office for Google.

It's possible to quantify the carbon-related benefits of adaptive reuse, as shown at the Boston University Hillel Center, which was built in the 1950s as an addition to an adjacent, 19th century building. As is typically the case, the embodied carbon, the upfront carbon emissions generated by construction, is very high.

Using the building's 2016 renovation as a test case, architects quantified how much less carbon was generated by renovation instead of new construction. Through a tool called Carbon Avoider Retrofit Estimator, the analysis showed that retrofitting the building instead of replacing it reduced embodied carbon by more than 50% and also lowered operating carbon.

Over 15 years, the new building would have put out more total operating and embodied carbon than the renovated building.

In Naperville, approximately 75% of carbon emissions come from buildings, according to NEST's Naperville 2036 report, which recommends adaptive reuse as an alternative to new construction.

"Renovations and adaptive reuse help reduce our carbon footprint going forward," Simon said. "There are new tools that can help policymakers and private parties make development decisions."

For more information about Naperville historic preservation, visit www.napervillepreservation.org.

Aurora GreenFest

Aurora GreenFest will feature educational programs during the event from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 13, at the Prisco Community Center in Aurora. Learn more at <a href="https://www.auroragreenfest.com/">www.auroragreenfest.com</a>.

• 10:30 a.m.: "Sustainability in Urban Planting" by Cathy Hayen, Horticulturist, City of Aurora

•11 a.m.: Kane County Climate Action Plan with Ivy Klee, Environmental and Water Resources

10:30 a.m.: "Fixin' the Fox River" by Robb Cleave, Forest Preserve District of Kane County

Noon: "Dos and Don'ts of Curbside Recycling" by Clair Ryan, Kane Count Recycling Coordinator

12:30 p.m.: Citizens Utility Board with Katie Shonk, Sustainable Communities Liaison

1:30 p.m.: "The Most Sustainable Building is the One Already Built" by Bill Simon, Naperville Preservation

2 p.m.: "Solar in Ilinois" by Adam Perri, Windfree Solar

2:30 p.m.: "Who Are the Friends of the Fox River?" Gary Swick