Preservations Role in Mitigating Climate Change
This week I spent my days in virtual sessions for the PastForward conference hosted by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. While I’m not a fan of virtual conferences, like most people, I was excited to see this conference go virtual because it gave me the opportunity to attend for the first time. This years themes, Resilience and Relevance, were reflected in a variety of session topics and town hall discussions. As I have been researching and grappling with how preservationists can play a larger role in mitigating climate change, I was eager to attend the Mitigating and Adapting to a Changing Climate Town Hall which addressed this very topic.
Global CO2 Emissions by Sector
Buildings account for almost 40% of all CO2 emissions which means historic preservationists have a huge opportunity to contribute to reducing our impact on climate change. When conference attendees were asked for the most important way their organization can contribute to protecting our heritage from the impacts of climate change, they were divided, but with 43% of the votes, communication about the connections between preservation and climate change rose to the top, followed by advocating for more incentives to retrofit older buildings (29%). When we broke into small group discussions, we talked more broadly about the role preservation has in mitigating climate change. My breakout group came up with the following.
Enhance and Expand Secretary of the Interior’s (SOI) Standards. When historic tax credits are used to finance a rehabilitation project the Secretary of the Interior’s standards must be adhered to, ensuring the character defining features of the building are not compromised. When the tax credits are not used on a project, often much of the historic fabric is removed and entire buildings are gutted and retrofitted. The removal of nearly all the original materials wastes embodied energy and irreplaceable features like old growth wood. We should not retreat from the SOI standards, but enhance them by allowing green energy retrofits like solar panels to make sure the fabric is preserved while creating a more efficient building.
Promote Routine Building Maintenance. Minor updates to building enclosures like repairing sealants and roofs prolongs building life and energy efficiency of properties and reduces air infiltration. Grassroots efforts should educate home owners and renters on how to maintain their buildings, including education on hiring knowledgeable tradesmen. Many contractors seek to get the work done quickly and owners cave to their guidance, whereas maintenance that seeks to preserve historic fabric takes time and contractors with experience working on historic buildings.
Education Campaign. Preservationists tend to be at a disadvantage because so many people assume that old buildings are inefficient and that we as preservationists do not let anything change. Local preservation organizations should promote saving places for more than their history and beauty but also acknowledge their value to reducing climate change impacts. We need to retool the narrative to show we think it's inappropriate to do anything other than good preservation that keeps the historic fabric because it will make a big impact on climate change. This includes highlighting inherently sustainable features and promoting preservation of features such as original windows. Another misconception is new windows are maintenance free, but that means the cannot be fixed and will require replacement every 10 to 20 years.
Incentives for Energy Efficiency. Incentives are needed to help rental properties make energy efficient improvements such as solar panels. Not only will this benefit the environmental impact, but also reduce costs to renters within the building. Interestingly, the Metropolitan Council in the Twin Cities is piloting a program to help provide solar panels on multi-family buildings to reduce the cost and energy required to operate the buildings.
With 2020 poised to exceed last years record spent on climate disasters, the situation has become not one of when we should become involved, but how we can best contribute. As demonstrated this past week, preservationists have the ability to contribute to reducing emissions in a big way. Our work impacts a large percentage of all CO2 emissions and with more education and awareness, we can begin to shrink that piece of the global emissions pie.
