commentAustralians Promote Cap-and-Trade System for Building Energy Use
Leaders in the Australian green building sector are promoting a cap-and-trade scheme for building energy efficiency to supplement greenhouse gas trading.
Based on what you have seen and read about this project, how would you grade it? Use the stars below to indicate your assessment, five stars being the highest rating.
Maria Atkinson, global head of sustainability for property giant Lend Lease, and Che Wall, group director at Lincolne Scott consulting engineers and former head of the World Green Building Council, are behind the plan, which they hope will overcome limitations in current emissions-trading schemes. They hope to create an incentive for achieving dramatic energy savings through fundamental building improvements. They argue that under current emissions cap-and-trade systems only incremental improvements are considered because of the strict rules governing those programs. Even those improvements often fall prey to the split-incentive problem, in which the entity responsible for making the investment is not the party that would reap the savings.
Government agencies in Australia are currently reviewing the proposal, which was presented in September at the Sustainable Buildings 2008 conference in Melbourne.
This article was produced by BuildingGreen, LLC.- www.buildinggreen.com
Sign in to Comment
To write a comment about this story, please sign in. If this is your first time commenting on this site, you will be required to fill out a brief registration form. Your public username will be the beginning of the email address that you enter into the form (everything before the @ symbol). Other than that, none of the information that you enter will be publically displayed.