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New York City moving to decarbonize the built environment

With more than 1 million buildings responsible for nearly 70 percent of GHG emissions, NYC’s green economy will be driven by building decarbonization. Read More

Mass timber construction of Evergreen Charter School. Source: NYCEDC

This article is sponsored by NYCEDC.

The New York City skyline, a sweeping panorama of postcard-worthy buildings, stands as the ultimate symbol of the city’s status as the world’s economic and cultural powerhouse. These iconic buildings and so many others across the five boroughs represent nearly 70 percent of NYC’s greenhouse gas emissions — making decarbonizing the built environment a critical front in the fight against climate change.

Leading this effort is New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), the city of New York’s mission-driven economic development arm, which is spearheading initiatives in circular construction, low-carbon building materials and climate tech to decarbonize the city’s buildings and construction sector.

A landscape for sustainability

Recent policies and initiatives at all levels of government have set the stage for building decarbonization. The Climate Mobilization Act of 2019 set one of the most aggressive approaches to building decarbonization in the world. New York City’s Local Law 97 is the centerpiece, setting ambitious energy efficiency requirements and GHG emissions limits for most large buildings. With a plan to address operational carbon — the GHG emissions associated with energy used to operate a building — in place, NYC has more recently begun to create a path to reduce embodied carbon, the GHG emissions associated with a building before and after its operational life, including manufacturing, transportation, construction and disposal. In 2023, Mayor Eric Adams signed an executive order requiring low-carbon building materials and electric construction equipment in municipal construction projects. Together, these policies support the city’s commitment to 100 percent carbon neutrality by 2050.

Buildings are also a key focus of the mayor’s Green Economy Action Plan to bolster economic growth and employment, and to position New Yorkers to benefit from 400,000 projected green-collar jobs in the city by 2040. Building decarbonization jobs represent nearly 50 percent of these green-collar jobs, primed for professionals already working in the built environment — architects, engineers, trade workers and others — who will be critical to realizing the plan’s proposals to deploy energy-efficient products, retrofit existing structures, construct new green buildings and develop and use low-carbon building materials.

The city’s local policies are bolstered by a broader movement toward cleaner materials that reduce embodied carbon — a priority of the federal Inflation Reduction Act, with its “Buy Clean” labelling program driving the purchase of more climate-friendly construction materials, and EPA grants to help manufacturing businesses produce low-carbon materials. And on the state level, Gov. Kathy Hochul has announced over $21.5 million in nature-based solutions to lower emissions and sequester carbon.

A roadmap for sustainable construction

NYCEDC’s Circular Design & Construction Guidelines (the “Guidelines”) offer the city’s first comprehensive guide to reducing waste and embodied carbon in the built environment. These guidelines challenge the traditional linear model of “take, make and waste,” advocating instead for a closed-loop system where materials are reused, repurposed or recycled.

“Right now, there’s a bit of a lack of imagination about how buildings — these incredible storehouses of material — might be reused,” said Justin Den Herder, principal at TYLin, a global engineering firm that designs infrastructure solutions to enhance conventional designs with smarter, more resilient systems. “The Guidelines point the way toward reuse and will spark further creativity among designers, engineers, and contractors.”

NYCEDC will implement these guidelines across its $9 billion capital portfolio, starting with all applicable requests for proposals (RFPs) in 2024. The Guidelines outline mechanisms to track data and materials, establish circular decision points in project workflows, and provide a set of circular design and construction strategies to help teams make sustainable decisions tailored to the uniqueness of their projects.

The SPARC Kips Bay project is the first large project to implement the Guidelines. Applying them at this nearly 2 million-square-foot center for innovation, jobs and education in the life sciences and healthcare industries is expected to reduce carbon emissions by 26,400 metric tons — equivalent to removing nearly 5,800 cars from the road.

A push for low-carbon building materials

Complementing the Circular Design & Construction Guidelines, another NYCEDC climate innovation initiative is the NYC Mass Timber Studio, which focuses on promoting the use of mass timber as a low-carbon building material in NYC. Compared to steel or concrete, mass timber is significantly lower carbon, contributes to faster construction timelines, and can store carbon within the building structure.

The Studio supports active mass timber development projects in the early phases of project planning and design by building knowledge and capacity for practitioners advancing the use of mass timber and working with the NYC Department of Buildings to create a regulatory pathway for more mass timber buildings to come online in NYC. NYCEDC awarded grants to seven design and development teams, six in environmental justice communities across the five boroughs, to participate in the Studio and incorporate mass timber in projects around New York City.

“NYCEDC’s Mass Timber Studio has brought considerable public and real estate/design industry awareness to sustainable construction projects,” said WoodWorks Regional Director Momo Sun. WoodWorks is a Studio partner and nonprofit that encourages the use of wood products in building construction. “Through the Mass Timber Studio, developers and design teams are seeing mass timber’s potential for creating buildings with a lower carbon impact — as well as a differentiated product.”

A testing ground for more efficient buildings 

NYCEDC is also leading initiatives to help test and validate climate tech solutions earlier in their development journey — in the R&D, prototyping and field-testing phases — through using the city’s existing building stock as a testing ground.

Pilots at BAT is an NYCEDC program that offers climate tech companies the space and infrastructure to test and demonstrate their products for New York City’s complex urban environment.

Based at the Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT), a city-owned and NYCEDC-managed industrial campus on the South Brooklyn waterfront and home to the future Climate Innovation Hub, the program provides a live environment for companies with building decarbonization solutions to test their technologies, develop their prototypes and show viability for customers and investors.

Pilots at BAT gives companies access to myriad testing opportunities, from parking spaces and electrical, roadways and waterfront access, to plumbing and water systems, building façade and windows, roof areas, and heating and boiler systems across the 60-acre campus.

As New York City continues to grow and evolve, these efforts will play a crucial role in meeting its ambitious climate goal of 100 percent carbon neutrality by 2050. The city’s collaborative approach serves as a model for other urban centers grappling with similar challenges, demonstrating how government agencies, private industry and innovative technologies can come together to create more sustainable, resilient and low-carbon cities. Learn more at edc.nyc.

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