New legislation incentivizes sustainable building solutions such as net zero energy, decarbonization, energy master planning, and other strategies.
At HGA, we are energized by the Inflation Reduction Act that includes the largest federal climate investment in U.S. history. Now signed into law, the Act contains approximately $370 billion in energy and climate-related spending. Its various investments and tax credits aim to help the U.S. slash its carbon footprint 40% by 2030, the U.N. Paris Agreement deadline to halve CO2 emissions. This is a key step in the right direction on the journey to carbon neutral design.
The Inflation Reduction Act will bring positive opportunities to our clients. Our building performance experts—at the forefront of developing building systems that provide measurable cost-saving benefits to facility owners—are buoyed by the incentives, grants, investments, and provisions in the Act that make the exploration of building solutions such as net zero energy, decarbonization planning, energy master planning and other strategies attractive. For our government clients, the Act incentivizes the use of low-carbon building materials in public infrastructure projects and certain government-owned buildings, moving them toward zero energy. And it provides significant funding to states for zero energy code stretching. As a signatory of Structural Engineers 2050 (SE 2050), we are committed to reducing and eliminating embodied carbon in our building structures.
We also believe this legislation will help elevate and influence sustainable building design. HGA’s long-term investment in sustainable research, engineering, and practice is guided by our belief that it is our responsibility to shape the future through design. We know that structural building materials, a major contributor to global warming, make up approximately 40 percent of the embodied carbon in a building—the carbon emitted from extracting, manufacturing, and transporting materials. The provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act will push HGA’s project teams toward delivering energy-efficient design, taking embodied carbon into account through environmental product declarations that assess the embodied carbon of a product. This helps our designers, architects, and engineers understand the calculations and compare the difference in embodied carbon per project and the benefit of using mass timber vs using concrete or steel, for example.
The Act also influences our choices of materials as studied in HGA’s Healthier & Sustainable Interior Materials Selection Guide. We also believe that we’ll see a growth in architects working thoughtfully with engineering partners and strengthen the relationship between carbon and architecture. As an interdisciplinary firm, we also see the strong connection between environmental and climate justice and holistic design. We see equitable and sustainable design, and climate resistance strategies shaping neighborhoods into more equitable environments. In prioritizing decarbonization, it’s creating sustainability that must be equitable to this generation and many generations and ecosystems to come.
Start planning: If you have been thinking about a net zero project, or are deep into analysis, design, or construction, give us a call. If your company wants to set a target but doesn’t know where to start, measure your building’s performance, or look at a system retrofit, contact HGA. We can help you explore and benefit from the incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act and move together toward a more sustainable future.
To learn more about HGA’s building performance expertise, contact our Engineering Business Developer Stephen Burk.