Beyond net zero
Utilities should focus on better batteries and smarter management

The company I work for recently built a new ticket office at the base of Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen. Environmentally, we killed it: argon gas-filled windows, super-thick insulation, comprehensive air sealing and 100% electrification using heat pumps instead of gas boilers. All within budget.

Yet one of the first comments we received was from a famous energy guru: “Nice building. But why do you have a heating system at all?” Or more simply put: “Why didn’t you build a perfect building, instead of just a really good one?”

Schendler

Solving climate change could depend on how we answer that question. My answer: Society needs the Prius of buildings, not the Tesla X.

The green building movement didn’t originate only from a desire to protect the environment. It often had elements of the bizarre ego gratification that trumped practicality. 

Recall “Earthships” that used old tires and aluminum cans in the walls. Geodesic domes were interesting looking but produced inordinate waste to build. They also leaked. Rudolf Steiner’s weirdly wonderful Goetheanum was an all-concrete structure designed to unite “what is spiritual in the human being to what is spiritual in the universe.” 

Early practitioners such as Steiner, Buckminster Fuller and Bill McDonough, among others, were often building monuments, whose ultimate goal became the concept of “net zero.” Net zero was a building that produced no carbon dioxide emissions at all.

Designers achieved that goal by constructing well-sealed, heavily insulated, properly oriented and controlled buildings – but then they did something wasteful. They added solar panels to make up for carbon dioxide emissions from heating with natural gas. The approach zeroed out emissions but at extraordinary cost that came in the form of added labor, expense and lost opportunity.

While net zero wasn’t a good idea even when most buildings were heated with natural gas, the rapid decarbonization of utility grids – happening almost everywhere – and advances in electrification make the idea downright pointless.

Instead, all you need to build an eventual net zero building is to go all-electric. It won’t be net zero today, but it will be net zero when the grid reaches 100% carbon-free power. So, all that really matters is that building codes require 100% electrification. 

Yet many communities remain focused on that sexy goal of net zero, and therefore include requirements for solar panels or “solar ready” wiring. Even apart from the issue of cost, many utilities don’t need rooftop solar, because they increasingly have access to huge solar arrays, giving them more electricity than they need in peak times. 

What utilities really need is energy storage and smart management. 

That means home batteries and grid integration that allows utilities to “talk” to buildings and turn off appliances during peak times. The problem is that environmentalists haven’t evolved: Just like we can’t retire our tie-dyes, we think “green” means rooftop solar panels.

My company’s Buttermilk building passes the only test that matters: “If everyone built this kind of structure, would it solve the built environment’s portion of the climate problem?” The answer is “yes.”

Still, aspirational monuments matter. We need the Lincoln Memorial, the Empire State Building. But if we’re going to solve climate change in buildings, which is about a third of the total problem, new structures will have to reconceive what we consider efficient and beautiful. And it doesn’t have to break the bank. 

Electrification, for example, is getting cheaper every year. Years ago, I served on an environmental board for the town of Carbondale. The overwhelming interest there was ending dandelion spraying in the town park. But at one point, we worked on a building. 

After a long conversation about the technical tricks and feats we could pull off, a Rudolf Steiner disciple named Farmer Jack Reed said: “We should also plant bulbs in the fall, so colorful flowers blossom in the spring.” “Why?” I asked, stuck in my own technocratic hole. He said: “Because flowers are beautiful, and they make people happy.” 

So, too, are realistic solutions as we adapt to climate change.

Auden Schendler is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is senior vice president of sustainability at Aspen One. His book, "Terrible Beauty: Reckoning with Climate Complicity and Rediscovering our Soul," comes out in November.