For New Center, Harvard Agrees to Emissions Cut

NY Times
September 18, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/us/18green.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

By FELICITY BARRINGER

Harvard has agreed to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the university’s proposed four-building science center in the Allston section of Boston, the state’s environmental officials announced yesterday.

The agreement, which Harvard entered voluntarily at the state’s suggestion, will cut emissions 50 percent below the levels required by the national standard, said the state’s energy and environment secretary, Ian A. Bowles. Mr. Bowles said the Harvard agreement represented the first legally enforceable limits on emissions from a large real-estate project. The complex is 537,000 square feet.

“I expect the Allston project is going to be watched carefully around the country as other institutions and other states step forward to take on such commitments in years to come,” Mr. Bowles said.

Mandatory controls of the heat-trapping gases that scientists have linked to global warming have thus far been considered largely in the context of industry and vehicle emissions.

But the design of buildings — how they are heated, cooled, insulated and a host of other details — plays a significant role in determining national energy use and emissions.

This year Massachusetts announced a greenhouse gas emissions policy that covers major real-estate projects. All qualify for regulation under the state’s environmental protection laws, and their developers must quantify the total greenhouse gas emissions associated with the projects and detail what they are doing to reduce those emissions, a news release from Mr. Bowles’s office said.

In an interview, Chris Gordon, the chief operating officer of the Allston Development group at Harvard, said he welcomed the opportunity to commit the university to the new standards. And, while he declined to estimate publicly how much the science complex would cost, he said he did not expect the new design measures to add significantly to the overall bill.

“First of all, the technology associated with green construction has dropped dramatically in the last decade,” Mr. Gordon said. “Geothermal wells, natural ventilation, natural lighting — most of it doesn’t cost a premium anymore. Also, we think the operating costs will go down. When you save 50 percent on greenhouse gases, you’re burning less fuel and buying less fuel.”

Mr. Gordon said it was not possible, in a short span of time, to quantify the exact tonnage of the greenhouse gas reductions to which the university had committed.

Harvard’s commitment to reductions mirrors what colleges and universities across the country are doing, including Carnegie Mellon and Arizona State.

To date, 399 college presidents have signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, pledging to assess their greenhouse gas emissions and develop a strategy for reducing them, or buying offsets, with the goal of becoming carbon neutral, or adding no carbon-dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.

“We are acting as a model for the rest of society saying we are going to do everything we can to reduce our emissions,” said an organizer of the initiative, Anthony Cortese. “The bigger commitment we are making is that we are going to create the knowledge and the graduates that will help society” achieve the same goals.

Harvard is not a signatory to the climate initiative, but Mr. Gordon said in a statement: “Harvard’s Allston campus ultimately will be the university’s greatest expression of environmental sustainability. Today’s decision continues progress towards an environmental strategy that benefits both the university and the community.”

Residents of the Allston neighborhood have been skeptical, if not prickly, about the university’s expansion from Cambridge. The move is part of a 50-year plan that would increase the campus footprint by about 50 percent. Construction on the science complex, the first part of the expansion, is set to begin this fall and end in 2011.

This year, two members of a task force formed by Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston criticized the development plans in an article in The Boston Globe. They singled out the science complex for its 125-foot height, which they said was incompatible with the smaller neighborhood homes.

But, when contacted yesterday about Harvard’s agreement with the state, Brent Whelan, one of the critics, said the green component of the construction was one good aspect of a project that had raised concerns about the future of the neighborhood, and about communications between the university and Allston residents.

Although some of the new design elements will add to the height of the complex, Mr. Whelan said that was an acceptable trade-off. “There are some consequences for the green construction,” he said, “but I think most people agree that it’s a really, really good thing they’re doing.”

After approving the plans for the science complex, with the commitment to keep greenhouse gases from energy use 50 percent below the national standard of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Mr. Bowles signed documents setting the terms for the coming environmental reviews of the rest of the Allston project, as it develops.

These establish greenhouse gas limits about 30 percent below those in the national standard.

Katie Zezima contributed reporting from Boston.