Environmental Engineering Reference
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Environmental impact outweighs financial benefits
Financial benefits outweigh environmental burdens
FIGURE 31.1
Cell by cell accounting of financial benefits versus environmental impacts revealed higher impacts on the out-
skirts of urbanization.
and soon the city itself. With more than 160,000 LEED
®
(Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design) accredited professionals, the U.S. Green Building Council
4
helps
establish the green building movement as a success story across for-profit, non-profit
and public sectors. Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone and the Clinton Climate
Initiative partnered to create the Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) which targets
40 large cities for strategic action.
5
This is a fitting approach considering, since 2007, the
majority of the world's population lives in cities.
A recent research study at our Austin office illustrates the need to understand the
city as a system of public, non-profit and private sector actors, where with the use of
creative intervention, we can move the system to a regenerative mode. CMPBS and asso-
ciates recognized the land use/environmental challenge created by the ubiquitous big
box store/warehouse typology as an opportunity for Austin to continue its steps toward
a model of the green city of the future (Figure 31.2). The plan that emerged involved
retrofitting these buildings with combinations of commercially available roof top sys-
tems for rainwater harvesting, ecological waste water treatment, high yield organic food
production, high efficiency organic fertilizer production, solar photovoltaic panels and
even algal-based liquid fuel systems. The plan incorporated the same ecoBalance guid-
ing principles of previous work by balancing local needs with life cycle procedures that
involved, as much as possible, local sourcing, transport, processing, and re-sourcing.
Without adding a single residential photovoltaic panel or LEED certified building, this
system as proposed was estimated to supply almost 20% of Austin's electric needs, more
than 15% of Austin's water needs, exceed Austin's fresh vegetable food demand, and
meet close to 20% of Austin's biofuel needs (Figure 31.3).
This study and our prior experience with establishing Austin's Green Building Program
suggested the key to city scale intervention is the establishment of partnerships with
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