Agriculture Reference
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performance. This trend will continue, with California's Title 24 Efficiency Stan-
dards providing a successful model established in 1978 to reduce the state's energy
consumption. The standard is updated periodically to incorporate new innovative
technologies and methods, with the 2005 version currently being upgraded, and
a new standard slated for in 2008. In addition to jurisdictions exercising regulatory
powers, incentives are another form of future governmental action, which will
continue to evolve as a stimulant for change. Financial incentives in the form of
tax relief, rebates, grants, and loans are already in existence in several states and lo-
cal municipalities. There are also entities implementing nonfinancial incentives to
recognize sustainable design by providing expedited plan review and approval. In
the state of Washington, the King County Department of Development and En-
vironmental Services has developed a program entitled “Green Track.” For green
buildings and low-impact development projects, the county offers a customized
review schedule with an assigned project manager, free technical consulting, cost
sharing, and fee discounts for implementing best management practices and a
host of other services intended to encourage sustainable development and green
building practices.
The federal government may also have a future role to play in establishing
a common yardstick for measuring environmentally acceptable products. The
building of a national database of materials would provide a role similar to that
played currently by the Food and Drug Administration in the nutrition labeling
now found on food packaging and prescription drugs. This database would pro-
vide informational content independent of a manufacturer's product, data that
would provide architects and engineers with the “ecological nutritional content”
of materials, including information on embodied energy, toxins included in both
the finished product and its manufacturing, and comparison to alternative ma-
terials to provide an “average daily content” or “potential side effects” type of
benchmarking. For example, manufactured products that include polyvinylchlo-
ride may be thought to be benign once in place, but labeling would include
information on the hazards associated with exposure during manufacturing and
the hazards if exposed to fire.
In fact, this all could be digitized and made readily available as a type of “life
cycle on a chip.” As a new product is released, designers, builders and other users
could access information, which could be updated continuously by visits to an
internet website.
Education
Curriculum is emerging in schools of engineering and architecture to introduce
students to the principles of sustainable design and engineering. The authors'
experience has been that there is not only a gap in the traditional core cur-
riculum that needs to be filled, but that today's college students are looking for
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