Presentation at PastForward National Preservation Conference.
Building reuse, energy retrofitting, and deconstruction are significant strategies in a community’s toolbox for achieving climate resiliency. Old buildings represent significant reserves of embodied carbon. They are good candidates for adaptive reuse and energy retrofitting initiatives like weatherization and air source heat pumps, and important ways for communities to achieve decarbonization while shifting away from burning fossil fuels.
When buildings cannot be saved or relocated, deconstruction prevents the loss of valuable materials and keeps them in use, promoting a circular economy. Construction and demolition debris (CDD) clog the waste stream and comprise more than 40 percent of waste in landfills. Through strategies of deconstruction and salvage, CDD is transformed into a resource rather than waste that must be thrown away. Building and building material reuse can also preserve embodied history and fuel imagination.
All of these strategies can generate green jobs and contribute to building a more sustainable regional economy. Allied preservation and reuse organizations can help policymakers and the public to make the connection between conservation of embodied and operational carbon, preservation, and climate justice. Presenters from Ithaca, New York, San Antonio, Texas, and Portland, Oregon will discuss examples of local climate action projects and policies.
Presenters:
Jennifer Minner, Associate Professor and Director of the Just Places Lab, Cornell University
Shawn Wood, Construction Waste Specialist, City of Portland, Oregon
Stephanie Phillips, Deconstruction & Circular Economy Program Manager, City of San Antonio, Texas
Luis Aguirre-Torres, Director of Sustainability, City of Ithaca, New York
Moderated by Susan Holland, Executive Director, Historic Ithaca