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1Sustainable Communities Design Handbook © 2010 Elsevier Inc.ISBN: 978-1-85617-804-4, DOI: 10.1016/B978-1-85617-804-4.00001-X All rights reserved.

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Books are often difficult for a number of reasons. This one is an exception. The topic of sustainable development has been part of my lexicon for over two decades. While the terms were first used in the late 1980s in the Brundltand Report for the United Nations, they were and still are the subject of much debate and, to some extent, controversy. The reasons are complex but the terms are now common and in constant use, particularly with the wide release and acceptance of Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth , which won Gore both a Nobel Peace Prize (along with the members of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to which this author was a corecipient) and an Academy Award in 2007. Each of those honors alone was a remarkable accomplishment, but the deeper value was the global awareness of climate change and the need for solutions.

My last book, Sustainable Communities ( Clark, 2009a ), was a series of case studies in sustainability that were actually implemented. The com-munities ranged from a public elementary school and community colleges in the nonprofit world to city governments, corporations, and businesses from around the world. The idea was to provide models to understand the breadth and depth of sustainability as a concept and mechanism for action.

Sustainable development thus has become an acceptable policy initiative and programmatic implementation strategy. However, the “ devil is still in the details ” as to what sustainable development means. On the one hand, some businesses and governments see sustainable development as a strategy for building more homes, office buildings, and large communities. To acknowl-edge that communities were sustainable, groups formed to provide scores and credit points. The most popular one in the United States is the USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council), which developed a scoring mechanism called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), whose basic score starts with being “ accredited ” goes to its highest, being “ platinum. ”

Contents

References 8

Introduction Woodrow W. Clark, II, Ph.D

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Woodrow W. Clark, II2

Without going into details, the USGBC has become a world leader in certifying sustainable buildings. There is now an effort and pilot programs to do the same for communities and even cities. A number of other organi-zations in the last decade have done something similar in the United States, including the Climate Action Registry, originally founded to be California-centric but now is national and global. Because of the energy crisis that hit California in 2000, a number of energy efficient and conservation programs were created, including Flex Your Power, which still exists a decade later. These programs and subsequent actions taken by the California Energy Commission and the California Public Utility Commission established the state as a world leader in energy conservation and renewable power generation.

Meanwhile , the U.S. government also established programs (e.g., Energy Star) that ranked the energy output (hence, savings from conser-vation) of appliances and equipment and the national energy laboratories (e.g., National Renewable Energy Laboratory, NREL) for establishing the rankings of electric power derived from sunshine, wind, geothermal energy, and other renewable energy resources. Also international organiza-tions have been formed for similar rankings and scores of EU and other nations.

Sustainable Communities Design Handbook is a book long in the making and long overdue. Basically, the book maps out what communities need to do when thinking about how to protect their environment while repair-ing, building, or expanding.

At this point, there is no need to review Chapters 2 and 3, “ The Third Industrial Revolution ” and “ Public Policy and Leadership: ‘ We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us ’ , ” respectively. The best way to tell the story about sustainable development is by way of examples. In this book, colleges often illustrate the case of communities, since they are often self-contained com-munities with all the attributes therein, from residential to recreational areas that include the use of basic systems from water and energy to transporta-tion and telecommunication.

The Third Industrial Revolution (3IR) is a concept that puts these issues into a broader picture about society and its industrial growth. The 3IR is an industrial revolution that uses renewable energy, power, and fuel generation along with storage and new technologies, including the interconnection of communities into “ smart girds. ” The 3IR started in the European Union and Asia and is only now coming to the United States. It was remark-ably different from the Second Industrial Revolution (2IR) of fossil fuels and nuclear power. Jeremy Rifkin, the environmental economist, saw this


Introduction 3

3IR coming and has started a series of groups to support and implement it. Now communities throughout the world are participating and receiving advice and plans to implement.

“ Public Policy and Leadership ” is the subject of Chapter 3 by Scott McNall from Chico State University in California. The chapter is significant in that no plans or programs are done without a prior public policy decision being made. Be the officials elected or appointed, leadership over govern -ment programs is critical. Today, however, leadership among corporate deci-sion makers is equally significant. Most companies will make decisions based on profit and loss, but the political arena and economic concerns over how to handle global warming is critical for most corporate leaders. The bottom line tends to always be there and provide the baseline or bar to pre-vent sustainable development programs.

A key component to this book is the perspective that communities must be more efficient to conserve their use of energy, as well as use renewable energy to generate that which they need. In Chapter 4, Michael Hoexter covers the issue of conserving energy with “Achieving More with Less: The State of Energy Conservation and Energy Efficiency.” Then, in Chapter 5, Joe Kantenbacher discusses and analyzes this concept in critical detail in “Renewable Energy.”

Chapter 6, “ How Energy Conservation Fits in an Existing Facilities Master Plan: A Case Study, ” on the use of an optimization energy plan for college campuses, is useful in that it provides a working model on how to understand, apply, and analyze technologies for the use in localized areas, such as college campuses. The same optimization code can be used for non-profit organizations as well as government. With some modifications, the optimization may also be very useful for companies and businesses, espe-cially those that have clusters or groups of buildings in one area.

That topic of finance and accounting is explored in “ Life-Cycle Analysis ” by Don Schultz, Woodrow Clark, and Arnie Sowell. Chapter 7 walks through the process and the appendices to that chapter provide the spreadsheets and accounting mechanisms for people and businesses to follow. However, Chapter 8 by Tom Pastore and Maria Ignatova provides the actual analyses for the accounting of sustainable development costs. Life-cycle and cost-benefit analyses are critical to organization decision making. Even more significantly, rebates, incentives, and tax benefits need to be factored in for technologies and programs.

The big issue is often the bottom line for businesses and this is increa-singly so for governments and nonprofits in the 2009 – 2010 economic “ de-recession. ” What is important about Chapters 7 and 8 (as well as



Appendix A) on economics and accounting are that they point out and demonstrate the shift from cost-benefit analysis to “ life-cycle analysis ” and how this economic change has helped bring innovations, emerging tech-nologies, and the 3IR into the market sooner than normally expected in the conventional “ market economy. ”

The economic change has, however, also come with new economic and legal programs, which have helped in the longer term financing of innovation and the 3IR. A key area is the use of power purchase agree-ments (PPAs), which provide financing to an organization from 15 to 25 years. Such long-term or “ life-cycle ” legal and financial commitments have helped solar systems be installed at a faster rate, along with govern-ment tax and grant incentives, than in the last decade. Hence, 2010 appears to be moving rapidly into more renewable energy (especially solar) to be installed than in prior years. This process also reduces the price of solar systems, due in part to a growing number of new solar manufacturing companies.

The result is that solar systems are now almost cost competitive with regular energy generation systems. The same economic phenomena came with wind, when a combination of long-term financing mechanisms and government tax and incentive programs reduced the costs of wind tur-bines to below that of natural gas power generation by the end of the first decade of the 21st century.

Hence , the financial and accounting economics for renewable energy power generation for the 3IR is moving away from a PPA long-term finance mechanism. This does not mean that the cost-benefit analysis (short-term in quarters or even 2 – 3 years) works now. Soon the shift might be to a more traditional economic and accounting model. Now, however, two models have become part of the 3IR to which Chapter 8 refers and several remaining chapters mention. The two emerging models are feed-in tariffs and regular lease.

Feed -in tariffs (FiTs) charge a higher energy purchase rate to consu-mers but also allow consumers to sell their power to the central grid sup-plier or other energy customers. The FiT was started and achieved success in Germany in the early 1990s. It has since been expanded and revised. Spain then started a national program in the mid-2000s that appeared to be too aggressive, with overbuilding of solar plants and systems. The net result in both Germany and Spain was higher employment and job creation in the solar sector, and Germany became the number 1 nation in solar manu-facturing. Now other nations and communities are starting FiT programs.


Introduction 5

The second emerging model is a regular lease. However, the costs are high, although for a shorter time. The costs of solar and other renewable energies are coming down, so that, according to one “ old economic ” model, all renewable power generation might be factored into the regular opera-tional costs (like heating, air conditioning, electricity, and plumbing) for buildings (homes, offices, storage, etc.). These systems can then be part of the total cost for a mortgage of any building and applied to different or more expansive areas, like college campuses or shopping malls, that have clusters of buildings.

Chapter 9 “ Public Buildings and Institutions: Solar Power as a Solution ” by Douglas Yeoman explores the PPA and also some of the newer models. The legal section, however, also covers the need for construction contracts, liabilities, warrantees, and insurance. What is important is to know about such legal documents, which can be templates and models for other pro-grams, buildings, and clusters.

“ Seven Principles for Achieving Sustainability in Design and Construc-tion ” by Christine Magar, Chapter 10, covers why communities need designs and plans to provide direction, goals, and measurable objectives. Magar is a certified architect and has LEED advanced placement. Her work has often involved communities and clusters of buildings. This crite-rion is important, since most communities include more than one building and must also include other infrastructures, like transportation, energy, water, and waste as well as, increasingly today, wireless and telecommunication. All of this is part of the 3IR and helps provide the basis for smart grids.

Chapters 11 through 13 get into the actual cases or examples of how the 3IR works. Chapter 11 covers agile sustainable communities, with the case of “ The Los Angeles Community College District. ” The authors, Calvin Kwan and Andrew Hoffmann, have brought extensive technical, finance, and policy experience to these colleges. Some of the information is rooted in Appendix B , which uses the same database for the technical and financial optimization for the same colleges.

Chapter 12 then looks into the smart grid infrastructures and local grid applications. Jerry Jin provides some examples and plans from a business perspective in smart communities and the girds that connect them. Then Chapter 13, which looks at sustainable agriculture and the abundance of human resource potential, is by by Sierra Flannigan, whose just-completed work at a small college is a good case in point on how local communi-ties, and students in particular, can bring about sustainable communities in terms of food and recycling.



In the end, however, it is important to identify and find communities that have been sustainable and represent what the 3IR is about. Denmark (where I was a Fulbright fellow in 1994, then visiting professor for the next six years) has been a leader in this regard in terms of national policies, financing, and operational programs ( Clark, 2009b ; Clark and Lund, 2006 and 2008 ). Lund in particular has been tracking the renewable energy and wind manufactur-ing industry that started in Denmark through a merger of several Danish wind turbine companies ( Lund and Clark, 2002 ). Vestas is today the largest, most dominant wind turbine manufacturing company in the world.

Hence , Chapter 14 on “ Climate Change Mitigation from a Bottom-up Community Approach ” by Poul Alberg Ø stergaard and Henrik Lund (academic practioners from Aalborg University in Denmark) looks at Frederikshavn, a small city in the northern Jutland region of Denmark. This city is a main transportation and shipping hub for northern Demark with western Sweden and southern Norway. Because of that, the city is aware and very aggressive in becoming sustainable, in addition to control-ling energy and fuels from the 2IR.

The three appendices to the book are well worth using as references. Appendix A presents the California Standard Practices Manual (CSPM), of which I was a coauthor while in state government. Basically it is an eco-nomic model for doing life-cycle analysis on projects, containing guidelines and formulas. The CSPM was published in 2002 but was originally cre-ated in the mid-1980s for doing cost analyses on projects for the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC). However, it was not revised until 2002. The CSPM is now used extensively in California government pro-ject finance. It remains the guiding model for doing economic data projec-tions, analysis, and evaluative outcomes.

However , even with decision makers providing leadership and public policy, the main question remains, what new technologies and scientific plan-ning need to be in place before change can occur? Even more significantly, how does an organization or company know when it is the right time to “ try something new ” from the 3IR? The answer is that there is no perfect time. These are subjects explored in Appendices B and C, which respectively concern public requests for proposals from colleges to vendors to implement renewable energy systems, and then how these sustainable systems can work in community colleges. Most construction contractors and builders use the same tried and true technologies, or whatever is on their shelf from their last client.

Often all these traditional or conventional technologies are from the 2IR and therefore inappropriate for sustainable development. The


Introduction 7

“ stranded costs ” alone will be long lasting (20 – 30 years) and delay the 3IR for another two to three decades. This is unacceptable, given the need to mitigate global warming and climate change.

Finally , the last chapter has conclusions for the next generation of people, companies, and governments about sustainability. I wrote this chapter because today’s problems with global warming and climate change are directly the fault of my generation. We “ baby boomers ” lived off our land and exploited others for decades. We are now paying the price, because the world is indeed “ round ” — not “ flat ” as some “ populist ” economic commentators would argue — hence the atmospheric and other pollution that we cause in one part of the world, travels to our part of the globe, too. In fact, this group’s current defense of the “ flat ” world idea in economic and business terms is equally as wrong and shortsighted.

Consider the economic crisis that did not hit just the United States or even the European Union and Asia. Rather, the “ de-recession ” has affected everyone. Money has been misplaced and even stolen from New York City to London, from Paris to Rome, and around the world again to Tokyo, from Seoul to Sydney, New Delhi, and now to Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Everyone must be careful.

The point is that the last chapter tries to provide the details from the Third Industrial Revolution perspective in terms of what this means for jobs, careers, and the future of our planet, which we are handing over to young people. Without doubt, the problems are enormous and will need time, money, and people to solve them. But the clock is ticking and the environment is becoming worse daily around the world.

For those who said that Katrina and the hurricanes of the mid-decade in the 21st century were just a short-term and normal weather change, which would correct itself, the data and facts prove them wrong. In the United States alone, the number and level of hurricanes have doubled. The number and impact of tornados have become more intense and damaging by a factor of 2.

These are not statements from one more of those crazy scientists, aca-demics, or economists on the far Left. No . The facts exist. Insurance compa-nies are the bottom line here and their rates and even reluctance to insure certain communities, regions, or areas of the United States has expanded. Some countries and their cities, as well as industries, can no longer get insurance. In short, our world is at risk. We do not have any time left to debate it. We all must act now.



REFERENCES Clark II , W.W. (Ed.), 2009 a . Sustainable Communities: Case Studies . Springer Press . Clark II , W.W. , 2009 b . Analysis: 100% renewable energy. In: Lund , H. (Ed.), Renewable

Energy Systems . Elsevier , Burlington, MA , pp. 129 – 159 . Chapter 6. Clark II , W.W. , Lund , H. , June 2008 . Integrated technologies for sustainable stationary and

mobile energy infrastructures . Utility Policy J. 16 ( 2 ) , 130 – 140 . Clark II , W.W. , Lund , H. , December 2006 . Sustainable development in practice . J. Clean.

Prod. ( 15 ) , 253 – 258 . Lund , H. , Clark II , W.W. , November 2002 . Management of fluctuations in wind power and

CHP: comparing two possible Danish strategies . Energy Policy 5 ( 27 ) , 471 – 483 .


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