Shelter is a basic need
For most of us, adequate shelter in the form of a home is fundamental to overall health and well-being, and contributes enormously to our ability to meet our other basic needs and provide for ourselves and our families.
We – all of us – should be able to operate, maintain, and adapt our housing to remain safe, functional and beneficial, now and into the future, even in changing conditions. Unfortunately, in our community – in most every community actually – this isn’t the case. Not surprisingly, the disparities in vulnerability occur across racial, geographic and income-related lines.
Typically, the poorest people, and disproportionately people of color, live in the poorest housing, in the poorest neighborhoods, with the poorest infrastructure. Lower income residents’ housing burdens are often compounded by their surroundings, like streets in need of repair, inadequate green space, and persistent exposure to environmental dangers like lead and air pollution.
Poorer residents are less equipped to deal with high and volatile energy costs than wealthier residents are, but poorer residents more often live in homes with the highest energy costs because their houses are inefficient, dilapidated, or both. Similarly, residents with the least amount of disposable income can struggle to deal with escalating maintenance and repair costs, which (when unattended) further diminish the value of the house, and potentially escalate an unhealthy indoor environment. Shelter, in such instances, can become unsafe and unstable. In short, unsustainable.
Climate change only increases the importance of durable, affordable, and healthy housing – for everyone. More extreme weather underscores the need for robust, resilient housing and infrastructure. The urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions means we must rapidly transition to clean energy sources, for all of our energy consumption, including our homes.
Our housing is part of the problem
Buildings account for about 40% of all energy consumption and CO2 emission, and about half of that comes from housing. Minnesota’s Next Generation Energy Act mandates reductions in statewide CO2 emissions, and electricity generation in the state is getting cleaner, but residential CO2 emissions rose 32% between 2005 and 2018. More than 2/3 of homes in Minnesota burn natural gas for space heating, water heating and cooking. We don’t need natural gas in our homes. It pollutes the atmosphere and pollutes our homes.
Our biggest obstacles are not scientific, and they’re not technical. For the most part, they’re social and, to a lesser extent, economic. Social in the sense that most housing construction – new and renovation – mimics what is already there, for better or for worse (mostly worse). Economic in the sense that construction is expensive and rising wealth inequality makes it harder and harder for most people to afford to purchase a home, renovate a home, or build a new home.
We can transform the housing industry so that new homes don't generate CO2 emissions by building energy-efficient homes powered only by electricity, and by generating the needed electricity with renewable energy sources. We can also reduce the demand on the electrical grid by producing some of that renewable electricity on site with solar panels on each house.
If the solar panels on a home produce as much energy in a year as the house requires in a year, the house is "zero net energy." Zero net energy homes are not a part of general public discourse or understanding, and not yet commonly offered by the building trades. But they could be.
We have a shortage of housing, and much of the aging housing stock of our communities needs to be repaired, upgraded, or retired. We also know that our workforce must expand to meet our housing needs no matter what. This presents opportunities to invite our present and future tradespeople to participate in the transition to green building, for everyone’s benefit. If you’re a builder, or interested in the trades, now is the time to learn how to build the next generation of housing.
We can reduce the energy required in our housing by building smaller, more durable homes, with much higher insulation values and better air tightness than building codes require. You don’t have to look far to find specifics about what to build, and how to build. Good general information is available in places like Fine Homebuilding magazine, Green Building Advisor (greenbuildingadvisor.com), The Journal of Light Construction, and buildingscience.com.
Green housing can be a game-changer
Until recently, most of the examples of sustainable housing occurred at two ends of the spectrum: custom green homes for wealthy private clients, and super-efficient green apartment buildings built for low-income renters. It’s a good start, but working at the two “ends of the bell curve” won’t solve the problems of climate change, housing inequity, or wealth inequality.
We have the materials and the knowledge right now to build and renovate homes – and all buildings – to be more robust, to be healthier for occupants, and use much less energy. There are well-developed and readily available solutions to efficiently power our buildings with little to no CO2 emissions, and to create buildings that produce as much energy as they consume, or even produce more energy than they consume.
Green housing can be a game changer for folks who experience housing inequity. The energy costs to power a super-efficient, well-tuned, solar-powered home are fairly predictable and don't tend to spike when we have extremely cold winters or super-hot summers (and with climate change we are experiencing more of both). In addition, when the house is producing more energy than the house is consuming, the owners are selling that energy back to the grid and reaping the financial benefit of that.
A healthier, more durable home can improve the well-being of occupants. Lower operating costs and increased value of the home help build wealth for the homeowner and in turn contribute to neighborhood improvement.
We need to make green building the new normal for housing, accessible to people of all income levels. When increased investment and adoption reaches a tipping point, the costs come down rapidly and more and more people can afford them (think iPhones, or solar panels).
For more information about how to build green here and now, I invite you to visit Just Housing SBC. Here you can find zero net energy plans suitable for a cold climate, for sale at affordable prices, and free assembly details to download and study (or use on your own project). Just Housing is currently developing more designs for smaller houses and duplexes, and creating curriculum and training to help our construction trades adopt green practices.
Building green is a necessary ingredient in the quest for community resiliency and equity. Our future depends on it.