%0 Journal Article
%A Travis Walter
%A Paul A Mathew
%B Buildings and Cities
%D 2021
%G eng
%R DOI: 10.5334/bc.81
%T GHG policy impacts for Seattle’s buildings: targets, timing, and scope
%8 03/2021
%X <p>Many US cities are addressing climate change by setting goals to reduce their greenhouse<br />gas (GHG) emissions by a specified amount within a specified time period. In order to<br />achieve these goals, reducing emissions from existing buildings is crucial. Many cities<br />are passing legislation to target existing buildings through benchmarking, auditing,<br />retuning, or energy or emissions performance standards. As cities design legislation,<br />they must consider the timing of the policies, how to prioritize building types and sizes,<br />and how these design decisions will impact the city’s emissions. This paper addresses<br />these questions for one particular US city: Seattle, Washington. A model of Seattle’s<br />building stock was created with benchmarking and tax assessor data. It was then used<br />to predict GHG emissions reductions due to different policy implementations for existing<br />commercial and multifamily buildings. Key findings are: (1) the proposed emissions policy<br />is expected to reduce cumulative emissions from buildings by 19% between 2020 and<br />2050; (2) delaying the implementation of the policy by five years could limit savings to<br />12%; and (3) including smaller buildings in the policy could increase savings to 34%. The<br />lessons learned and how this can be used by other cities are discussed.</p>