The Urgent Quest to Decarbonize Seattle's Skyline: Technologies and Barriers

Abstract

There has been a push to move toward electric transportation, creating energy through clean and renewable sources, and decreasing our carbon footprint in producing and manufacturing goods. Although these are all essential actions, commercial and residential building emissions, in addition to the life-cycle impacts of a building, account for about 40% of all global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. Cities, towns, and buildings are constantly expanding or being remodeled, presenting an opportunity for considerable improvements in global, national, and local greenhouse gas emissions. Also, buildings have a much longer lifespan than vehicles and other consumer products and are more difficult to renovate to fit greener standards. Environmental problems surrounding construction must be fixed beginning now. This would avoid locking in carbon emissions in buildings and ensure companies do not have to undergo costly renovations to meet greener standards.