Buildings Go Green

The article I found from the New York Times discusses an attempt going on to force apartment landlords and office buildings to go green. As the current era begins to call for change, cities believe it is important to keep up with the trends, and transform themselves into environmentally friendly areas. However, as the article discusses, it is often very expensive to go green, and the sufficient funds are not being provided. 

New York City's city council passed a piece of legislation saying that apartment landlords must audit their buildings energy use every ten years. This is to prove that they have been complying with the energy standards set by the city. Tenants of these buildings of course must pay for their electricity, and that is what is causing the most disagreements. The landlord takes care of setting up the buildings electrical needs, but the tenants must pay their bills in order to pay back the tenants. Experts are saying that it is not fair to force apartments to take the expensive route and go green, because in turn they must force tenants to pay more to live in the apartments. In a struggling economy, commercial landlords are afraid that asking their tenants to pay more will simply detract from the amount of business they get. 

Large commercial landlords, city officials, and environmental groups such as  Natural Resources Defense Council are all getting together to try and discuss more cost efficient ways to allow their buildings to go green, such as sharing the costs with investors, this is called "the green lease". The article also states that part of the problem is tenants and landlords alike do not realize how much energy is actually wasted within their building every day. If this new green legislation passes, information will be let out demonstrating how much waste happens, and people will begin  to see how important it is to allow these changes to happen, giving them an incentive to pay more. 

I believe that although this article states people don't see an incentive for going green, it is extremely important. This article does a good job of presenting and discussing all sides of the article, and then demonstrating the solutions they are offering to the problem. I hope that they do decide to follow through with the green leasing, and the green reforms in New York City.