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The Santa Monica Public Library is a LEED-Gold certified building. And it's 6 years old.

With the LEED-gold certified Santa Monica Public Library as its backdrop, Environment California today released a new energy efficiency report called "Building a Better America." In it, the group argues the best place to start saving energy is probably the house or office you're sitting in.

The building sector consumes more energy than any other sector of the economy, including transportation and industry. The buildings where we live and work account for about 40 percent of our total energy consumption and nearly three quarters of our electricity use. This level of energy use costs the United States approximately $400 billion every year.

EC says that, by following recommendations it lays out in a 2-dozen page report, California will cut its greenhouse gas emissions from buildings by "11 percent by 2020 and 30 percent by 2030." 

Other environment groups are concerned about energy efficiency in buildings too. As the Natural Resources Defense Council reports, California's Energy Commission is considering an update of its standards for new and renovated buildings; its Title 24 program.

The Commission’s proposed standards for new buildings are projected to reduce annual energy use of single family homes by 30% (compared to a home built to the current 2008 code), and over 30% for commercial buildings on their regulated loads – lighting, heating and ventilation, and cooling. Once the standard is in full effect in 2014, California will save at least $100 million a year in the form of lower electricity bills.

Those standards got developed over two years, with business, government and environmental groups weighing in. NRDC's Jamy Bacchus also writes that these "aggressive" standards, once passed, will yield loads of greenhouse gas savings: "300,000 tons of CO2 emissions in the first year (equivalent to removing 53,000 cars off the road), prevent the need to build 8 or more large 500 MW power plants over next 30 years, and create up to 3,500" new jobs.

Environment California's report highlights work to cut energy demand at the California Public Utilities Commission via BBEES: "Big, Bold, Energy Efficiency Strategies" for achieving zero-net energy in buildings, developed jointly by private industry, regulators, the investor-owned utilities (who are required to care about energy efficiency, and are part of the conversation) and efficiency boosters and laid out in a 3-year plan. 

Thing is, the progress report from last winter doesn't make it sound like the strategies are working as well as they could:

There is a real risk that the Strategic Plan will not meet its goals, unless the next decade sees a more concerted effort on the part of the IOUs [investor-owned utilities, like Southern California Edison & PG&E], state and federal agencies and market actors. Some of the constraints California faces include an unprecedented state budget deficit, which has hampered the ability to timely hire and retain staff at the CPUC and the California Energy Commission (CEC) to oversee progress on strategic action plans...[F]ully achieving the Plan goals will require sustained leadership and new approaches to organization and funding of this ambitious long-term agenda.

Maybe it's not as bad as it sounds; maybe that's not the worst thing in the world. Top-to-bottom change has consequences. Even advocates for putting building energy efficiency on a fast track say zero-net-energy buildings "could have unintended consequences for the electrical grid and/or miss opportunities for additional value creation."

What Environment California is saying to the public with a report like this is, talking about energy efficiency is great, but don't forget to do the energy efficiency too.

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Apple, the company that makes a large number of your (um, our) cell phones and computers, is in need of a little good news. The digital giant has taken a big PR hit of late, with reports of questionable employee conditions in their Chinese factories resulting in this week’s ABC “Nightline” expose.

Yesterday, Apple took to the company website to announce something decidedly more upbeat: details of their massive new data center in Maiden, North Carolina that will be primarily powered with renewable energy. CNET reports that the 500,000-square-foot facility will cost a cool $1 billion, and has already earned LEED's highest award – a Platinum certification – for what Apple has planned.

“We know of no other data center of comparable size that has achieved this level of LEED certification,” says Apple’s website. “Apple’s goal is to run the Maiden facility with high percentage renewable energy mix, and we have major projects under way to achieve this — including building the nation’s largest end user-owned solar array and building the largest nonutility fuel cell installation in the United States.” 

According to Venturebeat, after the addition of the solar array later this year, the 20-megawatt building will ultimately churn out 42 million kWh of clean energy annually.

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In Las Vegas to deliver an early campaign speech focused on energy, President Obama stayed true to his message by checking into an eco-friendly hotel for the night.

Speaking in front of a local UPS center last Thursday, the President pressed his energy agenda, announcing plans for new oil drilling leases in Mexico. Appropriately eschewing the bright lights of the Strip, Obama and his entourage then made their way to the LEED-certified Element by Westin hotel more than ten miles away.

The boutique hotel is aggressively environmentally conscious, featuring multiple recycling bins (glass, paper and plastic) and energy-efficient appliances in every room, and EV charging stations in the parking lot. The Presidential posse booked the entire second floor of the four-story hotel. Suites at the Element like the one the President stayed in run a reasonable $170 per night.

“He said that he had a good night’s sleep,” reported the hotel’s general manager David Smith to the Nevada Sun.

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Shipping containers have long been a hot topic in eco-circles. With more of them collecting dust across America than many realize, finding myriad ways to recycle the hulking shells abound. Given their size, re-imagining these containers as homes and shelters have been especially popular. The SEED Project at Clemson University was inspired to utilize them as emergency housing in case of devastating incidents such as Hurricane Katrina.

Shipping containers have also become popular as quick and easy pop-up businesses (officially known as “cargotecture”), and Starbucks has jumped on the trend by opening a drive-through store from recycled shipping units in Tukwila, WA, not far from Seattle. Constructed from four cargo containers stacked two high, the location does not have any indoor seating.

While this new store was built to LEED standards, it has already generated a fair share of controversy in the sustainable community, with some asking the obvious question: how can a drive-through establishment ever be eco-friendly at all?

Starbucks isn’t the first coffee shop to go down this road; La Boite Café in Austin, TX, opened their second shipping container location last year.