In January 2011, a new era of building will begin in California. CALGreen, the nation's first state-wide green building code, will become mandatory. Architects, developers, plan checkers, inspectors, building officials and others involved in designing and approving new construction will be expected to adhere to new mandatory guidelines on issues ranging from water efficiency and conservation to indoor air quality.

In cooperation with the California Building Standards Commission and the California Department of Housing and Community Development, Green Technology is developing a series of training workshops to help raise awareness of the changes that CALGreen will bring and to help building officials and the design community prepare for implementation.
For the last year, Green Technology has offered sessions on CALGreen at its events, and at the 2010 Green California Summit the Building Standards Commission also hosted an information center on the Expo floor, with experts available to answer code questions. The strong response to a pre-Summit workshop focused on CALGreen was evidence of increased awareness of the code and the beginnings of serious efforts to take stock of necessary operational changes.

"Our conversations with building officials suggest that at present, awareness of the code varies greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction," says Green Technology editor in chief Carl Smith. "It is also apparent that we're entering into new territory in many ways, from what will be asked of building inspectors to the documentation necessary to show that paints, flooring or adhesives meet the new air quality standards."

"California is the first state in the nation to make green building mandatory," said Smith. "It's hard to overstate how significant it is that we are entering an era of healthy, efficient buildings. We consider this one of the most far-reaching policies the state has enacted, and hope to work with the Building Standards Commission to develop training events and materials that help this pioneering effort succeed."

It is the first-in-the-nation mandatory green building standards code. Voluntary for the time being, it will become mandatory on January 1, 2011. Once a building passes the inspection process, the property can then be labeled as CALGreen compliant.
"This is something no other state in the country has done - integrating green construction practices into the very fabric of the construction code," said Tom Sheehy, Acting Secretary of the California State and Consumer Services Agency and Chair of the Building Standards Commission. "CALGreen will essentially revolutionize the way we build structures. By implementing a sensible, cost-effective foundation of green practices, our state will usher in a new era of greener communities."
Among the new requirements under CALGreen, every new building in California will have to reduce water consumption by 20 percent, divert 50 percent of construction waste from landfills and install low VOC materials. Separate indoor and outdoor water meters for nonresidential buildings and moisture-sensing irrigation systems for large landscape projects will be required. There will be mandatory inspections of energy systems, such as furnaces and air conditioners for nonresidential buildings over 10,000 square feet. According to the California Air Resources Board, the mandatory provisions will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 3,000,000 metric tons by 2020.
The unanimous adoption of CALGreen by the CBSC was announced on January 12. However, leading up to the commission session there was a powerful pushback effort from environmental and green building groups. The USGBC, Sierra Club and the National Resources Defense Council tried to derail it, saying the verification system would be confusing. Hundreds of architects, engineers and builders sent messages to the governor opposing the CALGreen label.
In an interview with Green Technology, Walls addresses these concerns, gives the background of the path to adoption for this groundbreaking work and discusses how it will be implemented.

California has taken leadership in green building for years under Governor Schwarzenegger. How does the new green building code hook up to the Governor's green prerogatives?
The governor has been taking the lead over the years by signing legislation such as AB32 [California's Global Warming Act] relating to greenhouse gas emissions. A big part of that, of course, is a focus on buildings and reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. He further directed us to develop and adopt a green building code that would assist in the effort to affect overall climate change. It really fits right in with his whole policy and beliefs given the environmental issues facing our state, our nation, and the world. In 2004 there was also the Governor's executive order S-20 04, which calls for the greening of all state government buildings. That kind of kicked off everything that is happening now.
Would you give an overview of the California Green Building Standards Code?
The green building code was specifically designed to reduce the impact of all buildings in the state on the environment. To do that, we had to establish a minimum mandatory set of standards that would apply to all buildings - schools, hospitals, residential occupancies, as well as commercial facilities. The ultimate goal is to provide a uniform and consistent code that can be used in coordination with all our other building codes. Our effort was focused on not only helping local building officials and governments, but the building industry as well, to give them something uniform and consistent and a direction they can head in.

CALGreen is the abbreviation for the California Green Building Standards Code, short for California Green Code. It's what we started calling it, and it stuck.

Our existing codes that deal with water reduction in toilets and water fixtures, but in this code we have combined and ratcheted them down so that the minimum mandatory requirement will be a 20 percent reduction in indoor potable water use and 50 percent in landscape irrigation. Those are just a few of the key elements.

This applies to new buildings and also refurbished buildings?
Our goal now is to focus on new buildings, so it would not apply to existing buildings at this time. Our next step will be to include existing buildings in the green code.

Does the green code apply to all residential, government and commercial buildings in California?
All buildings regulated by state code. Federal buildings are exempt; buildings built on Indian land, or reservations, are exempt. So there are some exceptions. But yes, ninety-nine point nine percent of the buildings built in the state are regulated by these codes.

impact on the environment.
What do you say to people who feel there is doubt about manmade climate change and that there are so many other things to worry about right now, such as getting the state's economy back on track?
I know there's a lot of pushback from individuals that don't believe in climate change, but my argument to that is you can't say that all the things that are in this code aren't good. How can you say conserving water is not a good thing?  Conserving wood, steel, all the resources that are out there - how can you say that's not a good thing?  Conserving energy, making buildings more energy efficient, those are all positive moves regardless of the politics of climate change. I'm saying for those who don't believe in it, this is still all positive, and that's how I'm able to keep pushing this through.

There's voluntary compliance right now. How are people are receiving it? 
We've had a lot of positive feedback. In fact there are some cities, such as the city of Irvine and the city of Calabasas that have already adopted it as mandatory. And there's also an international green construction code under development. I'm on the committee that is developing that code, and they are using the California code as a key resource because we are the only green building code out there right now.

The code is voluntary until 2011, when it becomes mandatory. How will this work?
The way it works is once the Building Standards Commission has actually adopted  the code, which it just has, we then have to formalize and publish it. This is part of our triennial update of the California Building Standards Code, so we have to publish the building, mechanical, plumbing, all the other codes at the same time. Working with our publishers, they tell us it will take until June or July. By state law, it only becomes effective 180 days after publication. The proposed effective date is January 1, 2011.

What happens when it shifts into mandatory compliance?
I don't think you could ever accomplish any of this without getting some pushback. There's always someone who's not going to be happy. We have engaged environmental groups, labor and  industry - architects and engineers also. We've tried to get them involved and to help them understand the code, and to see what kind of impact it might have.
Is there somebody who's not paying attention and a year from now will be saying, "Hey, what happened? What's going on?" I think there will be. But for the most part, our role is to get the information out, like we did at the Green California Schools Summit, like we will be doing at the Green California Summit in March in Sacramento. We're trying to get the word out as soon as possible as to what's coming and to help all stakeholders get prepared for it. Part of that 180 days I'm talking about is to provide manufacturers and builders a chance to gear up and get ready for all the code changes, not just the green code.

What would you say to builders, architects and contractors who are worried about the economy and about what it will cost them in time and money to make these changes?
I was a contractor, too, and still have my contractor's license. Not only was I a contractor,  I was also a local enforcement official. So I feel their pain, and I try to keep all of that in perspective as we develop and move forward with these codes. I've kind of been on several sides of this fence, which helps as we move through the process.
I just believe in our economy. I believe it's going to turn around, and I believe this is going to be part of the turnaround. A lot of people are saying this will create jobs, that our code is very much a part of the whole green movement. We are hearing that from the commercial industry, the building industry - they believe that this will create jobs and that it's going to be a good thing ultimately. Every change comes, we adjust and we move on.
Thank you.

For details on the CALGreen go to http://images.emaildirect.com/clients/
govpressoffice847/GreenBuildingCodeOnepager.pdf.

For the CALGreen website, go to: http://www.CCBSC.ca.gov/
CALGreen/default.htm