ABSTRACT
Buildings are large consumers of resources with big impacts on sustainability. They sit at the intersection of three converging crises: climate change, natural resource depletion, and the impending end of the era of cheap fossil fuels. Buildings in the US consume 74 percent of all electricity and 40 percent of all energy produced (US Department of Energy). Globally they consume even more. In the US they consumed 40 percent of the raw materials and generated 30 percent of the waste in 2009. In the same year they generated 46.7 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, far more than transportation’s 33.4 percent or industry’s 19.9 percent (Architecture 2030 n.d.).
