Hume: Green and iconic, German bank towers soar
Unlike Canada, Germany has met and exceeded its Kyoto commitments
FRANKFURT—Imagine, if you can, a large Canadian financial institution, say, the Royal Bank, CIBC or BMO, suddenly decides to green its head office. Despite having to spend hundreds of millions, that is not enough to smother the desire to do the right thing.
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When it reopens this fall, DB’s headquarters expects to reap impressive benefits from the project including a 67 per cent drop in heating costs, a 55 per cent reduction in electrical power use, 74 per cent less water and an overall cut in CO2 emissions of 89 per cent. These are impressive figures, well beyond anything we see in Canadian bank towers, Given that 40 per cent of global CO2 emissions come from buildings, these are critical considerations.
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The backdrop to the scheme is a society that takes the environment seriously. Unlike Canada, Germany has met and exceeded its Kyoto commitments. And as much as the Germans love their cars, they have avoided the kind of abject auto-addiction that prevails in North America. In other words, traffic jams happen routinely, but not the paralyzing gridlock caused by the car-based sprawl that has transformed the landscape around Toronto and most every other city on this continent.
See: thestar.com.
Best hopes for adopting that German drive for efficiency.
Cheers,
Paul
theoildrum.com |
