Building performance standards (BPS) are quickly emerging as an innovative policy mechanism that jurisdictions can use to drive action toward ambitious climate goals by improving energy use and reducing related emissions in many regions’ largest emitters: buildings. However, it is increasingly imperative that performance-based policy look beyond carbon and energy.
The most recent IPCC Sixth Assessment Report finds that many weather pattern changes–including in the frequency of heat extremes, heavy participation in some areas, droughts in others, and the increase in tropical cyclones–are irreversible. This means we must focus on adaption as well as mitigation, and that we must target solutions which will serve historically marginalized people and communities, who bear the worst effects of climate change.
This policy brief outlines how interested jurisdictions can integrate resilience into a BPS and start to build a more holistic, equitable policy.
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