As much as the green building industry (and newly burgeoning green media industry) would like to focus on environmental and water conservation, air quality, and the aesthetics and ethics of green, building green comes back to one primary thing – energy.

Why? Because homes use more than 20% of the total energy produced and contribute more than 20% of total carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. That may not sound like much, but take it global and it shows you that American houses contribute 5% of the world’s greenhouse gases. Considering that we’re only 5% of the total world’s population – well that just seems sick and wrong.

Don’t it y’all?

Where is this all going, you might ask?

Building code. It makes me crazy to think about the fact that it’s okay for our country to mandate that everyone riding in a car has to wear a seatbelt, but not that every new house built has to meet some reasonable standard of energy performance. Right now, all across the country, there are homes (more than 1.5 million a year) being built to an energy performance standard that was outdated… about a decade ago. All of those homes could be built to be at least15% more efficient, arguably more like 30-40% more efficient than they’re required to be. Techie people out there can tell me exactly why that’s not accurate, but it’s close enough for the sake of argument.

Let me tell you why I think we’ve got an issue in terms of getting good energy codes passed. One word – lobbying. The largest, most financially powerful associations in the building industry have historically lobbied across the board against any code change that might increase first cost of construction. In fact, they’ve even lobbied against things that had been proven not to increase first cost under the guise of… costing more. In addition, organizations who might be able to step up and make a good counter argument have often silenced themselves for fear of the political battles that would ensue. It sucks, but it’s politics.

There’s a little wind in the air, however, that says that these organizations may be waking up and realizing that codes simply have to be changed to moderate our energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and that it has to happen soon. For example:

• The California Energy Commission just issued these recommendations (PDF) calling to have all homes be fossil fuel independent by 2020 and commercial buildings by 2030.
• The American Institute of Architects (AIA), The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), and Architecture 2030 have joined together to help ensure similar goals to the California Energy Commission’s.

If you’re interested in information on how to build (or remodel) houses to high levels of energy performance, it’s available at every corner mom and pop store in the industry (don’t let anyone convince you we don’t have the technology or expertise to build near zero energy homes!), including:

• The Energy and Environmental Building Association
• The Department of Energy’s Building America Program
• The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s PATH Program
• The Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star for Homes Program

Don’t get me wrong, green isn’t just about energy by a long shot. Look at it in the context of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Waaayyyy before you can even consider being a self-realized being, you have to take care of your basic needs of food, shelter and clothing. It’s the same thing here. Dealing with energy performance in homes goes a long way to realizing a carbon neutral building industry.

A really geeky source, if you’re interested in data: The Energy Information Administration, Emissions of Greenhouse Gas 2006 report.