Earth Equity News

New York City Seeking Ways to Fund Green Makeovers for Office Towers. By Alec Appelbaum, NYTimes, January 13, 2010. "Last year, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg proposed four laws and two programs that would have required the owners of New York's largest buildings to pay for improvements to make their properties more energy-efficient. The City Council passed a modified version of the proposal in December that required landlords to audit their buildings' energy use once a decade and publish the results, but made investments to reduce energy waste optional. Building owners had questioned the feasibility of mandated improvements, arguing that they often bear the burden of paying for investments without any codified way to share costs with tenants. Sean Neill, a 37-year-old economist who started a consulting company [Cycle-7] a year ago to address the murky question of how landlords might pay for retrofits, says change will be very difficult to achieve if it does not address the way leases are written. In most cases, leases put responsibility for capital costs like boilers and air-conditioners on owners and responsibility for operating costs like oil and electric bills on tenants. A list of 'recoverable expenses' in a lease often excludes changes to heating, lighting and insulation that can make a building more energy-efficient and pleasant for tenants... While nobody can force tenants to share costs, Mr. Neill said, companies with global brands will want the halo effect of occupying green buildings, and the skill to discern useful retrofits that might be required under future regulations."