Green Roofs - Living Architecture Monitor - Winter 2017 - 27

POLICY

HOW SMART T
SURFACE
TECHNOLOGIES
COULD SAVE
CITIES BILLIONS
BY RACHEL LEMPP AND GREG KATS

A new study released in December
2017 shows that city-wide adoption of
smart surface technologies could save
cities billions of dollars over 40 years.
Achieving Urban Resilience, authored
by Greg Kats and Keith Glassbrook
of Capital E, quantifies the large-scale
environmental, economic, and health
benefits of smart surface technologies
in three US cities: Washington DC,
Philadelphia, and El Paso.
CATEGORY

he strategies examined include cool roofs, green roofs, solar
PV, reflective pavements, and urban trees. Many cities have
initiatives and programs in place to promote the adoption of
such technologies, but such programs are fragmented and
limited and should be implemented more rigorously. "Delaying this
transition would impose large financial and social costs, particularly
on places of lower economic opportunity [and on] the elderly and
children. We have the roadmap-now we must follow it," said Dan
Tangherlini, former DC city administrator and former administrator of the US General Service Administration.
Many of the benefits of smart surfaces have never before been
quantified, making this report unique and highly impactful. The
current systematic mismanagement of the sun and rain costs cities
billions in health, energy, stormwater and other costs, and these costs
will continue to rise as climate change raises worldwide temperatures.
The costs and benefits of city-wide adoption of smart surfaces has
a net present value $1.8 billion dollars for the District, $3.6 billion
for Philadelphia and $500 million for El Paso over 40 years. When
avoided tourism loss is included, these numbers jump to $4.9 and
$8.4 billion for the District and Philadelphia, respectively.
Rick Fedrezzi, current CEO of the International WELL Building Institute and Founding Chairman of the USGBC said of Kats'
report, "In his seminal work 14 years ago, Kats provided the first and
most influential analysis on the cost and benefits of green buildings.
That work has had a transformative impact in the U.S. and globally
in greatly expanding recognition of the financial rational for building
green and in accelerating adoption of green design. In Achieving
Urban Resilience, Kats provides an enormously important step
for US cities to understand and quantify the large range of health,
livability and climate change benefits from adopting a range of costeffective strategies now available to manage sun and rainfall. The
work is so important because it is the first to rigorously document,
quantify and explain these benefits and benefit pathways."
Cities have substantially higher summer temperatures and worse
air pollution than suburban or rural areas, a phenomenon known as
the urban heat island effect. Paved areas, less greenery, and dark surfaces all contribute to higher urban temperatures, and these features
of the built environment are even more common in low-income
areas. This disparity in the built environment places a higher burden
of medical costs, energy bills, and general discomfort for low-income
residents (See diagram page 29).
Calculating costs is relatively straightforward, while calculating
the value of benefits is more complex because of direct and indirect
impacts, as well as compounding effects. Direct impacts occur at
the individual building level, while indirect impacts occur at the city

PRESENT VALUE OVER 40-YEAR ANALYSIS PERIOD (2015$)
Washington, DC

Philadelphia

El Paso

COSTS

$838,495,000

$2,384,050,000

$1,617,098,000

BENEFITS

$2,648,400,000

$5,958,661,000

$2,154,979,000

NET PRESENT VALUE

$1,809,905,000

$3,574,611,000

$537,881,000

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LIVING ARCHITECTURE MONITOR / WINTER 2017 / 27
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Green Roofs - Living Architecture Monitor - Winter 2017
