WASHINGTON — Cities and states are now assuming a leadership role on climate, resilience, and energy efficiency, and the 33^rd Danfoss EnVisioneering Symposium convened thought leaders from industry, advocacy, and policy in Washington, D.C., to examine paths on which state and local government might drive the deep building retrofits that are critical to a sustainable built environment.  

“At our symposium on resilience last year, we saw that cities were starting to act forcefully on resilience, energy efficiency, and carbon reduction policy,” said Lisa Tryson, director of corporate communications at Danfoss, in her introductory remarks. “Even more is happening now. With the lack of federal leadership, states and cities are where the real action is occurring — making firm commitments to cut carbon emissions and provide a genuinely resilient infrastructure. And that’s happening through transparency, benchmarking, grading and labeling, and smart connected buildings.

“However, the American building stock as a whole turns over at a rate of only 1 percent per year,” she added. “Transformation that takes a century to complete is not transformation. That means the existing building stock needs to be retrofitted for efficiency and resilience — and those retrofits need to be deep.”

Want more HVAC industry news and information? Join The NEWS on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn today!