Sustainability, which is often viewed through the lens of green building, is quickly becoming the latest buzzword within the planning community. But there is growing interest in historic preservation as the ultimate in green building techniques. To create a sustainable future, one should look first to saving the historic past. To quote Richard Moe, former president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, “Historic Preservation is not only good for the soul and the pocketbook, it’s good for the environment as well.”

Mark Donaldson

Historic buildings are places where what is referred to as “embodied energy” is stored. That is, it took energy to create building materials, more energy to transport them to the building site, and even more energy to assemble these materials into a building. To tear down an historic building is to waste all that energy. Add to that the energy to tear it down, haul away the waste, the use of space in a land fill, and then the energy to create new building materials, transport them and assemble them into a new building. Only then do you get to the environmental impact of reusing an old building versus building a new one.

Green buildings on their own accord are not always sustainable development. Historic buildings are, almost without exception, in the right place to address the issues of sustainable development. They are most often found in downtowns, in established neighborhoods, along heavily traveled corridors. The combination of green building techniques with the reuse of an historic structure yields a winning formula for sustainable development.

The Trust for Historic Preservation has initiated the concept of “Sustainable Stewardship” organized into four core principles:

• REUSE buildings. Unused buildings in the right setting that are structurally sound are a wasted community asset.
• REINVEST in older and historic neighborhoods. Revitalization and intensification of existing neighborhoods promotes efficient land use, minimizes sprawl and vehicle miles traveled.
• RETROFIT older and historic buildings to achieve energy efficiency. New energy practices combined with existing energy saving characteristics of older buildings such as quality of construction, careful siting and use of passive heating and cooling methods can produce tremendous energy efficiency.
• RESPECT historic integrity. Updating a building with new technologies does not have to destroy the distinguishing character of historic buildings.

The path to a sustainable development pattern is not easy. Learning to live outside the post WW-II model of driving-until-we-can-afford-it sprawl will require changes in our lives greater than an increase in the price of gasoline. The principles of smart growth go hand in hand with the values of historic preservation and the techniques of green building. Working in concert to guide the way development happens now and in the future, these underlying beliefs provide a foundation for investing in an urbanizing development pattern and quality of life that will protect opportunities for our future generations.