The U.S. green building market is the second largest market worldwide and residential and commercial building owners in the country have already implemented several steps to reduce emissions. Still, much higher investment volumes are required to reduce emissions emitted by the built environment to keep global warming below 2°C.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is the largest investment into green technologies in U.S. history and contains numerous tax incentives to encourage business owners and individual consumers to implement energy efficiency measures, including in buildings.
Some of the IRA's tax incentives can be combined with so-called Local Laws in U.S. cities, such as in NYC. NYC stands at the forefront of green building solutions with the Climate Mobilization Act of 2019 which includes Local Law 97 (LL 97). LL 97 acts as a carbon tax which will apply to 50,000 NYC building owners unless they implement carbon reduction technologies. The tax will go into effect as on 2024 which is why the need for green building solutions is imminent in NYC.
The second part of the factsheet introduces four green building trends. For each trend one U.S. technology example is provided as well as one example of how a Swiss organization has already developed the specific technology needed in the U.S. This underlines that Swiss companies are fulfilling the specific U.S. green building technology needs. The four trends refer to net zero buildings, sustainable building materials, green roofs and passive house design.
