Some of New York’s most prominent developers are vowing to go green.
Companies including SL Green Realty, Vornado Realty Trust and Related Companies have signed on to a plan to cut energy use in the city’s larger buildings by 20 percent by 2030. Brookfield Property Partners, the Durst Organization and Rudin Management have also agreed to participate, Bloomberg reported.
The plan would include the more than 50,000 buildings in the city of at least 25,000 square feet, the report said. If implemented, if would take the city more than a third of the way to a goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
But the plan does allow for some “wiggle room,” the report said. The signatories “accept the core ideas expressed here, even though some may not agree with the specifics of certain recommendations.”
In 2005, about two-thirds of New York City’s 61 million metric tons of greenhouse gases came from its buildings. The city reduced that to 52 million metric tons by 2016.
According to a previous report, just 2 percent of the city’s buildings produce almost half of the total carbon dioxide emissions. Many of the offenders were luxury condominium towers. [Bloomberg] — Meenal Vamburkar