Although a lot of attention is paid to fossil fuel burning vehicles as culprits, a large percentage of CO2 release into the atmosphere comes in the manufacturing, construction and operation of large commercial buildings. Harvard’s recent announcement of cutting emissions in a new science building is good news, not only for the actual fact of the cuts, but for adding momentum to the change in understanding and action now growing in major sectors of the business world.
Harvard has agreed to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the university’s proposed four-building science center in the Allston section of Boston, the state’s environmental officials announced yesterday.
The agreement, which Harvard entered voluntarily at the state’s suggestion, will cut emissions 50 percent below the levels required by the national standard, said the state’s energy and environment secretary, Ian A. Bowles. Mr. Bowles said the Harvard agreement represented the first legally enforceable limits on emissions from a large real-estate project. The complex is 537,000 square feet.