Historic Preservation and Environmentalism: The Politics of Ignorance

The inevitable integration of historic preservation and environmental protection is a subject that needs to be defined and understood. If historic preservation does not think outside of the box, the field could diminish and become more obsolete, in favor of more ‘important’ issues. This is a hard cold reality that was made public in Obama’s 25% budget cut for historic preservation. A reckoning between both interests is necessary. A broad scope of understanding is needed to facilitate a positive overall impact. The areas of particular relevance to this collaboration of preservation and environmentalism include the philosophy behind why it is a vital issue, historic preservation’s current role in sustainability, the factors contributing to inevitable integration, and the action that is being taken at the present time by the government. These factors combined will create a direction and identity for historic preservation that will further broaden its own cause to a caliber that has not yet been realized. If this integration is not put on the table as relevant, historic preservation will continue to lose steam in the public arena.

Although historic preservation and environmental protection are very distinct fields, they both share common interests, values, and goals. There are many overlapping elements philosophically, although there have been some clashing of agenda between the two parties in the public arena. Simply put, both areas have the common goal of protecting and preserving what is valuable to humans. Specifically, historic preservation deals with the built environment and environmental protection deals with the natural environment. Both deal with valuable resources and act as proactively to meet their objectives. One issue that divides the two groups is competition to acquire federal funding. Although historic preservation and environmentalism may appear to be adversarial, the fundamental value of ‘amenity’ unites them under a larger cause.

Author Malcolm Baldwin explains the concept of amenity as it pertains to preservation and environmentalism. The idea of “amenity” is defined as, “…not a single quality, it is a whole catalogue of values. It includes the beauty that an artist sees and an architect designs for it; it is the pleasant and familiar scene that history has evolved; in certain circumstances it is even utility- the right thing in the right place- shelter, warmth, light, clean air, domestic service…” (Baldwin 1971) Amenity is the term referring to human values, non-secular, that make life rich and gives us the drive to go on. Baldwin states, “But historically our laws and institutions have tended to neglect the protection of this birthright”. The value of community is the most important aspect of amenity. A sense of belonging includes the common history shared among groups of people and often has ties to the built environment that symbolizes it. Although amenity is of utmost importance to the individual and the group it belongs to, it does not currently translate in the legal system of the United States. Baldwin notes, “National priorities that favor war, national prestige, or expansion may partly result from the unwillingness of public leaders to translate their personal regard for amenity – for beaches or suburban open space, for example – into public decisions”. (Baldwin 1971) The government has acknowledged the value of amenity in many instances. One example is the court’s reinforcement of the sensitive placement of funeral homes in regard to neighborhoods. The physical building is not the problem; it is the psychological discomfort that it creates. Environmental and Historic Preservation law both indirectly reflect the value of amenity.

To work in collaboration under the value of amenity would be beneficial to historic preservation and environmental protection overall. If the two areas joined forces, the impact would be hugely far-reaching and effective. Environmental law is far more mature and cohesive than historic preservation law. In a sense, if historic preservation were to minimally comply with environmental protection’s demands, the momentum and public awareness that environmentalism receives would ‘trickle down’. This does not mean that historic preservation ought to be a slave of environmental policy. It should be collaboration but currently preservation is not as high a priority as environmental protection, both in law and public opinion. Historic preservation should not blindly comply but there must be a realistic understanding of the current power dynamic. Historic preservation should never compromise its fundamental values, but must be flexible with the changing of the times.

The well-documented area of historic preservation directly associated with environmental protection is in the field of sustainability. This term is widely misunderstood and used interchangeably with another ‘environmental’ term; green. Green is a hot buzzword thrown around to mean environmental protection and the fight to not cause more harm to the physical environment with human activities. Sustainability is a broader conceptual term. According to Patrice Frey, “sustainability provides a holistic lens through which to evaluate the environmental, economic and social costs and benefits of changes to the built environment.” (Frey, Discussion Draft: Making the Case: Historic Preservation as Sustainable Development 2007) If a project is green it is not necessarily sustainable and vice versa. The term green commonly refers to the popular green movement and initiatives. Green refers to the terminology and rhetoric. This rhetoric is how the public understands environmental protection and is the channel of communication preservationists must use to communicate successfully with the environmental protection powers that be. Green has been further defined by the Environmental Protection Agency to refer to the official guidelines and accepted practices that certify a building as green. Sustainability is green by nature, although it goes beyond protecting the environmentalist agenda, to embody a more holistic view of what is environmentally sound. The considerations of sustainability go beyond clean air, water, and land. Sustainability deals with energy efficiency, but also the more expansive idea of embodied energy. Embodied energy is the total amount of energy to make a structure. Andrew Stein specifies, “That is all energy – including carbon – associated with extracting, processing, manufacturing, transporting, and assembling building material. “ (Steim 2009)

The statistics of energy consumption of buildings in the United States are staggering. These figures gives substance to the call for action needed to curb energy consumption in buildings. The U.S. Green Building Council points out these statistics.

In the United States alone, buildings account for:
• 72% of electricity consumption
• 39% of energy use
• 38% of all carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions,
• 40% of raw materials use
• 30% of waste output (136 million tons annually), and
• 14% of potable water consumption. (U.S. Green Building Council 2010)

It is problematic to try to measure the environmental impact of a building but there are some methods that are currently used to do so. A holistic measure of environmental impact is found in the Life Cycle Analysis, or LCA. (Figure 2) The goal of the LCA is to determine the environmental impact of a building from its beginning to its end. It answers the question of the cumulative affect the building will have over time, not just at its inception. There are overall patterns in the findings of the LCA that support historic preservation. LCA is being recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently. It is in the research and development phase for sustainable technologies. The LCA program brief states the purpose and significance of this methodology.

The goal of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) research program is to advance LCA practice and application across the public and private sectors. Since the 1970's, there have been several efforts to develop LCA methodology. In the 1990's, the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) in North America and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) sponsored workshops and other projects designed to develop and promote consensus on a framework for conducting life-cycle inventory analysis and impact assessment. Life cycle inventory has been practiced in Europe and the US for over twenty years leading to a basic methodology that is widely accepted.

The categories for indicators range from a global level, such as contribution to global warming and ozone depletion, to local impacts, such as photochemical smog formation. As an example, a recent study conducted for the USEPA defines eight impact categories and indicators for: global climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, acidification, photochemical smog, eutrophication, human toxicity, ecological toxicity, and resource depletion. (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2010)

A system currently in use for evaluating the environmental impact of a building is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). The United States Green Building Council, has clearly laid out the requirements to what green is in their grading system called LEED. It is superficial in comparison to LCA. It acts more as a checklist to reach certification. Each element on the LEED has a point system associated with it. There are levels of certifications and the payoff is eligibility for the government’s financial incentives. It does not fully recognize the potential environmental contribution of historic preservation in building re-use. There have been recent revisions in the LEED rating system that includes more provisions for building reuse. This revision can be attributed to the joining of forces of the USGBC and the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s “Sustainable Preservation Coalition” since 2006. The revisions include giving more points for building reuse, renovation, and an “Alternative Compliance Path”, which takes ideas like embodied energy into consideration. These revisions were launched on April 27, 2009. (Steim 2009)

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has addressed the issue of environmental impact with their stance on sustainability on their website (preservationnation.org). “Historic preservation can – and should – be an important component of any effort to promote sustainable development. The conservation and improvement of our existing built resources, including re-use of historic and older buildings, greening the existing building stock, and reinvestment in older and historic communities, is crucial to combating climate change.” (National Trust for Historic Preservation: Sustainability and Historic Preservation 2010) Their suggestion is to reuse, reinvest, and retrofit historical structures for sustainability. They also add that they will provide technical guidance that will assimilate green procedures into preservation work.