The Social Cost of Carbon and Green Building

The Social Cost of Carbon and Green Building

The Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) is an attempt to monetize all of the projected global impacts of climate change, and break that cost into the marginal damage of each additional ton of CO2 emitted today. This figure is used by more than a dozen U.S. federal agencies in economic analyses that drive policy, and the SCC is frequently described as "the most important number you’ve never heard of" In addition to shaping U.S. policy, the SCC plays an integral role in enabling, expanding, and justifying green building investments globally.

The General Services Administration which manages $500 billion in U.S. federal property is currently piloting the integration of the SCC into all future design, construction, and retrofit decisions for federal buildings. Other service contracts including shipping have already been awarded based on criteria that incorporate the SCC. The SCC will continue to serve as the starting figure around which federal, state, and municipal governments design green building incentives and carbon pricing policies.

Mr. Kats-Rubin's firm was hired by the EPA in 2013 to delve into the three disparate models used to estimate the SCC, and recommend for improvement those 'damage sectors' most out of line with economic and scientific best-practices. Ongoing research has focused on improving damage estimates for sea level rise, extreme weather events, and changing residential energy demand.

This presentation will cover how the SCC is estimated, major technical and theoretical quandaries, and the importance of SCC for the green building industry.

Major topics:

- Why the SCC was developed, and a brief history of the concept

- How the SCC is estimated in the US, major variations between the models used (FUND, DICE, PAGE)

- The importance of the SCC – codes, regulations, and green building

- Major technical and theoretical debates, and alternative estimates

Biography

Alex Kats-Rubin is an environmental scientist and economist, specializing in climate change, green building, and renewable energy.  In his current role at Abt Associates supporting U.S. federal agencies including the EPA, NOAA, and DOE, his major projects have included the Social Cost of Carbon, natural capital valuation, and curbing coal emissions through biomass co-firing. His previous experience at the U.S. Green Building Council in the Research and Policy divisions allowed him to develop a weighting system for LEED scorecards of building practices most-correlated with higher returns on investment. Separately, he developed evidence that Real Estate Investment Trusts heavily invested in green buildings outperformed their competition in the stock market and in financial returns.  Mr. Kats-Rubin holds a Bachelors of Science from Cornell University in the Science of Natural Earth Systems, Environmental Economics. During his time there, he worked in the New Delhi office of Schneider Electric on emerging energy efficiency in developing countries.