Green Buildings

Green or sustainable building is the practice of creating and using healthier and more resource-efficient models of construction, renovation, operation, maintenance, and demolition. The United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED©) Green Building Rating System is currently the nation’s most widely used standard for green building. LEED is a third-party certification program that rates green building design in five key areas: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. Promoting green building practices in Princeton helps to further several green building and energy efficiency goals of the State. In 2000, the New Jersey State Legislature enacted the Educational Facilities Construction and Financing Act, which includes support for energy-efficient design. In 2002, the State came under an Executive Order requiring all new school designs to incorporate the LEED rating system so that the facilities achieve maximum energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. Additionally, as a result of the 2007 Global Warming Response Act, New Jersey has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% below 2006 levels by 2050. Green building will help the state achieve this ambitious goal.

Differing from LEED, the ENERGY STAR program does not attempt to address every component of green building and focuses on designing practices to increase energy efficiency that are cost-effective for the consumer and builder. New Jersey ENERGY STAR® qualified home standards, set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), require that homes be at least 15% more energy efficient than homes adhering to the 2006 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) . Components of a New Jersey ENERGY STAR® home can include improved insulation, ENERGY STAR lighting and appliances, high efficiency heating equipment and water heaters, as well as properly installed and high efficiency cooling equipment. The NJ ENERGY STAR program allows Princeton residents as well as building owners and operators to build greener even if they are unable to certify their building by LEED standards. The New Jersey Clean Energy Program also offers incentives through the Customer On-Site Renewable Energy Rebate Program. The program provides incentives to residents for installing renewable energy systems, including wind, solar, sustainable biomass, and fuel cell, to power their homes.

Local Food

Buying locally grown and produced food means getting the freshest ingredients, supporting local agriculture, and reducing environmental impacts. The economic and environmental costs associated with transporting food increases exponentially as the distance from the source grows, and food travels approximate 27 times farther to get to our grocery store or restaurant than if brought from a local source . Many people opting to eat “local” are sticking to a 100-mile diet. This is possible in the Garden State, and a Sustainable Princeton is one that fosters the livelihood of local farmers while minimizing transportation-related impacts.

Unemployment

The local unemployment rate serves as a good indicator of the state of the local economy. Unemployment rates are determined by the percentage of those in the labor force that are without jobs. High unemployment means financial hardship for individuals and families. They, in turn, are less able to buy goods and services, which detracts from the strength of the economy. Communities with high unemployment often suffer from increased rates of crime, domestic violence, and substance abuse. Moreover, communities with high unemployment will collect less tax revenue, which hampers the government’s ability to allocate resources to solving these social problems.

Land Use

The distribution of land use over time depicts the subtle changes in the physical make-up of the Borough and Township, but more significantly, land use is directly related to several quality of life factors. While compact urban development supports public transit opportunities and creates walkable communities, it replaces acreage that may provide other valuable functions as agriculture, wildlife habitat, or flood control. In recent decades, urban development has led to the decline of vital natural habitats and agricultural lands in New Jersey. Urbanization also increases impervious surface area which reduces groundwater recharge and increases stormwater run off which erodes our soils and washes pollutants into our waterways. Preserving land in a natural state will reduce these negative impacts, however it is important for communities to strike a balance between land uses in order to meet all of their needs in a sustainable way.

Wildlife Corridors

The Borough and Township, located in the Central Piedmont area of New Jersey, are uniquely situated between the hardwood forests of the north and the deciduous-coniferous forests of the Pinelands region. This area supports one federal endangered, one federal threatened, ten state endangered, 17 state threatened, and 69 special concern and regional priority species. As a result, preserving wildlife habitats in this transition area is a primary goal outlined the NJ State Wildlife Action Plan. In addition to sustaining wildlife and providing natural services, such as carbon sequestration, climate control, and groundwater recharge, the condition of habitats in the region directly affects not only economic factors, such as tourism opportunities, but also the quality of life residents enjoy. Development should be planned to avoid degradation of the most critical resources.

Solid Waste and Recycling

One of the biggest impacts we as humans have on the environment is through consuming resources. Our consumption utilizes materials extracted from our environment, such as paper from trees and gasoline from oil. When we consume, we then dispose materials when we are done using them, which creates waste that must be transported to a landfill or to trash incinerators.

Recycling alleviates impacts by reducing the amount of new materials that must be extracted from the environment and the amount that must be disposed of. Increasing the amount of waste recycled is an important step for Princeton’s efforts to maintain a healthy and sustainable natural environment, as non-recycled waste can generate land, water, and air pollution. Reducing the total amount of waste per capita is an ongoing challenge for the Princeton community. In addition, recycling is a New Jersey State Law. By tracking the annual recycling rate, the Borough and Township can monitor efforts to create a greener, more sustainable community through the conservation of limited natural resources.

Air Quality

This indicator tracks local air quality by monitoring the presence of the harmful gases ozone and nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the lower atmosphere. Ozone and NOx are greenhouse gases that contribute to smog and cause a wide variety of health related problems, including eye irritations, asthma attacks, breathing and respiratory problems, loss of lung function, possible long-term lung damage, and lowered immunity to disease. When present in the lower atmosphere, they can lower agricultural yields and contribute to the breakdown of various other materials. Both ozone and NOx are created either directly or indirectly by the combustion of fossil fuels, and thus can be reduced in the atmosphere by limiting our reliance on automobiles and non-renewable energy sources.

Water Quality

Life as we know it depends directly on water. Contamination of this vital resource not only impairs wildlife habitat and degrades recreational opportunities but also increases the costs associated with treating water to create a potable supply for our communities.

Some materials, such as phosphorus, occur naturally but can also contribute to poor water quality. Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for plant growth, but many human activities, such as fertilizing lawns, add excess phosphorus to the environment. Stormwater washes contaminants into our waterways where increased phosphorus leads to accelerated plant growth and algal blooms that result in reduced dissolved oxygen and death of aquatic species.

This indicator tracks local water quality by monitoring the communities of freshwater macroinvertebrates in Princeton and nearby streams that comprise the Raritan Valley Watershed. Freshwater benthic macroinvertebrates are small fauna that live in the substrate of freshwater streams and play an integral role in the aquatic food web. Since they are relatively immobile, they are unable to escape pollutants that impact water quality. Therefore their presence and diversity is a reliable indicator of water quality. Benthic macroinvertebrate impaction studies are conducted every five years by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJ DEP) and provide data on the conditions of streams ranging from non-impaired (healthy macroinvertebrate populations) to severe impairment.

Since the physical attributes of habitat significantly impact the health of the macroinvertebrate community and overall water quality, the second indicator analyzes the aquatic habitat of streams in the vicinity of Princeton. The Habitat Assessment for high gradient streams found in this region of New Jersey evaluates the sampling site as well as an area immediately upstream.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Electricity and Natural Gas

Carbon dioxide emissions from human activity, mostly the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) and large-scale deforestation, are the primary cause of the now famous global climate change. Experts say that no matter what we do, some warming and related negative effects will occur, however, the current consensus among experts is that it is not too late to stop “catastrophic warming” from occurring if we reduce our carbon emission to 1990 levels by the year 2020 and 80% below 2006 levels by the year 2050. Failure to do so will result in more flooding, blazing hot summers, tropical diseases, global famine, sea level rises, more intense storms, and ironically droughts in much of New Jersey.

Clean and Renewable Energy

This indicator shows the annual cumulative electricity production capacity installed in Princeton Borough and Township using photovoltaic technology that produces energy from the sun. Each dot on the graph represents a photovoltaic installation. Producing and consuming energy from fossil fuels has a tremendous negative impact on the environment. Global warming, acid rain, smog, oil spills, and strip mining are some of the many impacts that are a result of our need for cheap energy. But we have a choice. The State of New Jersey allows people to choose clean and renewable electricity that comes from sources such as solar and wind through the CleanPower Choice Program (www.njcleanpower.com). There are also many incentives for people to install solar panels, fuel cells, and geothermal systems in their homes and businesses.