Micro-Climate Blog: How to Link Climate and Heritage in Policy (Part 1)

By Marcy Rockman, Lifting Rocks Climate and Heritage Consulting, for the SHA Climate Heritage Initiative

New legislation! Which at first glance doesn’t look like heritage legislation but has several historic preservation provisions (hat tip to Preservation Action for noting this). It also doesn’t say it’s climate action but if enacted, it could be. 

Bill is the Revitalizing Downtowns and Main Streets Act (H.R. 9002, S. 4963) and it would create a new 20% tax incentive to convert older commercial properties and office space into affordable housing. This approach is modeled on the US Federal Historic Preservation Tax Credit program (and this is where I jump up and down and note that action taken to support heritage often can have wider applications and benefits. See also: 1906 Antiquities Act). There are several provisions in the bill that  support and link to preservation of historic buildings. 

On the climate side, climate and carbon aren’t mentioned in these bills. But if you scoot over to the Carbon Avoided Retrofit Estimator (CARE Tool), it’s possible to do some estimations of the carbon that is held (embodied) in the buildings that are to be reused and the carbon emissions that are avoided through doing so. This combination of valuing and reusing existing and historic buildings is brought together in the graceful words of architect Carl Elefante, “the greenest building is the one that is already built.”

Featured Link: https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr9002/BILLS-118hr9002ih.pdf

For a listing of all blog posts in this series, visit our Climate Heritage Initiative page.

Photo credit: Screenshot of H.R. 9002 taken on August 29, 2024