So whether or not you believe the economic stimulus package will save us from unemployment Armageddon. The Treasury and Federal Reserve are doing something less news-making but more important to fixing the economy. They are attempting to stress-test the banks and assign market value to their assets. They will then go in and address the credit markets. Check out this Newshour interview with Tim Geithner on the plans.
I’m no economist, but not I, nor anyone I’ve talked to really knows if the Treasury plan is going to work or not, and if it does, how long it will take. The goal is free up private equity and get people lending again. The private financial sector is the only proper engine for long term economic growth and stability.
My question is…is the design and build industry ready for the turn around? Are we establishing not just plans for specific projects, but best practices that can be shared throughout the industry. When credit starts flowing again, facilities managers, owners and tenants are going to again start worrying about the cost of energy. Is our industry ready to address these concerns?
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I am more than a little concerned that the blast of cash into the system by the fed will create a hurried half effort that dilutes the effort to conserve energy. The most likely approach will be to thrash through buildings with quick fixes that are not well thought out, in order to take advantage of the rain coming from the recovery bill. This will take buildings that truly need work out of the game after an easy-bake solution completed in a rush, rather than doing a solid sustainability analysis and executing a real plan. the result will be a lot of wasted money, and long term setbacks in real savings.
In the long haul, there is a long way to go in the construction market in embracing conservation and sustainability with the same energy and effort as being put into lower and lower cost expectations, at a time when initial costs are no longer a relevant measure of a projects success - long term impact and cost of operations are.