Colorado’s clean building standards are crucial for clean air

The Denver skyline looking west on July 18, 2022. (Quentin Young/Colorado Newsline)

The American Lung Association’s latest State of the Air report delivers a sobering assessment of Colorado’s air pollution crisis. Eleven counties across the state, including Denver, received failing grades for dangerous ozone levels. This stark reminder underscores the urgent need to address our alarming air quality issues.

While we know that oil and gas production itself is the single largest contributor to our air quality problem, a little-known culprit of this health-harming pollution is Colorado’s largest buildings. Many of these buildings have inefficient and aging gas-based heating systems that spew toxic, ozone-forming emissions into the air outside, burdening Coloradans living in apartment buildings with poor indoor air quality and high energy bills. These pollutants are associated with worse health outcomes ranging from cardiovascular and respiratory disease to negative impacts on reproductive and cognitive health — not to mention the potential to shorten and degrade quality of life.

Marginalized communities continue to face the most severe health consequences of these toxic emissions due to living in close proximity to such industrial zones and large buildings with outdated heating and cooling systems. Further, large buildings are also a major source of climate pollution, responsible for 20% of greenhouse gas emissions in the state .

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A few years ago, the city of Denver convened a policy task force to tackle pollution from buildings once and for all, bringing together a diverse group of stakeholders to design an effective policy.

From day one, the real estate sector, energy experts, labor organizations, workforce development groups, affordable housing advocates, and utility representatives worked together to create a cohesive policy that improved building energy efficiency across the city and shifted buildings away from fossil fuels. Ultimately, they unanimously agreed to a comprehensive Building Performance Standard that was, in turn, unanimously passed by Denver’s City Council. Notably, the prominent commercial real estate association NAIOP Colorado participated in the task force that developed the BPS and actively spoke in favor of it before City Council.

Since then, the city has faithfully implemented the standard as recommended by the task force, even boosting support from building owners through additional funding and support for under-resourced buildings, grants for heating system upgrades, and more.

Too much is at stake for this cynical attack on our health to succeed.

Despite this collaborative effort and broad support, wealthy real estate and landlord groups have since walked back their support, filing a lawsuit against the City and County of Denver seeking to overturn these much-needed standards. The plaintiffs, including NAIOP Colorado, the Colorado Apartment Association, and the Colorado Hotel and Lodging Association, are attempting to leverage an unrelated ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals about the siting of natural gas pipelines to kill these standards, even though the Denver ordinance is entirely unrelated to the pipeline ruling. This lawsuit fails to consider the public health implications, ignoring that these standards will help reduce pediatric asthma rates, preterm births, and exposure to carcinogens.

It would betray the public interest to roll back a policy that is so urgently needed to deliver healthy air across Colorado. Complying with the standard is more than achievable for Colorado’s building owners. Rather than require buildings to replace working HVAC systems as the lawsuit alleges, it encourages building owners to pursue a variety of pathways to gradually reduce pollution over time. The growing number of both new and retrofitted large buildings show that energy efficiency — and even “net zero” performance — is not only possible but affordable and beneficial.

Not only would this lawsuit impede Denver’s progress in protecting the health of our residents, it also targets standards the state passed to mirror our city’s innovative approach. The statewide standards are projected to achieve a 7% reduction in emissions from large buildings by 2026 and a 20% reduction by 2030 — essential emissions reductions that will help our state meet its climate commitments and clean up our dirty air.

Too much is at stake for this cynical attack on our health to succeed. Coloradans deserve to live in communities with healthy air quality and affordable energy bills. These policies will help get us there.

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