Overview

In the summer of 2007, the Governor’s Climate Change Advisory Group recommended that to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in buildings, a similar approach to the national Architecture 2030 should be adopted for Minnesota. Architecture 2030 outlines specific performance targets for energy use in buildings until 2030. Every five years, the total energy use in buildings is to be reduced starting in 2010 at 60% and ending in 2030 as a 100% reduction (net zero carbon). The benchmark for these reductions in the national program is the energy use of the average building in 2003 found in the federal CBECS database.

• 2010 – 60% reduction in carbon producing fuel used for building energy.
• 2015 – 70% reduction in carbon producing fuel used for building energy.
• 2020 – 80% reduction in carbon producing fuel used for building energy.
• 2025 – 90% reduction in carbon producing fuel used for building energy.
• 2030 – 100% reduction in carbon producing fuel used for building energy.

In the spring of 2008, the Minnesota Legislature passed a bill designating the Center for Sustainable Research at the University of Minnesota to develop a Minnesota program reflecting the goals of Architecture 2030. This program was named Sustainable Buildings 2030 (SB 2030). The full text of the bill can be seen here.[pdf-embedder url=”http://www.b3mn.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/SF2706BillFullVersion-1.pdf” title=”SF2706 Full Text”

Renovations and SB 2030
As building renovations are often not as comprehensive in scope as the construction of new buildings the energy requirements new buildings would not be appropriate and not cost-effective for renovated buildings. As a result a reduced standard was created for renovated building, set at half of the required reduction from an average building as the new construction standard.

The resulting schedule, including percentage reductions for renovation project is as follows:

• 2009 – 2014: 60 percent better than an average building for new construction and 30% for renovation
• 2015 – 2019: 70 percent better than an average building for new construction and 35% for renovation
• 2020 – 2024: 80 percent better than an average building for new construction and 40% for renovation
• 2025 – 2029: 90 percent better than an average building for new construction and 45% for renovation
• 2030 and later: 100 percent better than an average building(net zero) for new construction and 50% for renovation

Projects with a combination of renovation and new construction will have their Energy Standard pro-rated based on the square footage of each project type.

The owners of a renovated building have the option of follow the new construction standard if they feel that the renovated standard is not appropriate for their building type or if they wish to pursue the more stringent standard.