Beginning in 2024, approximately 50,000 buildings in New York City must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, according to the new Climate Mobilization Act. Like a restaurant\u2019s health inspection rating, buildings\u2019 energy efficiency grades will also have to be posted for all to see, starting
\nin 2020.<\/p>\n
For green building attorneys like Richard J. Sobelsohn \u201982, P\u201919, this means ensuring that commercial real estate clients are not only in compliance with the law, but also earning grades that will make the buildings attractive to tenants. As vice president, legal, for Cohen Brothers Realty Corporation in New York, Sobelsohn also oversees contracts with the vendors hired for the building upgrades \u2014 from the HVAC systems to the elevators.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s complex work, with many layers. \u201cIn some cases, these are uncharted territories,\u201d says Sobelsohn, who has been on the forefront of this emerging field since 2008.<\/span><\/p>\n Also an adjunct professor at Fordham University School of Law, Brooklyn Law School, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, and New York Law School, he provides an overview:<\/span><\/p>\n When I pursued the LEED Accredited Professional designation<\/b>, it was an entirely new language for me. I had to learn about building products, design, how buildings affect occupant health, and government requirements. It was harder than the bar exam, but I passed it the first time I took it in 2008. In those days, only a smattering of municipalities required sustainable building practices, but now, most do. <\/span><\/p>\n Statistics have shown that employees who work in green buildings<\/b> have 2.9 fewer sick days a year. Also, in a green building where there\u2019s more natural lighting and views to the outdoors, workers are 5 to 8 percent more productive. So if you\u2019re a commercial tenant that\u2019s a large corporate entity and you have thousands of employees, this is a real increase in the bottom line. That\u2019s in addition to the economic benefits of the tremendous energy-saving attributes of most green buildings. <\/span><\/p>\n One reason why employees are healthier in green buildings<\/b> is because green cleaning companies use nontoxic chemicals. We touch our desks all the time, and quite often in the business world we\u2019re eating at our desks. So, if the cleaning company is using a toxic chemical and we\u2019ve touched the desk but didn\u2019t appropriately wash our hands, when we eat our lunches, we\u2019re putting that in our mouths. That\u2019s why people tend to get sicker in a non\u2013green building. <\/span><\/p>\n When I counsel a client that\u2019s a developer, if we\u2019re promising a tenant a certain level of certification [e.g., LEED, Green Globes, Energy Star] and that\u2019s not being delivered, the tenant may have a right to terminate the lease or get a rent reduction. So, for example, if an office building owner has tenants who are relying on the sustainability of the building, and the green cleaning company doesn\u2019t use nontoxic materials, there are liabilities that both parties may face. The attorneys are the ones who have to watch out for those types of situations because they have to protect their clients, whether they are the landlords or those companies supplying products or services to them. <\/span><\/p>\n One of the hot topics<\/b> in green building issues is figuring out how to stay in compliance for the long term. When you have a landlord doing ground-up construction, they\u2019re trying to determine what the local municipality will require when the building is done. They\u2019re filing for permits today but maybe there\u2019s a two-year window between the time they put a shovel in the ground and the building is completed. Also, if we get LEED Gold certification today, when we go for renewal years later, are those requirements going to be increased? It\u2019s a moving target. We often look to third-party nonprofit rating agencies for guidance. <\/span><\/p>\n In addition to new green buildings<\/b>, a lot of existing buildings have converted. My favorites are the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, and the Helmsley Building. All of them were built in the 1920s and \u201930s, and now all of them are LEED Gold certified. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Richard J. Sobelsohn \u201982, P\u201919 discusses the ins and outs of green building standards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":2128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[385,440,113],"coauthors":[388],"class_list":["post-2355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-spotlights","category-alumni-updates","tag-architecture","tag-real-estate","tag-sustainability"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-BZ","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2019\/05\/20190519_richard_sobelsohn_05-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2355"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2461,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2355\/revisions\/2461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2355"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}