SFS Projects and Best Practices

The Holiday Neighborhood > Air Quality

Energy production and consumption based on use of fossil fuels is by far the largest source and cause of air pollution in Colorado and the United States. This is true for residential, commercial, and industrial sectors, and also for transportation.

Fossil fuel consumption is the primary cause of air pollution for the EPA’s criteria pollutants (particulates, ozone, carbon monoxide, lead, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides), and for carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas that leads to global warming.

Using renewable energy sources like the sun & wind and designing facilities for energy efficiency should, therefore, be the principle strategies to prevent and control air pollution.

Unfortunately, energy efficiency and renewable energy ("EE/RE") approaches are not the strategies favored by most utility companies, architects, developers and even government officials.

Xcel Energy (the largest private utility in Colorado), for example, has reported the following for their fuel supply mix:

69.7% coal
28.1% natural gas
0.9% hydroelectric
0.6% wind
0% solar
0% bio-mass
Essentially, this means the electricity powering Colorado's homes and businesses is created from 98% fossil fuels.

SFS has produced a report to document the air quality benefits of sustainable design, using the Holiday Neighborhood Wild Sage Co-Housing community as the case study. Sustainable design is a systematic process that considers a project’s life-cycle impact on environmental and energy resources during its design.

The fundamental principles of sustainable design call for a whole-building systems approach applied to five main design strategies:
1) energy efficiency
2) sustainable sites
3) water conservation
4) indoor environmental quality
5) building materials and resource conservation

Each of these strategies has an impact on air quality, either directly for the building occupants, or indirectly through power plant emissions associated with occupants’ energy use patterns. This report explores the specific energy-efficient and environmentally-preferable aspects of the Wild Sage Co-Housing, and describes the
corresponding benefits to air quality for its occupants and the community at large

Download the full SFS
Air Quality Report
(PDF - 468 Kb)