Top Trends for HVAC and Green Building in 2009: Experts Anticipate “The Obama Effect”

Interesting stuff going on and being said right in the wake of Obama’s inauguration:

First, both the bubblingly enthusiastic folks at the green-building oriented online magazine Jetson Green and green building expert Jerry Yudelson have published their lists of top green trends to look for in 2009, and both are expecting the Obama administration to spur major developments.

Jetson Green’s “Seven Green Trends to Watch in 2009” are as follows (and you can click through to read their detailed explanations):

• Non-Green Will Not Survive
• Change Leadership Will Thrive
• Policy Activity Will Accelerate
• Everything Will Shift
• Efficiency & Energy Comes Into Focus
• Legitimate Impact Labels May Develop
• Beware of Green Fatigue and Words

Obama’s influence comes in under numbers 2 and 3.

Mr. Yudelson, for his part, offers his predictions in “Green Building to Rocket in 2009! Top Ten Trends.” Jetson Green helpfully offers the following condensed list of Yudelson’s points — but we’ve inserted the full text of point two about Obama:

1. Green building will continue to grow more than 60% in 2009
2. Green building will benefit from the new Obama presidency, with a strong focus on green jobs in energy efficiency, new green technologies and renewable energy. This trend will last for at least the next four years.
3. The focus of green buildings will begin to switch from new to existing buildings
4. Awareness of the coming global crisis in fresh water supply will increase
5. LEED Platinum projects will become more commonplace
6. Solar power use in buildings will accelerate
7. Local governments will increasingly mandate public and private green buildings
8. Zero net energy designs for new buildings will gain increasing acceptance
9. Green homes will come to dominate new home home developments
10. European green building technologies will become better known and more widely adopted in U.S. and Canada

Then there’s the Associated Press story, carried at the Forbes Website on January 20 (inauguration day), which predicts that “HVAC may benefit from Obama plan“:

Legislation in Congress intended to increase public works spending could aid manufacturers of heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems, an analyst said Tuesday.

. . . . Spending sought by incoming President Barack Obama as an economic stimulus includes $40 billion that may have “positive implications” for the heating, ventilating and air conditioning industry, he said. A focus of the legislation is to renovate government buildings to improve energy efficiency, he said.

. . . . The legislation presents a “solid outline of actions, which has a positive read through for HVAC equipment and service providers, likely beginning in 2010,” [analyst Jeffrey D. Hammond of KeyBanc Capital Markets] said.

And for a multimedia dose of the same, here’s Jerry Yudelson talking on video (length: 2:19) about his expectations regarding “the Obama Effect” on green building:

Jerry Yudelson explains Obama’s impact on green building

(If you’re on a low-speed connection that prevents you from watching the video, Jetson Green summarizes Yudelson’s comments as follows:

[A]ccording to Mr. Yudelson, the Obama administration will make green buildings a permanent part of the economic, cultural, and financial landscape. Every new, large federal building will be LEED certified, and at least 25 (if not 35) states will mandate green certification for all new buildings. We’ll see green measures for hundreds of local, state, and federal buildings, and a lot of money will be going into this area. And because of this, people will gravitate towards the green building industry — we’ll see green jobs and a boom of sorts.)