When the Washington State Legislature passed the Climate Pollution Limits bill in 2020, it etched into law aggressive economy-wide carbon emissions limits to achieve by 2050. For the building sector, this translates into a 96% emission decrease below 2020 levels in three decades.

Operation 2030: Scaling Building Decarbonization in Washington State, released on January 5, 2022, provides analysis based on the Washington 2021 State Energy Strategy that finds the state must decarbonize, maximize efficiency, and increase demand flexibility in more than three million buildings and homes by 2050.

Between 2022 and 2030, it is imperative that the state build an actionable consensus around the lowest cost, most strategic and equitable approach to building decarbonization and start operationalizing it as soon as possible.

Operation 2030 offers the interconnected and precise timing of various steps required to build the policy platform and necessary institutional and market capacity to implement a building decarbonization strategy from now until 2030. Operation 2030 includes four imperatives:

1. Adapt to Decarbonization Scale and Pace

If we are serious about mitigating the impacts of climate change, we must adapt to a hitherto unknown scale and pace of decarbonization that involves zeroing out nearly all emissions from new buildings and retrofits at a massive scale.

By 2030, we must ensure that the policy framework is in place and the market is ready to deliver zero net carbon new construction and retrofits at scale to hit that 96% decrease in emissions by 2050. Figure 1 shows the shift in the buildings emissions trajectory that must take place.

Figure 1. Dramatic Decrease in Building Sector Emissions

Source: 2050 Institute analysis using historical energy use from U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) energy consumption data and projected energy use from deep decarbonization modeling for the Washington 2021 State Energy Strategy. Figure 2, page 4.

2. Commit to the Most Strategic Path

Washington’s most strategic building decarbonization pathway involves electrification to deepen energy savings and accelerate emission reductions. Electrification saves $34 billion over continuing use of pipeline gas to heat buildings. Energy efficiency also remains a critically important strategy.

The length of time that building equipment, such as hot water heaters, furnaces, or appliances (stoves, ovens, etc.,) last is a crucial factor that must be taken into account. Between 2022 and 2025, we need to establish a framework of policies, programs, and vigorous market development efforts to ensure fossil-fuel powered equipment is replaced with an electric counterpart at the end of its useful life.

3. Establish Measurable Targets

Since 1990, emissions in Washington state’s buildings and homes have increased by more than 40%. To reverse this trend and dramatically reduce emissions over the next 30 years, Washington needs a framework of detailed and measurable building sector targets, accountability, and tracking.

To translate scale and speed into specific new construction and retrofit targets that can be measured, Operation 2030 crunched the numbers and developed this target chart:

Table 1. Proposed Targets for Decarbonizing Washington’s Building Stock

4. Scale Building Decarbonization by 2030  

Decarbonization requires market innovation at all levels to dramatically reduce the cost and increase the pace of zero net carbon construction and retrofits. Our success will be gauged against four fundamental and interconnected outcomes that must be achieved by 2030:

1.     Building sector emissions must be 60% less than 2020.

2.     New and replacement space and water heating equipment must produce zero emissions.

3.     Market transformation must be strategically designed, managed, and tracked to support equitable outcomes.

4.     The market must be capable of decarbonizing the building stock at the target retrofit rate.

A phased and actionable plan is key to scaling building decarbonization by 2030 and is depicted as follows:

A Critical Decade

Now is the time for state policymakers, market actors, advocates, implementers, and other stakeholders to align policies, programs, and market transformation efforts on achieving decarbonization at scale and working to build shared strategies.

Every year that we wait, the more costly and disruptive the transition will be. If we do not start rapidly replacing fossil-fuel powered equipment with clean electric appliances, we commit to decades of fossil fuel use that will not be easy to unwind.

While scaling building decarbonization in Washington will require a distinct pivot in how the state regulates, incentivizes, and funds building performance and decarbonization, transforming the building sector offers an opportunity for deep investment in market innovation, economic growth, and community resilience.

Operation 2030 helps chart this path with a specific emphasis on time-critical strategic decisions and actions that must take place between now and 2030 to set the state up to achieve its 2050 emission targets.

More on Operation 2030: The Clean Energy Transition Institute and the 2050 Institute developed Operation 2030: Scaling Building Decarbonization in Washington State to frame and jumpstart multilevel mobilization to fully scale building decarbonization activities by 2030.