Page 28 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

Introduction Chapter j 1 5

management program to investigate and perform “due diligence” on the
technologies that are or could be associated with the GIR. State laws often
require objective “oversight committees” to check on contracts and costs.
China, in the Appendix, has its 13th Five Year Plan out now (March 2016),
which stipulates these plans, goals, measurements, and reviews for ethical
and moral reasons.
There are communities and regions that have implemented green devel-
opment agencies such as those outlined in Chapters 2 and 3 with several cases.
California’s path toward leading the United States and global sustainability
movement has begun and provides some interesting models. While some
would credit this statewide effort to Governor Schwarzenegger, the reality is
that he took the programs and basic public policy leadership from Governor
Davis who preceded him. The difference is that Davis left state office with the
California finances on an upswing, while Schwarzenegger during his terms as
governor “bankrupted” the state by not providing government regulations and
rules that return funds to the state of California. The point is that sustainable
development does cost money and resources. But it need not be totally
dependent upon the neoclassical theories of finance and accounting for its
existence and performance. The government is not an invisible hand (Clark
and Fast, 2008).
That topic of finance and accounting gets into life cycle project models in
Chapters 7e10 that go through the process as noted in several cases. In
Chapter 7 by Tom Pastore, for example, the actual economic analyses for the
accounting are provided for sustainable development costs. Life cycle and cost
benefit analyses are critical areas for any organization to study in order to
make decisions. Even more significantly today in the GIR there needs to be
factored in the rebates, incentives, and tax benefits for technologies and
programs from the GIR.
The big issue is often the bottom line for businesses. And this is increas-
ingly so for government and nonprofits since the 2008 economic “deep
recession.” What is important about Chapters 7, 9e11 (as well as appendices
and cases) on economics and accounting are that they point out and demon-
strate the shift from cost benefit analysis to “life cycle analysis” and how this
economic change has helped bring innovations, emerging technologies, and
the GIR into the market sooner than normally expected in the conventional
neoclassical “market economy” theory.
The economic change has, however, also come with new economic and
legal programs that have helped provide longer-term financing for innovation
and the GIR. One of the key areas is the use of power purchase agreements
(PPA), which provide financing to an organization for 15 to 25 years. Such
long-term or “life cycle” legal and financial commitments have helped solar
systems to be installed at a faster rate, along with government tax and grant
incentives, than in the last decade. Since 2010, solar energy has moved rapidly
into the key renewable energy spot than in prior years. The big change was