Sanfrancisco Sightseeing Shuttle Tours

The City of San Francisco will soon boast the greenest buildings in USA. Last week, the local government took a critical step towards agreeing what are probably the toughest environmental construction standards in the country. Companies and families planning to build homes and offices might be required to earn green points by introducing water and energy saving measures or they will risk losing their construction permits.

Now construction is not a sexy area of climate policy, but it is one in which huge gains can be made for relatively at little cost. For example, existing technologies such as solar water heating can cut greenhouse emissions from a building by one-third. Yet authorities regulating the housing booms in places like the American south-west and many cities across China have done very little to promote such measures.