Adobe’s new 18-story building is Silicon Valley’s first of its kind, and places a big bet on the future of corporate spaces in the era of climate change.
The owners spent two years tightening building envelopes, replacing heating and cooling systems, and installing rooftop solar panels. Now, they hope to replicate the success elsewhere.
Incumbent energy providers are cleverly focusing on the upfront expense of clean technologies, playing into a meme that climate tech options are luxuries of the elite.
The new code passed by the California Energy Commission will include electric heat pumps as a baseline technology for new construction starting in 2023, taking a towards removing natural gas from buildings and requiring all new builds to be electric-ready.
The tension between gas-fired woks’ unique capabilities and their outsize climate footprint is evocative of the wider challenges to decarbonize commercial buildings.
