Legislating behavior

In the introduction to this research I suggested that San Francisco was setting an example of smart city planning. The presumption was that by changing building codes to value energy efficiency and conservation, behavior would change; not only in the City’s built environment, but in the lives of its citizens. What I discovered is that San Francisco is creating change and affecting behavior. They are the first U.S. city to ban plastic shopping bags in large supermarkets, and the first large city to start a composting program for its residents (sfenviron,“Zero”). These two programs speak directly to consumer and citizen behavior. By supplying paper bags over plastic the consumer automatically chooses green, and by making it easy to throw away food scraps, in the free bin provided by the city, composting will become a norm over time.
Changing building codes have a limited effect on behavior. The development community is smaller and their motivation to go green is different from the average citizen. Recall, that the developer’s bottom line is to get their project built and leased up as quickly as possible to recap their investment. When the market calls for green, they are ready to comply. They are moderately impacted by increased construction costs that green building compliance dictates, but the entitlement process is much more cost prohibitive in comparison. Changing the building codes mandates a change in the developers actions. It is a change in the process, an additional form to complete, another checklist to meet, and another approval to receive. That a developer adopts sustainable building practices does not make them a spokesperson for the environment. Their behavioral change is in response to a legislative one. Those ideas established in the early years of conservation the “unofficial energy policies” (Nader, p590) of S. David Freeman, Arthur Rosenfeld and Amory Lovins are now being codified in an official capacity. They will change how things are built and the administrative process will dictated the behavioral change in the development community.