BY JOE McELROY

“The greenest building is the one that already exists.” — Carl Elefante, FAIA, 2007.

Many people cherish living or working in older buildings made with quality materials like brick and plaster. But every year thousands of old buildings are replaced with new construction.

As the above quote makes clear, there is a better way.

That’s the message from Naperville’s Bill Simon, who is active in both NEST (Naperville Environment & Sustainability Task force) and Naperville Preservation Inc., where he is a member of the board of directors along with: Becky Simon, president; Jane Burke, vice president; Ted Slupik, treasurer; and Tom Ryan, chief preservation officer. Other board members are: Joe McElroy, Ron Keller, and Philip Buchanan, all Naperville residents.

Simon agrees that Elefante’s statement seems surprising at first, but he will explain as one of the speakers at Aurora GreenFest on Saturday, May 13. The annual festival will be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Prisco Community Center at Lake and Illinois streets. In his program at 1:30 p.m., Simon will speak on “The Most Sustainable Building is the One Already Built.”

“At first you might think, ‘What? How can that be? What about those leaky windows, that lack of insulation and those old heating and cooling systems?’ that cause problems in older buildings, Simon told the Naperville group.

However, as architect Elefante put it, “Retrofitting existing buildings to meet high performance standards is the most effect strategy for reducing near-and mid-term carbon emissions, the most important step in limiting climate disruption.”