UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Wangda Zuo, Rahman Azari and Jiazhen Ling will give the talk, “The Economic Impacts of Carbon Emission Trading Scheme on Building Retrofits,” at 4 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 19, in 112 Walker Building on the University Park campus. The talk will also be available via Zoom.

As a popular emission reduction tool, the carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) can potentially add an economic incentive for building owners to retrofit buildings in addition to the cost savings in energy, according to the presenters.

In this talk, the team will discuss findings from their research, focused on a systematic economic evaluation method investigating the economic impacts of ETS on building retrofits for four locations in the U.S., under three different carbon prices. Using medium office buildings as an example, their results show that carbon prices have significant economic impacts on building retrofits.

Wangda Zuo, is a professor of architectural engineering and associate director of research for the Global Building Network at Penn State. Rahman Azari is an associate professor of architecture and the director of the Resource and Energy Efficiency Lab at Penn State. Jiazhen Ling is a research engineer in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Commercial Buildings Research Group.

The talk is part of the EarthTalks spring 2024 series, “Urban Systems Science,” which is exploring complex urban systems including interactions between tightly connected human and natural systems both within city boundaries and between cities and the surrounding rural environment. For more information about the spring 2024 series, visit the EarthTalks website.