Alicia Dolce
Executive Director, CT Green Building Council
Age: 61
Industry experience: 12 years
Alicia Dolce is an evangelist for energy efficiency by day in her role as executive director of the CT Green Building Council, and a convert at home where she lives in an all-electric Passive House that keeps high utility bills at bay. The council’s executive director since March 2019, Dolce helps it recognize notable green building projects and sponsors workshops to educate the local development industry on their benefits. She and her husband, Bill Freeman, own Celebration Green Design & Build, a Guilford architectural and construction firm.
Q: What did the winning projects at the recent 2020 CTGBC awards indicate about what’s gaining traction in the green building industry?
A: This is the 15-year anniversary of our Green Building Awards. If you look at the winners of this year’s event, what really stands out to me is raising the bar to achieve new heights of performance: a lot of Net Zero energy projects and a goal of eliminating on-site fossil fuel use. There were a lot of all-electric projects. Five of the seven award-winning projects incorporated Passive House building standards, which isn’t really surprising since it’s the most rigorous standard. People always say the cheapest electricity is the electricity you don’t use. What you want to do initially is reduce the energy demand of the building. That’s not to say they don’t incorporate LEED and Green Communities [certification]. When you blend the standards, you end up with a truly holistic sustainability footprint.
Q: In its advocacy role, what are the organization’s top goals for 2022?
A: The advocacy committee is one of the council’s most active committees. Speaking to the all-hands-on-deck moment, it reflects the urgency to jump-start what the state is doing. We often look at Massachusetts and say we wish we could be a little bit more like them. We have mandated climate change goals in Connecticut to reduce greenhouse gases, but there isn’t any teeth or accountability. We are doubling down on two legislative priorities for 2020. One is the opt-in voluntary stretch code. In Connecticut, a municipality is not able to go beyond the state building code. A lot of our members are sustainability officers at municipalities. We hear people say they want these tools. We are trying to encourage the legislators to at least pass a voluntary stretch code, so municipalities can opt in. The pushback is what’s so frustrating. Connecticut is “The Land of Steady Habits.” I wish we could shake this off, because it’s not serving us at this point. Our second priority is the home energy labeling law. The idea behind that was to get the much-needed transparency. Upon request, landlords have to share a building’s energy use, but we feel it should not be [only] on request. It helps all of us, whether it’s a renter in a large building, or a homeowner making a decision on a purchase, to fully understand the costs for that home.
Q: What made you decide to design and build a Passive House of your own?
A: My husband, Bill Freeman, was one of the first to do the Connecticut Zero Energy Challenge. We honestly had not heard of Passive House until 2013, when [a Branford] architect, Philippe Campus, a founding board member, had a project in Guilford and he and Bill got talking. We were building our first Passive House for a client in Guilford. Our minds were blown about the science and how it’s a whole home system that emphasizes a combination of elements to produce extraordinary results.
Q: How big are the annual energy bills?
A: I have a year’s worth of data to look at. For an all-electric home with an apartment, our entire bill was $1,200 which is pretty remarkable. We don’t have an oil and gas bill. All we get is an electric bill. Is it truly Net Zero? Not really, but the engineers say it’s better to be conservative on your photovoltaic system, because we can’t bank our energy yet. The energy storage market isn’t really developed yet. Selling your energy back to the grid, you’re getting pennies in Connecticut if you’re lucky.
Dolce’s Five Favorite “Happy Place” Locales:
- Connecticut back roads by bike
- “The river” aka the Oak Point community, Hammond, New York in the 1000 Islands – The place that time forgot
- Brockville, Ontario in the 1000 Islands by boat
- South Florida – To chase the sun and my son
- Roatan, Bay Islands, Honduras
