Buildings account for over 40 percent of carbon emissions in the U.S. Buildings also account for over 70% of total electricity consumption. While companies need to focus on building more energy efficient buildings, the reality is that to help reduce carbon pollution, existing buildings need to be made more energy efficient.
 
But will incremental improvements be enough? Or do we need technologies which will reinvent the way we use energy?
 
Here is one example of an innovative technology which truly fits "thinking outside the box":
 
Electrochromic Glass by SageGlass is glass that can go from clear to dark to create energy efficiency. Basically the glass can transition from clear to tinted glass and the tinting can be user-defined automatically or manually. So a  SageGlass window would allow a user to change the tint depending on the changing weather conditions outside.

The company's literature mentions that "SageGlass panes are coated with five layers of ceramic materials. When voltage is applied across the coatings, ions travel from one layer to another layer, where a reversible solid-state change takes place, causing the coating to tint and absorb light. Reversing the polarity of the applied voltage causes the ions to migrate back to their original layer, and the glass returns to its clear state."

Of course innovation ain't cheap. SageGlass glazing is expensive. However
with SageGlass, energy efficiency is increased which results in lower electricity bills and of course a reduction in carbon emissions.

Now think of the carbon reduction potential if SageGlass were used in all those large skyscrapers that have all glass exteriors.

Will the technology used by SageGlass become more cost-effective and more widely used? We'll have to wait and watch.