New report highlights cost-effectiveness of bird-safe glass

[Laura Bies]

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A new report from the Acopian Center for Ornithology at Muhlenberg College examines the cost of including bird-safe glass in new construction and helps to alleviate the concern in the building community that bird-safe glass is cost prohibitive.

According to the report, bird-safe glass could be installed in a new $8 million 9-story office building for about $30,000, or four-tenths of one percent (0.38%) of the total cost of the building.

Every year, hundreds of millions of birds die from accidentally flying into glass buildings and windows. But new types of glass now make this easily preventable. The new report provides actionable evidence that building code reforms requiring bird safe glass in new commercial construction allow policy makers to fulfill their responsibility to protect migrating birds and meet the environmental protection objectives of local ordinances without hurting the construction industry.

Twenty communities now have bird-safe building standards or are in the process of developing them. These include large cities such as New York, San Francisco and Toronto.

This report is based on five decades of research by Dr. Daniel Klem, Ornithological Council board member and Sarkis Acopian Professor of Ornithology and director of the Acopian Center for Ornithology, Muhlenberg College, and author of Solid Air | Invisible Killer: Saving Billions of Birds from Windows.

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