UNL Climate Change Presentation

Keeping “Green” Buildings From Turning “Brown” Marcel Harmon, Ph.D., P.E., LEED-AP

M.E. Group, Inc. Building Systems Design Division  Mechanical/Electrical/Plumbing/Lighting Design  High-Performance Building Design  Commissioning  Feasibility Studies Green Services Division  LEED Documentation & Consulting  Green Building Planning  Existing Building Evaluations/Retro-Commissioning  Commissioning  Energy Audits  Energy Modeling

Built Environment’s Impact U.S. Energy Consumption By Sector Source: US Green Building Council (USGBC)

Built Environment’s Impact Buildings in the U.S., • Consume 71% of the electricity produced. • Consume 12% of the total water used. • Produce 65% of the waste generated. Buildings worldwide, • Consume 40% of the total materials & energy used. • Consume 17% of the total water used. • Consume 25% of the total wood harvested. Source: US Green Building Council (USGBC)

Built Environment’s Impact U.S. CO2 Emissions by Sector Source: US Energy Information Administration statistics and www.architecture2030.org

The Potential Repercussions Honolulu, HI: 1.75-meter sea level rise Source: www.architecture2030.org

LEED Building Performance National Average Comparison • On average, LEED facilities are performing 25-30% better than non-LEED facilities. • But individual facility performances were widely scattered. • Some even using more energy than the predicted code baseline modeling. • Why? Source: Turner, C. and M. Frankel 2008. Energy Performance of LEED for New Construction Buildings. New Buildings Institute.

Green to Brown “Buildings have a poor track record for performing as predicted during design.”  inaccurate or improperly used analysis tools;  lack of integration of complex inter-connected systems;  value engineering after design;  poor construction practices;  no building commissioning;  and incomplete or improper understanding of operations and maintenance practices. “A National Green Building Research Agenda” (revised February 2008), USGBC Research Committee.

Sustainability Human Factors Sustainable Solution •Systematic •Contextual Technology Environment

Human Factors  Physiological Factors - Factors that deal with the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functioning of the body itself.  Psychological Factors - The mental or behavioral characteristics of individuals or groups, centered on the structure of the mind.  Cultural Factors - Factors derived from a shared set of organized ideas, information habits, patterned behavior, and conditioned emotional responses, consisting of knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, and custom.

Mental Mapping: East vs. West Image by Trey Hedden, McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT

Cultural Scripts  By providing a lens through which to view and interpret the world, it helps generate the specific experience.  Its what help me tell the difference between being comfortable and uncomfortable.

Thermal Comfort In Interior Environments

Baca/Dlo'ay azhi Community School Various Navajo cultural elements incorporated: • Entrance facing east (Mt. Taylor) • Layout on the four cardinal directions. • Placing the media center (and the story pit) at the very center – emphasizes the importance of knowledge. • Navajo color schemes. • Cultural Conflict w/ LEED N

Baca/Dlo'ay azhi Community School

Stone-Age Minds & Bodies We are designing 21st century facilities for our stone-age minds and bodies, with physiologies and psychologies adapted to operating within a much different physical environment, and in a socio/ cultural environment of low variability.

Sustainability Human Factors Sustainable Solution • Systematic • Contextual • Three levels of human factors • Human factors evolved under different conditions Technology Environment

Model Baselines A Local Average (Peer Group) B +∆ National/Regional Average -∆ C Local Average (Peer Group) D

Edward Gonzales Elementary School - Electrical 700000 600000 250 285 Total Kilowatt Hours 262 350 234 363 275 500000 295 317 265 365 333 360 291 216 203 400000 221 231 330 206 351 252 288 219 282 328 332 215 225 356 339 244 321 370 210230 273 279 310 329 300000 297 214 270 305 388 312 385 309 255 229 307 324 204 300 345 260 236 213 315 373 207 379 228 336 240 241 200000 267 303 258 357 222 276 100000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 0 00 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 3 40 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Total Square Footage School KWH by Square Footage. (Edward Gonzales = 262).

Edward Gonzales Elementary School - Gas 60000 262 50000 339 307 40000 288 221 216 234 285 Therms 351 228 315 295 310 258 312 206 275 297 203 215 360 273 240 303270 363 255 30000 373 207 291 300 357 370 324 282 213 345 210 305 388 230 231 236 385 225 309 265 365 252 356 241 333 214 317 250 260 350 279 336 276 20000 229 244 328 204 321 267 330 332 329 10000 222 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 30 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Total Square Footage Therms by Square Footage. (Edward Gonzales = 262).

Comparison to Energy Star 88.8 kBtu/sq. ft./yr; Energy Star Baseline 14% Reduction 76.4 kBtu/sq. ft./yr; Actual 2004-2005 Energy Usage -∆ 62.7 kBtu/sq. ft./yr; Energy Star 30% Savings 58.2 kBtu/sq. ft./yr; Peer Group Baseline 44.4 kBtu/sq. ft./yr; Energy Star 50% Savings

Edward Gonzales Elementary School Classroom Daylighting Light Sweep

Edward Gonzales Elementary School Edward Gonzales Light Sweep Rating 35.0% 30.0% Percent of Responses 25.0% 20.0% Light Sweep 15.0% 10.0% 5.0% 0.0% Excellent Good Fair Poor NA ? Rating

Edward Gonzales Elementary School Edward All School Gonzales Seven Bar Chelwood Average Comfortable Average 1.13 2.07 2.20 1.80 Too Cold Average 1.15 0.27 0.20 0.54 Too Hot Average 1.42 0.62 0.30 0.78 Stale Average 1.27 0.20 0.00 0.49 Stuffy Average 1.58 0.32 0.10 0.67 Permanent building teacher/staff/administrator rating scores of their perception of their students’ thermal comfort level conditions. Values range from 0 to 3, with the larger values indicating a greater degree of that particular condition present.

Edward Gonzales Elementary School Edward Gonzales Edward Gonzales Portable Permanent Comfortable Average 1.87 1.13 Too Cold Average 0.24 1.15 Too Hot Average 0.43 1.42 Stale Average 0.22 1.27 Stuffy Average 0.10 1.58 Portable vs. Permanent Building

Edward Gonzales Elementary School Rest Room: Water Use Issues, Performance, & Self Image

KEEPING GREEN BUILDINGS GREEN

How?  More affectively account for human factors  Build better energy models that more accurately reflect local conditions  EVALUATE, EVALUATE, EVALUATE

Evidence Based Design Built Environments are Experiments

Evidence Based Design Built Environments are experiments in:  the performance of materials and systems

Evidence Based Design Built Environments are experiments in:  the organization of space

Evidence Based Design Built Environments are experiments in:  facilitation of specific human behaviors/tasks

Evidence Based Design Built Environments are experiments in:  the process of design

Evidence Based Design Built Environments are experiments in:  construction methodologies, etc.

Evidence Based Design  If we do not evaluate the experiments, we do not learn what works, what doesn’t work, and why.  We repeat mistakes, waste resources and money, and minimize the quality of the human experience within the built environment.

Evidence Based Design We must “… better relate design strategies to actual performance and benefit ... [and build] a more thorough dataset as well as more robust metrics ...” - “A National Green Building Research Agenda” (revised February 2008), USGBC Research Committee.

Evidence Based Design But when conducting these evaluations, we also need an human inquiry of the reciprocal relationships between people and the built environment.

Human Inquiry Process  Goal: Correlate behavior, productivity/ performance metrics, health metrics, etc., with specific building elements (technologies, layouts, materials, etc.), for a specific social/cultural and physical environmental context.  Results: Informative knowledge for a specific project/facility; Knowledge added to a continually expanding database of information.

Human Inquiry Process Planning Investigation Implementation Hand off

Evaluation/Human Inquiry Benefits  Further assurance for clients and the design/build team that the green/sustainable design goals will be successfully implemented.  Verification for clients that they are getting what they paid for, as well as assistance in keeping their “green” facility from turning brown.  Increase in productivity, performance, and health.  Decrease in employee turnover.  Decrease in tenant turnover & increased occupancy rates.

Performance/Productivity IAQ Improvements:  save up to $58 billion in lost sick time  save additional $200 billion in worker performance. - Fisk, W. G. 2000, Health and Productivity Gains from Better Indoor Environments and Their Relationship with Building Energy Efficiency. Annual Review of Energy and Environment 25(1):537-566. Later updated for 2002 dollars.

Performance/Productivity Increased tenant environmental control have been found to provide average measured workforce productivity gains of:  7.1% with lighting control,  1.8% with ventilation control, and  1.2% with thermal control. - Kats, G., L. Alevantis, A. Berman, E. Mills, and J. Perlman, 2003. The Costs and Financial Benefits of Green Building: A Report to California’s Sustainable Building Task Force.

Performance/Productivity Compared to little or no daylighting, classrooms with large amounts of daylighting, have been found to increase the rate of student learning by:  20% in math  26% in reading - Heschong Mahone Group. 1999. Daylighting in Schools: An Investigation into the Relationship Between Daylight and Human Performance. Report submitted to Pacific Gas and Electric. http://www.h-m-g.com. Reanalysis of report conducted in 2001 – www.newbuildings.org/pier.

Evaluation/Human Inquiry Benefits Over 20 – 25 years, for a 16 typical service business: 14 Ratio of amortized 12 construction cost to 10 building operating costs to 8 6 staff salaries/business 4 operating costs = 2 1:1.5:15 0 Construction Bldg Business Operations Operations - Commission for Architecture and the Built Relative Cost Environment and the British Council for Offices, London, UK, 2005.

Concluding Thoughts  Brown facilities can result when human factors, technology, and/or the environment are not adequately accounted for initially, or change after the fact.  Green buildings (and all buildings in general) are experiments that require evaluation to verify they’re performing as designed.  Brown facilities will negatively impact the spread and success of green design, with negative global consequences.

"We have not inherited the world from our forefathers -- we have borrowed it from our children." - Kashmiri proverb

UNL Climate Change Presentation

by M.E. Group on Jul 14, 2009

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UNL Climate Change Presentation — Presentation Transcript