IES Blog

Yesterday, the UK Green Building Council’s chief executive Paul King urged architects and builders to reduce carbon emissions as a result of the built environment by 50 percent by the year 2020 (BD Online). At the annual conference in London yesterday, he said, “We have the technology and the know-how in the industry, but we haven’t managed to mainstream these yet.”

According to the UKGBC, buildings are responsible for 44 percent of the UK’s CO2 emissions, a number that needs to be drastically reduced if we hope to solve the global climate crisis. Following our recent attendance at Greenbuild , we know people are on board with change. But what is it going to take to get us there?

Read our PDF research paper on “Building Simulation as an assisting tool in designing an energy efficient building: a case study” to understand our take on how you can start to incorporate these techniques and technologies into the design process right from the early stages.

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Tags:Architects, Building, climate, Environment, Greenbuild, reduce

Now a protest on smoking in LEED buildings was not quite the sight I expected to see as a rocked up for the first day of Greenbuild! I believe the protesters were referring in particular to the newly certified ARIA resort and casino in Las Vegas which allows smoking on the casino floor.

On closer inspection and investigation however, it appears that the casino itself was excluded from the LEED submission, which only covers the hotel resort tower and convention center.

“The USGBC already has awarded LEED Gold certification to ARIA’s hotel tower, convention center and theater; as well as Vdara Hotel. CityCenter’s remaining venues are poised to receive a combination of Silver and Gold LEED ratings.” (For full article click here)

But even if it had been included smoking could be allowed in designated areas with measures taken to avoid second-hand smoke in other areas according to EQ Prerequisite 2: Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) Control. See the blog and comments at Cooper Green Design for more detail.

I wonder if the protesters knew this or if it would make much difference to them? However, it does raise some interesting questions about what LEED should and can demand of facilities, and how boundaries are set. Though I believe the Minimum Program Requirements (MRP) in the latest version of LEED (2009) would now not allow this kind of exclusion.

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Tags:Greenbuild, LEED, Sustainability

Have you been trying to keep up with all the Greenbuild round-ups as much as me? This Reuters article gives a great overview of the event. And if you are tired of reading, these pictures at Greenbuild’s Flickr page and here at Treehugger also sum it up quite nicely.

However, even though all the excitement of the show is over, the topic of sustainability is here to stay.

The key to green or sustainable (depending on your preference or definition!) building is realizing that we need to engage in it so much it becomes the norm. This is not a fad, this is the new way of doing things! We’re getting there, but we’ve got a long way to go, and it’s going to require a lot more effort, integration, shake-up of today’s conventional design process, and most of all education, check out Greenbuild365. We were all worried about just how high the level of greenwashing would be at the show – but the theme of Greenbuild this year seems to be the lack of greenwashing, look at Greenbiz’s article on this. Which is an encouraging step forward – showing industry understanding is gradually maturing.  But I agree with Joel, that is not to say the show was a hype-free zone.

All in all, Greenbuild 2009 was a great show for us and, by the sounds of it, the vast majority of attendees. We’re looking forward to 2010 in Chicago. And for the next 364 days, will be working to get the message out that green building is here to stay, and that performance analysis has a key role to play.

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Tags:Building, Greenbuild, Sustainability