Smart, green, productive and efficient buildings contribute to urban efficiency and high-performance cities. Buildings don’t turn green with a fresh coat of paint, and building green is not an afterthought. Green, net zero building principles encompass the entire life cycle of a building—from the design and construction phases to the operation and maintenance of the building. Green buildings efficiently select and use resources and engage occupants to live and work in the buildings in a sustainable manner. Those that match their energy demand with on-site energy production can achieve “net-zero” status. Increasingly, green and net zero buildings are demonstrating real market traction - and the benefits are becoming clear. Photo credit: Brad Kahn/Flickr
Operable windows give building occupants fresh air and control over their comfort – but if used improperly, they can be counterproductive. In this video, Katie Ackerly, a researcher at the Center for the Built Environment at the University of California Berkeley, describes approaches to signaling occupants when to open and close windows.
Thousands will gather Nov. 14-16 in San Francisco for the annual Greenbuild International Conference & Expo, sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Industry leaders and practitioners from around the world have attended for the over the past decade to learn about green building best practices and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) standards, while engaging...
Commercial building owners spend 30 percent of their operating budgets on energy. They can lower these costs significantly – while reducing carbon emissions and improving occupant comfort – by collecting and analyzing energy data and using it to inform operating decisions. Today’s buildings can have intelligent devices and advanced, integrated systems that generate...
How can the concept of net zero energy buildings translate to net zero energy communities? Getting to net zero energy at the community level means maximizing the energy efficiency of each building in that community, including many existing buildings, and meeting the remaining energy demand with renewable energy. Supplying the renewable energy component can be easier at the community level...
The technical potential for solar water heating in the United States is about one quadrillion Btu of energy savings per year, worth $8 billion of energy costs and 50 million to 75 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Furthermore, some 67 percent of the nation’s commercial buildings have rooftops available for solar water heating, says the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.