Green Building Articles
Automation, Communication, Software Leaders for "Green" Solutions
IBM (NYSE: IBM) has created an industry alliance with key leaders in metering, monitoring, automation, data communications and software to provide smart solutions for energy, water, waste and greenhouse gas management
Charter members of the Green SigmaTM Coalition are Johnson Controls, Honeywell Building Solutions, ABB, Eaton, ESS, Cisco, Siemens Building Technologies Division, Schneider Electric and SAP. The coalition members will work with IBM to integrate their products and services with IBM's Green SigmaTM solution.
This will allow companies using these combined solutions to better understand energy and water usage, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions across their business operations and make changes to improve efficiency, reduce consumption and waste, and lower environmental impact.
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USGBC requires buildings seeking LEED to provide performance data on energy and water usage as precondition of certification
June 25, 2009 (Washington, DC) - As part of LEED v3, the latest version of the U.S. Green Building Council's program for green building design, construction, operations and maintenance, buildings seeking LEED certification will begin submitting operational performance data on a recurring basis as a precondition to certification.
"Today there is all too often a disconnect, or performance gap, between the energy modeling done during the design phase and what actually happens during daily operation after the building is constructed," said Scot Horst, Senior Vice President of LEED, U.S. Green Building Council. "We're convinced that ongoing monitoring and reporting of data is the single best way to drive higher building performance because it will bring to light external issues such as occupant behavior or unanticipated building usage patterns, all key factors that influence performance."
USGBC will be able to use the performance information collected to inform future versions of LEED.
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Wisconsin becomes the first state to require BIM on large, public projects
As of July 1 the Wisconsin Division of State Facilities will require all projects with a total budget of $5 million or more and all new construction with a budget of $2.5 million or more to have their designs begin with a Building Information Model.
The new guidelines and standards require A/E services in a design-bid-build project delivery format to use BIM and 3D software from initial planning concepts up to bidding documents and finally to project closeout. There are 5 projects over the $5 Million threshold up for A/E selection in the next few months, followed by 18 more expected between 2009 and 2011. The projects include new and existing construction for 16 state agencies including the Department of Military Affairs, Department of Administration, Department of Corrections, and also the University of Wisconsin system.
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Construction Specifications Institute to end support of MasterFormat 95 on December 31, 2009
The Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) announced that the organization will cease to license and support MasterFormat 95 as of December 31, 2009.
The CSI Board of Directors voted to stop licensing and supporting MasterFormat 95 during its June 16, 2009, meeting at the CSI Annual Convention in Indianapolis.
"Now that the new edition has been widely accepted by the industry, we felt it was time to complete the transition to MasterFormat™ 2004," said CSI Executive Director and CEO Walter Marlowe, P.E., CSI, CAE. "As a result, CSI and Construction Specifications Canada (CSC) will no longer support MasterFormat 95 after December 31, 2009."
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'Zero carbon hierarchy' for homes outlined
Whitehall is confident that all new homes will meet government targets to be zero carbon by 2016, although some of the savings will be made offsite.
John Fiennes, director for sustainable buildings and climate change, Department for Communities and Local Government, spoke at the Westminster Energy, Environment and Transport Forum on zero carbon buildings this week.
He said that he was confident targets would be met, but there was still some discussion to be had on what would qualify as zero carbon.
Mr Fiennes said there was general consensus on the three-tier hierarchy currently under consideration - that very high energy efficiency must come first, followed by on-site carbon reduction through renewable energy generation with offsite measures making up any shortfall.
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U.S. Green Building Council adds sustainable food strategy to LEED certification
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), provides a set of standards for environmentally sustainable construction. The certification system has recently been updated and now includes an energy reduction component called Sustainable Food. The idea is that what goes on in a building after it's designed and constructed also contributes significantly to a building's environmental impact.
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Waxman-Markey Act: Section 201: National Energy Efficiency Building Codes
Section 201 of the Waxman-Markey Act calls for the development and adoption by state and local governments of a national energy efficiency code. A summary of the main provisions are as follows:
1. Establishes a "national energy efficiency building code" for residential and commercial buildings, sufficient to meet each of the national building code energy efficiency targets.
2. Sets energy efficiency targets for the national building code: "on the date of enactment of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, 30 percent reduction in energy use relative to a comparable building constructed in compliance with the baseline code…effective January 1, 2014, for residential buildings, and January 1, 2015, for commercial buildings, 50 percent reduction in energy use relative to the baseline code; and…January 1, 2017, for residential buildings, and January 1, 2018, for commercial buildings, and every 3 years thereafter, respectively, through January 1, 2029, and January 1, 2030, 5 percent additional reduction in energy use relative to the baseline code."
3. If consensus based codes provides for greater reduction in energy use than is required under the ACESA, the overall percentage reduction in energy use provided by that successor code shall be the national building code energy efficiency target.
4. Requires that states and local governments comply with or exceed the national energy efficiency building code, and provides for enforcement mechanisms for states which are out of compliance.
Automated Buildings' July 2009 issue pays special attention to BIM and the Internet.
The first three articles mention web-based BIM in general and specifically highlight ONUMA, Inc. and Cisco Systems, the backbone of the Internet.
Article 1:
In his "Top 5 Take Aways" of the ConnectivityWeek conference, Automated Buildings editor Editor Ken Sinclair places Kimon Onuma, FAIA at #2 and at #4 is Robet Metcalfe, the inventor of the Internet.
Ken writes, "The BIMStorm® presentation made a huge impression on me and set my mind reeling as to what a 'Connectivity Storm' with real time grid and building data might look like."
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Article 2:
BIMStorm Connect is the focus of the second article, which ends by noting that the ONUMA Planning System® won a Buildy Award by popular vote of conference attendees.
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Article 3:
The third article covers Cisco's release of a device that will be for the building industry what the Cisco's router is to the Internet. The Mediator will accept data from 75 building industry protocols, normalize the data and send it out on the Internet where software, such as the ONUMA Planning System, can display it live on Google Earth. The pending interface between Cisco's Mediator, developed by Ed Richards, and the ONUMA Planning System is something we will watch with great interest.
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