December 30, 2011

Construction project owners undertake important work in energy conservation

KORKY KOROLUK

construction corner

Hope is a commodity that is pretty scarce in much of our troubled world.

Pick up a paper just about any day and you read of the euro crisis, riot and revolution in the Arab world, partisan political bickering in the United States. It makes one wonder if there is any hope left in the world.

There is, of course, but for the most part it’s not on front pages. Hope is blossoming, a bit here, a bit there, and if you put positive events together, the result is impressive.

While politicians fight their political feuds, researchers are making immense strides in medicine, people are waging war to get improved mental health care, businesses and local governments are finding innovative ways to fund projects. People are quietly taking steps to conserve energy while developing sources of clean energy. They’re working toward a sustainable future.

Important work is being done in the construction field, driven by owners who are demanding more sustainable buildings.

Three things popped in my e-mail this week that illustrate this.

The U.S. Green Building Council has done a large survey and found that the majority of green building projects in the parts of the world that use LEED criteria are not new buildings; they’re retrofits.

They range from small buildings all the way up to Tapiei 101, which is billed (for the moment) as the world’s largest building. The Empire State Building in New York City is getting an efficiency upgrade that will provide a return on investment in just three years.

This is a positive development. Putting up a new building merely adds to our building stock. Efficiency upgrades cost less, and improve not only the owner’s bottom line, but the environment, as well. And the money goes further, since each upgrade costs substantially less than a new building would.

This week brought news that the TD Bank has just renovated a branch in London, Ontario, to make it a net-zero building. That means it will produce as much energy as it uses. That project follows construction of a new branch in Florida that is also net-zero. That one, says the bank, is the first net-zero building of its size in the retail world.

The London project is interesting for a number of reasons.

First of all, the building doesn’t face south, something that is preferred for net-zero projects. That means solar panels couldn’t be placed on the roof, and space had to be found for them elsewhere on the property. The work also included installation of LED lighting, and upgraded control systems for heating and cooling. As well, the bank is using land surrounding the branch to create a “green energy park” that will include a modest amphitheater for use by the community. It is even planning a charging station for customers needing to recharge the batteries of their electric cars.

And in Ottawa, a holiday greeting card from the folks at the Athena Sustainable Materials Institute contained the news that the construction sector has begun moving faster to embrace lifecycle assessment, or LCA.

LCA is a scientific method for measuring the environmental footprint of materials, products and services over their entire lifetime. Is an analysis of the energy embodied in a product — making and transporting it, what inputs and waste will occur in using it during its life, and what will happen to it at the end of its life. Athena has developed a tool called Impact Estimator, to aid in the calculations.

There are a couple of interesting case studies on the Athena Sustainable Materials Institute’s website — one on a Canadian project, one American.

So while politicians bicker, ordinary people, ordinary companies, are quietly beavering away, trying to build a better, more sustainable world. And that’s good news to greet the new year.

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