Increasing Building Energy Efficiencies: Policies and Practice

While LEED and Sustainable Design dominated the industry landscape in the 2000's, the last several years have witnessed a pivot to specific improvements in resources, specifically in the areas of water and energy use and efficiency. That bar has been raised through increasingly stringent standards in ASHRAE 90.1-2010 and 189.1-2011, as well as Federal mandates increasing in stringency from EPAct05 through EISA 07, Executive Order 13423, EO 13423 & EO 13514, and most recently 10 CFR 433: Energy Efficiency Design Standards for new Federal Commercial Buildings.

• Discuss the requirements of Federal building mandates and codes.
• List the requirements of ASHRAE 90.1 and 189.1 standards, upon which most State & Local codes are based and written.
• Describe and appreciate the impact locally, nationally, and globally of these efforts and the trends towards increasing energy efficiency, and competing interests globally between efficiency and a cleaner environment, and cheaper fuel and resulting pollution and associated deleterious effects thereof.
• Practically implement and adopt these requirements in building systems, and design and construction strategies.