Schools Obtaining LEED Certification Should Focus on Metrics
Green (Building) Is the New Gold
Green Building Certifications Rising in International Property Markets, Globally
Department of Energy Launches Two New Clean Energy Initiatives at Ninth Clean Energy Ministerial
Department of Energy and CoStar Partner to Expand Visibility of Benchmark Data
PASS FLORIDA’S ENERGY CODE EASILY AND COST-EFFECTIVELY
PASS FLORIDA’S ENERGY CODE EASILY AND COST-EFFECTIVELY
The 5th Edition Residential Florida Energy Code requires that:
Each house pass a Blower Door ( House leakage ) test with 7 air changes per hour (7 ACH50) or less (Effective July is, 2017)
Documentation of verified duct leakage test results is provided when declaring a value other than the default (prescriptive and performance path)
Mechanical ventilation is implemented for houses that test at 3 air change per hour (3 ACH50) or less for the blower door test
Is equipped for readily provide energy code compliance testing services and training throughout the entire state, to builders documentation is submitted to the building official immediately following a passing test.
Understands the importance of getting a Certificate of Occupancy on time, therefore we strive to make this new transition as easy as smooth as possible for everyone.
Energy code services include:
Blower Door Testing
Duct Leakage Testing
Energy Code Compliance Training (Blower Door & Duct Leakage )
Services for Single & multi-Family
Largest Urban Developments Are Going Green
Largest Urban Developments Are Going Green
Shanghai Tower, the tallest building in China and the second tallest in the world, recently achieved LEED Platinum for Core and Shell. The Tower, located at the core of Pudong’s growing Lujiazui finance and trade area in Shanghai, is 632 meters high.
LEED is the world’s most widely applied green building rating system and is currently used in more than 150 countries and territories across the globe. LEED CS (Core and Shell) is the certification for the envelope of a building, and Platinum is the highest level of certification a building can achieve. China is the second largest market for LEED in the world outside the United States, with 118.3 million gross square meters of space participating in the LEED green building rating system.
“As the tallest and one of the greenest landmarks in China, Shanghai Tower shows China’s responsibility and commitment to the world to improve the environment and boost the health of its people,” said Mahesh Ramanujam, Chief Operating Officer of USGBC. “Every story about LEED is a story about leadership, and leaders across the globe understand that LEED is a powerful tool that accelerates global market transformation of our built environment.”
The tower is a green building powerhouse buoyed not only by LEED, but also by China Three Star certification, which was awarded by China’s Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (MOHURD).
Learn more here: http://www.usgbc.org/articles/world%E2%80%99s-second-largest-building-shanghai-tower-achieves-leed-platinum
Jason Biondi Is Elected To FIU ECPA Team of Experts
Jason Biondi Is Elected To FIU ECPA Team of Experts
Jason Biondi is among a three person team of experts chosen by Florida International University (FIU) to work with The Energy and Climate Partnership of The Americas (ECPA) to assist three municipalities in South America and the Caribbean incorporate energy efficiency policies to produce exemplary pilot works that could spread to other cities and regions. The three cities chosen are Goiania, Brazil, Valdivia/Los Rios in Chile, and Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago. This project is supported by a generous grant of the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. The grant supports work to lower energy consumption in municipal buildings through the development and implementation of sound energy efficiency and policies. In each city, FIU ECPA has partnered with a local university to help with this endeavor.
To learn more about Florida International’s collaboration with ECPA, visit http://fiuecpa.com.
Why LEED certification is becoming essential
Why LEED certification is becoming essential
Simply put, LEED certification, through the best practices it represents, matters to tenants’ employees. Canadians increasingly expect their workplaces to proactively adopt green initiatives. As a result, sound environmental stewardship has moved from a ‘nice-to-do’ to a ‘must-do’ for many corporations. Locating in a LEED-certified building is a not only a clear demonstration of a company’s commitment to sustainability, but LEED-certified space can lead to happier and more productive employees, help improve employee attraction and retention as well as boost the bottom line.
Sustainability is now a mainstream issue and resonates in particular with millennials, who are far more socially and environmentally conscious than the generation that came before them. Bearing in mind that millennials are a key demographic target for many employers and are this year predicted to become the largest share of the Canadian workforce, corporations who occupy LEED-certified buildings can easily and readily differentiate themselves from those who don’t.
Attaining LEED certification for an existing building, or building a new one to LEED standards, has well-documented long-term cost benefits to tenants through reduced operating expenses. Savings achieved through energy and water consumption-reducing measures such as building commissioning, daylight harvesting, and lighting and HVAC schedule optimization get passed on to tenants. According to Canadian Green Business Council guidelines, buildings can reduce energy and water bills by as much as 40 per cent through the LEED-certification process.
What are less clear, and less communicated, are the direct benefits that LEED certification can have on employees’ well-being. Research commissioned by Oxford and conducted by Environics indicate that the top three desired office features are access to natural light, access to gyms and fitness centres, and flexible office space. These are also the top three aspects employees would change about their workplace to improve overall well-being and satisfaction at work. The good news for tenants is that these are areas that LEED can help to address in assessing the human experience and occupant health and comfort within a workspace.
The use of natural light is an important component of LEED certification. Not only does it create a bright and attractive place to work, but, according to a recent Northwestern University medical study, office workers who have a greater exposure to natural daylight are more active, have longer and less interrupted sleep and report markedly better results in quality of life assessments.
LEED certification standards also establish minimum indoor air quality (IAQ) performance to enhance indoor air quality in buildings, thus contributing to the health and well-being of occupants. Not only can IAQ play a role in promoting productivity, but it can also help to reduce incidents of respiratory illness and related absenteeism. Pollutants in an office’s air can cause dizziness and headaches, plus aggravate allergies and asthma, thus making proper ventilation critical. Research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory recorded a 35-per-cent decrease in short-term employee absence when internal ventilation rates were doubled at a test office.
As employee wellness increasingly becomes an integral part of the corporate and social responsibility (CSR) sphere, tenants in LEED-certified buildings have access to concrete examples of how their physical working environment helps support this goal. Moving ahead, perhaps the idea of ‘employee wellness’ needs to be given greater weighting in the LEED standard and when discussing the advantages of LEED certification. Millennials, despite being socially and environmentally conscious, have been labeled by some as the ‘me me me generation’. So while they might care about the environmental benefits of LEED certification, they also want to know, “What’s in it for me?”
Ultimately, for most businesses, staff costs are by far and away the largest proportion of a company’s overhead, with real estate typically only representing six to 10 per cent of that cost. However, by promoting a healthy and attractive physical workplace environment through LEED certification, the real estate industry can help employers to fully utilize a cost-effective way to reap the big rewards of increased staff attraction and retention, productivity and wellness.