Rising to the 2030 challenge

Answering the call for design and building professionals to achieve carbon-neutral buildings by 2030

Global warming is gaining attention in the scientific community. Numerous scientific institutes and consortiums have issued new and alarming evidence that has raised the level of awareness and imminent concern about global warming throughout the world.

But how can we prevent the negative impacts of global warming? Some would say reduce or eliminate the artificial release of greenhouse gases-most significantly, carbon dioxide (CO2)-into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, this is no small task. The majority of economically feasible technologies that generate electricity to support manufacturing, comfort cooling and heating, and transportation still use fossil fuels as a primary energy source. Therefore, the answer to global warming must start with the development and deployment of non-fossil-fuel energy options, such as hydrogen and fuel-cell technologies, along with a broader acceptance and improvement of existing options, such as solar, wind, nuclear, hydroelectric, and geothermal power.

The world's industries and governments will need to play significant roles in this process, as they will be challenged to help balance economic, efficiency, and practicality issues. Resource conservation also will play a major role, as will our ability to find new and better fossil-fuel-friendly systems, materials, and applications.

THE 2030 °CHALLENGE

These global developments have prompted many in the green-building community to set goals and objectives aimed at reducing CO2 emissions related to energy use in new construction. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has endorsed Architecture 2030's 2030 °Challenge, which calls for architecture and building communities to adopt targets that will help eliminate new buildings' fossil-fuelbased energy consumption by 2030. The 2030 °Challenge also advocates an immediate 50-percent reduction-as compared with the regional or national average-in the fossil-fuel-based energy consumption of new buildings. The AIA has sent an open letter to the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) suggesting that new buildings meet this 50-percent-reduction guideline as a prerequisite for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. This proposal is under consideration, and other organizations, such as the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), publicly have endorsed it and are encouraging the engineering community to take up the challenge ("Guest Editorial," July 2006).

THE DESIGN PROJECT

But what will it take to reduce the fossil-fuel-based energy consumption of new buildings by 50 percent? To answer this question, a near-complete design of a building project was examined. The building was designed as a multifunctional facility with office, food-service, retail, and publicassembly components. The building was designed to exceed ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2004, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, and registered for LEED Silver certification. Several high-performance features were incorporated into the design, including CO2-based demand-controlled ventilation, daylighting control in many perimeter spaces, high-efficiency chillers, and low-temperature air distribution with series-fan-powered terminal boxes.