Commercial & Institutional

One of the biggest market barriers to net-zero energy retrofits is the incremental upfront cost. Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing overcomes this barrier, and it’s expanding with new innovations. Those innovations include resilience renovations, consumer protections, and the use of PACE to unlock Net-Zero Energy retrofits and new construction. Resilience renovations are on the rise following hurricanes, floods and power outages. Also, PACE for new construction can make Net-Zero Energy homes beat standard costs for home ownership. Come find out how to grow the market for efficiency and solar in your region from leading industry experts.

The products you specify--and how you structure your specs--have enduring impact on your building's occupants, the community where the product is made, and the workers who install it. We’ll share lessons learned about screening and choosing products employing the most rigorous material vetting standards in green building certifications. Where do you focus and where should you not? This session will coach designers in approaches and procedures to make any project healthier through careful materials selection. And while it's not designed to get you through the LBC Materials Petal, it will undoubtedly help.

This team’s contract with a university client for a new student housing project required LEED v4 Silver, a worthwhile goal. But the team wanted to punch up to meet more aggressive sustainability goals – Passive House and Living Building Challenge Materials Petal – within the same design and construction budget. Did they succeed? In this session, you’ll hear key findings associated with energy modeling, solar shading, water management, healthy materials, and high-performance building envelope. We’ll explore the metrics employed to evaluate options and their return on investment to make it palatable to naysayers and confirm financial feasibility. Speakers will also discuss the teams’ persistent approach to strive for a better building and strategies to engage the complex group of university stakeholders.

We truly regret having to cancel this session. Terry Brennan is unable to attend.

At the core of every successful Retro-Commissioning (RCx) project is an effective collaboration between the commissioning agent and the building's operating staff to identify and implement energy conservation measures. This session will provide guidance to commissioning agents and building operations teams about how to work together throughout the Retro-Commissioning (RCx) process to maximize the benefits of RCx. We will present examples from both the commissioning agent building operations perspectives of how previous project collaborations have been structured, including the development of training materials, to attain significant and sustained benefits beyond energy savings.

A building or home cannot begin to be deemed healthy if its building blocks – both the material used for exterior construction and the elements used to build and decorate the interior – aren’t healthy to begin with. Identifying healthy products is made easier with a wealth of new tools and certification programs that are being implemented, but that variety also creates confusion over what each program brings to the table and how that meets the needs of the user. This session will review the different product certifications in use, identify their main priorities, and show how to search for them online.

Growing marijuana indoors is extremely energy intensive, and this session highlights the latest efforts to reduce the industry's energy footprint. Attendees will hear from speakers with fingers on the pulse of trends, practices, and policies across the country. As highlighted at BuildingEnergy SRO inaugural session on the subject last year, there is a very small window for growers to coalesce around best practices, providing building energy professionals a unique opportunity. Efforts to collect profile data about cultivators' energy use will be shared, as well as latest updates about market and regulatory developments in Massachusetts and Maine.

Williams College has established the goal of 35% campus wide carbon reduction of 1990 carbon emissions by 2020. In this session we will present the development of a methodology (i.e., Green Gauges) for design and construction teams to communicate strategies with the owner early in the process, and to provide consistent information regarding operational energy and the resulting carbon savings. What is the cost per metric ton of avoided carbon over the operation life of that strategy? We’ll find out.

There are five basic components of building envelopes, each of which needs increased attention to meet and exceed current Energy Code while providing comfort for building users and durability and resiliency for building owners: 1. Opaque Assemblies - Walls and Roofs 2. Fenestration 3. Air Barriers 4. Thermal Bridging 5. Foundation Insulation and Slab Edges Join Jim and Jodi as they share revealing and entertaining stories from their practice. Engage in a discussion on how the challenges they reveal can be addressed by applying the nine habits of sustainability.

Do you want to hear how to drive energy efficiency in renovation projects and new buildings beyond expectations? Welcome. Our exceptional panel members have learned from many educational projects including high energy intensive science facilities.

Without inspiring, bold leadership from key RE owners, NYC has little chance to achieve its energy and sustainability goals. This session will provide a open platform for four of NYC’s leading RE owners to discuss their needs, challenges and obstacles in delivering on NYC’s envisioned energy future.

Achieving top-level energy performance in a multi-tenant commercial building has its challenges. Some of the best-performing commercial buildings have one important element in common: owners and tenants working together toward a unified goal of energy efficiency.

New this year, Lightning Rounds pack as much information into one session as possible. You’ll hear succinct, to-the-point, and practical presentations on a variety of topics, including: Chilled Beam Advantages: Chilled Beam systems offer a unique opportunity to integrate the HVAC system into the architectural elements of a building while reducing energy costs, maintaining enhanced indoor air quality and promoting significant occupant comfort.

New this year, Lightning Rounds pack as much information into one session as possible. You’ll hear succinct, to-the-point, and practical presentations on a variety of data-focused topics, including: Extracting Value from Data: How energy management can help save millions of dollars a year by bringing down energy bill costs significantly while improving productivity.

Commercial energy users have an ever-growing range of ways to manage energy. This session will highlight energy management trends in key areas including solar, energy resiliency, energy management software, and a deep dive on energy storage. With a focus on activity in the Northeast, including project-level analysis, the session will illustrate what's new in the dynamic markets for cutting-edge energy technologies.

The International Living Future Institute (ILFI) has radically reworked its Net Zero Energy Building certification to be significantly more straightforward and user friendly, at the same time as improving energy performance data and case study information.

Vanderweil has piloted post-occupancy review to determine how buildings are used and discovered that gaps in installation, operation, and maintenance, which can result in excess energy and resource use, may be avoidable. Post-occupancy evaluation requires a small investment but yields results that can help alleviate owner issues with controls, circulation, and operational strategy.

Most firms claim to practice integrative design, but that’s not reliably the case! With LEED’s new “IP” credit and increased demand for NZ buildings, it’s time to get real. Transforming the design process is not simply adding a kick-off charrette – it’s a systemic transformation that even can help overcome the typical dysfunctional dynamics between architects and engineers. In this roll-up-your-sleeves session, participants will dig in, deconstruct what they do on a “typical” project, and “ReDesign” the future to achieve a desired performance outcome. Participants leave with actionable items to put into practice immediately.

We know how to design and construct net-zero and living buildings that are healthy, responsible, beautiful, durable and financially prudent. So why aren’t clients demanding this? How can we clearly demonstrate that this is in their best interest?

Buildings are designed to be expendable. Codes focus on safe evacuation in an emergency, not on keeping buildings occupiable through a disaster. With climate change, displacement due to damage from extreme weather events like Superstorm Sandy is more common. Is building to code minimums really enough?

College campuses are leading the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy at the community level. This session will combine design, technology, and policy with real-life case studies of campuses moving toward carbon neutrality. We’ll present three different colleges in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. What better way to help the rising generation prepare for their own future than to lead the campus, as community, into the clean-energy future?

Improving the operational performance of buildings requires highly skilled and qualified workers, particularly as building technologies become more advanced. Yet many lack the skill-set they need to maintain these facilities. This session will cover what happens when you don’t train or engage building operators in effective O&M strategies.

In 2011, the Susquehanna River flooded Binghamton NY. The MacArthur Elementary School was inundated with contaminated flood waters and declared a total loss. This session will recount the inspiring process by which the city created a new school – a 125,000-square-foot, LEED platinum (pending) building with an EUI of 10 that embodies new models of educational engagement. Community discussions yielded five overarching vision statements which guided all decisions about site, building form, and materials.

Beyond the energy used during building operations, the construction of buildings causes atmospheric emission of carbon dioxide and CO2 equivalent gases (CO2e). Some of these emissions are related to the materials’ “embodied energy” but some materials have high emissions due to other factors, such as direct emissions from chemical processes, or the use of high GWP blowing agents.