The U.S. Green Building Council is looking to
help LEED building owners with the launch of the Building Performance
Initiative.
The U.S. Green Building Council is
looking to help LEED building owners with the launch of the Building
Performance Initiative. The initiative will offer data collection from all
buildings that have achieved Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
certification.
The program will also offer analysis data and
provide feedback to building owners to address performance gaps stemming from
predicted building performance versus actual performance.
“This
initiative is about gathering knowledge about building performance in a way no
one has ever done before,” said Scott Horst, USGBC LEED senior vice president. “The
information that we collect from our certified projects is a workable, holistic
approach for achieving better performing buildings.”
Horst
noted that the LEED green building program was created to transform the way
buildings traditionally have been designed and constructed with the goal of
reducing the building’s impact on the environment by being more energy, water
and resource efficient, but a building’s day-to-day operation has a dramatic
impact on its performance. Without better information, an owner or facility
manager won’t know where the gaps are and be able to act on them, according to
the USGBC.
There are several things that can affect the
ability of a building to deliver high performance, including energy modeling
tools, properly timed energy models, quality building commissioning, and the
coordination between design and operation.
“Plenty of people
are content to simply point to these longstanding issues without offering a
constructive way to address them. We’re
going to take them on and engage practitioners and thought leaders alike in
establishing a national roadmap to optimize building performance,” said Horst.
Four
Building Performance Initiative summits will be held across the U.S.
this September and October. Participants will have a chance to preview USGBC’s
data collection agenda and proposed analysis methodology and provide feedback.
“The
local summits are a way to gather people’s input for our vision and also for
them to share their performance stories, successes and challenges,” Horst added.
Input
from these meetings will be reported on at the First Annual Building Performance
Summit at Greenbuild Nov. 11-13 in Phoenix.
