If your members sell insulation for a living, it might seem logical for your trade organization to co-sponsor a detailed analysis that promotes the feasibility of constructing commercial and residential buildings to a net-zero energy performance standard. That is what the North American Insulation Manufacturers Association did, in collaboration with Building, Design + Construction magazine, for The Next Frontier in Green Building, a white paper whose publication was being touted by NAIMA in an August 1 press release.
To provide a foundation for their analyses, Building, Design + Construction‘s editors defined a net-zero energy building as one with “greatly reduced operational energy needs” and with renewable-energy systems in place that will bring the structure’s overal energy use to net zero without adverse energy or environmental impacts.
A pragmatic approach
To the co-sponsors’ credit, the white paper contains plenty of credible information, even though it is written by longtime energy efficiency advocates. Veteran green-building consultant Jerry Yudelson, for example, contributed “Analyzing the Business Case,” one of the paper’s eight segments. Yudelson focuses largely on commercial construction, but his discussion is detailed and numbers-based, and also includes a lengthy discussion on barriers to realizing benefits from net-zero-energy buildings.
Another segment, “Action Plan: 21 Recommendations to Advance Net-Zero Energy Buildings and Homes,” by the editors of Building Design + Construction, is essentially a compilation of often discussed strategies for improving government research programs, code and permitting priorities and incentives, utility regulation, appraisal standards, building-owner investment strategies, training program development, architecture and engineering firm commitments to NZE projects, and performance monitoring.
It is a long wish list. But not unrealistic, especially given rising energy costs and gradual shift in client expectations for better building performance over the long term. (You can download the paper, in whole or in part, for free by clicking here.)
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Although he focuses on commercial structures in this instance, energy efficiency consultant Jerry Yudelson details the business case for building to the net-zero-energy performance standard in a white paper published by the North American Insulation Manufacturers Association.
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Where the energy goes: This chart is included in “Action Plan: 21 Recommendations to Advance Net-Zero Energy Buildings and Homes,” one of the white paper’s eight segments.
