Henderson Engineers recently attended the 2022 Building Performance Analysis Conference and SimBuild, co-organized by ASHRAE and IBPSA-USA. The conference brought together more than 250 attendees from across the building industry and focused on building better buildings utilizing low carbon strategies. Daric Adair, technical manager, returned from the event with the following key takeaways:

Carbon is Key

Implementation of low carbon strategies was at the forefront of the conversation. This includes active, embodied, and total – with zero being the target. Presentations were centered on how to reach this goal and what areas should be targeted to accomplish that feat. The projected continual growth of our planet’s population and building stock will force a need to reduce carbon in new buildings to mitigate the overall addition of emissions.

Existing buildings will also play a significant role given the need for retrofitting structures and equipment that have reached end of life. The opportunity to repurpose a building for a new use by reusing as much of the existing structure and redefining its operational energy and carbon needs is critical.

Learn more from Henderson about Building Electrification:
> Establishing the Case for Building Electrification
> Combatting the Climate Crisis through Building Electrification

Bridging the Gap Between Disciplines

Modelers see themselves as the nexus for architects, engineers and sustainability professionals. This is a necessary role that is needed to help bridge the gaps between the different disciplines to drive meaningful changes and design/build better buildings.

Since many different parties control different aspects of the design, there is a need for a central director/score keeper to help keep everyone on the same page. Architects and structural engineers control much of the embodied carbon while building systems components are becoming a growing share of this metric. Design decisions made by architects and building systems design engineers impact much of the operational/active carbon emissions; forcing the need for a balance between embodied and operational carbon. A design decision to include passive conditioning methods or features may increase embodied carbon, but significantly reduce operational carbon. There are two extremes, but solutions towards the central balance of the embodied and operational spectrum seem more promising for reducing total carbon emissions.

Learn more from Henderson about Regenerative Design:
> Regenerative Design: The Evolution of Sustainability

The Impact of Climate Change

Underscoring the focus on carbon was the impact of climate change on building design and the impact of carbon emissions on the climate. By reducing emissions, the goal is to reduce, limit, and then reverse and restore the climate.

There’s a need to better understand how climate change impacts building design. Multiple sessions focused on sources of future weather data or means to generate estimates of future weather files for use in building simulation. These future weather, climate, and design conditions feed directly back into the evaluation of how global warming affects building performance and resiliency.

Henderson Knows Sustainability

We take sustainability seriously and we have worked diligently over the last decade to integrate sustainable concepts into our standard business practices. We believe that every decision should be enhanced by environmental considerations and that sustainable design isn’t a specialty service — it’s a best practice.

Every project can achieve significant energy savings through thoughtful decisions and smart resource allocation. It’s about doing more with less, applying sustainable solutions, and making the right decision for the future to achieve our clients’ sustainability goals. Learn more about our sustainability service offerings by clicking here.