In 2009, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) introduced the 2030 Commitment Program, a voluntary initiative for AIA member firms and other entities in the built environment that asks these organizations to make a pledge, develop multi-year action plans, and implement steps that can advance AIA’s goal of carbon neutral buildings by the year 2030. [...]
In this SALON article by Michael Lind, “Everything You’ve Heard About Fossil Fuels May Be Wrong,” he argues that humans still enjoy access to abundant fossil fuel-based energy resources, particularly with discovery of new natural gas reserves, and advancing energy recovery technology. Andrew Leonard quickly penned a response published in SALON the next day, titled [...]
The Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey, produced by the Energy Information Administration at the Department of Energy (DOE), provides incredibly valuable information about how commercial buildings use energy and energy-using systems such as lighting and HVAC. If you wanted to know things like, “How many office buildings are in the Northeast?” or “What is the [...]
Total U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were 6,576 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) in 2009, a decrease of 5.8% from the 2008 level, according to Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States 2009, a report recently released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Since 1990, U.S. GHG emissions have grown at [...]
I’m pleased to announce that I have finally completed the long awaited (by my publisher) update to The Lighting Management Handbook, which came out in 1994, with this 300-page book about redesigning existing lighting systems: Lighting Redesign for Existing Buildings. Because light is used to see but cannot be seen, it is often overlooked by [...]
Lime Energy has joined GE Lighting’s Energy Services Program, which involves a consortium of energy services consulting firms who work closely with GE to help commercial and industrial firms formulate strategies to optimize the financial and environmental returns available from improvements in building energy efficiency. Through its affiliation with GE, Lime Energy will also help [...]
The University of California, Davis and the California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC) have announced a commitment to reduce the campus’s electricity use for lighting by 60% by the end of 2015. The Smart Lighting Initiative makes UC Davis the first large institution to commit to a sweeping cut in energy use after the California Public [...]
Precision-Paragon [P2], a division of Hubbell Lighting, Inc., has released a free web app that provides a starting point for determining cost/benefit for lighting upgrade projects in offices, warehouses and manufacturing spaces. The Lighting Retrofit Calculator is available on the [P2] website.
Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and the Environment Katherine Hammack issued a new policy memorandum to improve high performance green buildings standards for the Army. “Energy security, sustainability and efficiency are national security imperatives,” said Hammack. “This policy supports the Army’s global missions in a cost-effective, safe and sustainable manner that will [...]
New Buildings Institute (NBI) has announced the publication of the inaugural online version of the Advanced Lighting Guidelines (ALG). ALG is a premier resource for energy‐efficient lighting design, technologies and applications representing the latest and best thinking of experts in the field (I was pleased to contribute the controls chapter with Dorene Maniccea, and edit [...]
