7. Many older buildings perform (or could
perform) better than we think
Energy Use in Commercial Buildings
120
100
80
kBTU per sf
60
40
20
0
Before 1920 - 1945 1946 - 1959 1960- 1969 1970 -1979 1980 - 1989 1990 - 1999 2000 - 2003
1920
Year of Construction
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2003 Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey
8. Information will help level the playing field
Source: Cliff Majersik, Institute for Market Transformation
9. NTHP LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT STUDY
Distribution
Use
End of life
Manufacture
Extraction
Transformation
10. The environmental value of reuse
Reuse of average performing buildings offers immediate climate change
reductions over efficient, new construction.
Climate change (kg CO2-eq/ft2 floor space/year)
1.60E+02
1.40E+02
Rehabilitation & retrofit: Base case
1.20E+02
New construction: Advanced
1.00E+02
8.00E+01
6.00E+01
4.00E+01
2.00E+01
0.00E+00
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
Building lifetime (years)
Commercial Building, Chicago
17. New solutions are needed for smaller,
older buildings
73% of our existing
commercial buildings are less
than 10,000 square feet
95% of them are less than
50,000 square feet –
representing half of all
commercial floor space
US Energy Information Administration, 2003
Buildings in Denver’s Historic District.
Photo by Wally Gobetz
18. OUTCOME BASED ENERGY CODES
Objective: To create an alternate, more flexible,
building energy efficiency code framework for
existing and historic buildings
