BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE
The following article was published in ASHRAE Journal, September 2004. © Copyright 2004 American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-
Conditioning Engineers, Inc. It is presented for educational purposes only. This article may not be copied and/or distributed electronically or in
paper form without permission of ASHRAE.
‘ASHRAE’s Role in Green’
By David Grumman, P.E., Fellow/Life Member ASHRAE
The ASHRAE GreenGuide debuted at the 2004 Anaheim
Winter Meeting and on www.ashrae.org in January. At the
meeting, the copies sold out, and a rush supplementary ship-
ment was required. Strong sales continued, and a second print-
ing was required within the first six months.
I believe its popularity can be attributed to a long-felt need
by the ASHRAE community. The green building movement is
growing, with strong impetus (and publications) from the U.S.
Green Building Council. ASHRAE wanted to participate in this,
and the ASHRAE GreenGuide is one of its first initiatives.
The Origin of ASHRAE GreenGuide
The publication was initiated in 2000
when then-ASHRAE President James Wolf
GUEST COLUMN
heard comments from ASHRAE’s
grassroots membership that the Society might be missing the
boat on green building design. (ASHRAE’s purview of techni-
cal expertise, after all, encompasses systems and system de-
signs that account for most building energy use.) He charged
then-President-Elect William Coad, P.E., with developing a
document about green building design.
Coad assigned development of a green building design
document to Technical Committee (TC) 1.10, Energy Re-
sources (now merged into TC 2.8, Building Environmental
Impacts and Sustainability). A small subcommittee was set
up consisting of Jordan Heiman, past chair of Standard Project
Committee 90.1; Sheila Hayter, P.E., then-chair of TC 1.10;
and the author, a retired energy consultant, as chair. (This
role eventually evolved into editor of the book.) The
subcommittee’s first meeting took place during the 2001
ASHRAE Winter Meeting.
Following input from interested parties, within and outside
the TC, on what the document should and should not be, an
outline was developed. The core portion of this outline basi-
cally tracked the HVAC&R design process and covered the
major systems and equipment those systems incorporated. A
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significant portion, especially at the conceptual design stage,
was devoted to process — that is, how green design teams are
set up and how they should function.
The next and most difficult task was finding experts to write
on various topics, and then coaxing them to write their assigned
pieces. More than two dozen authors contributed to the ASHRAE
GreenGuide, some as authors of entire or portions of chapters
and some as authors of ASHRAE GreenTips.
One of the unanticipated features of the ASHRAE
GreenGuide evolved from the stated desire to make this docu-
ment practical for the user. Throughout the guide many tech-
niques, processes, measures, or special systems are described
succinctly in sidebars. Called
ASHRAE GreenTips these give the
designer enough familiarity with a
subject to determine whether it might
be suitable for a certain project. Each
GreenTip concludes with a reference list for greater detail.
ASHRAE GreenTips help make this book unique among pub-
lications addressing green design.
At each Society meeting, a progress report was made to the
subcommittee and full TC, with comments received and noted.
This also provided an opportunity to seek authors for unwrit-
ten portions.
As the document neared completion in early 2003, a three-
person review panel was created within the TC. Nearly all changes
or additions suggested by the panel majority were incorporated
in the version provided for approval by the TC at its June 2003
meeting. Further comments and changes were made until the
last minute. In the end, TC approval was unanimous among those
present and voting. (An unanticipated review was initiated dur-
ing the following summer by Tech Council involving other TCs
deemed to have an interest. This also generated considerable
commentary.) The final book appeared in January 2004.
The whole process took nearly three years, and other than
ASHRAE Special Publications staff’s involvement in the last
two months, the entire effort was produced by voluntary au-
thors, editors, and reviewers.
September 2004
Where We Go From Here
The authors, developing subcommittee and TC have always
regarded the document as a work in progress. Some topics re-
ceive no or minimal coverage, due in some cases to the inabil-
ity to find an author with the expertise and willingness to tackle
certain topics. Some areas where I feel the document needs to
be expanded include: selection and use of materials; impact of
system types; diagrams, illustrations and photographs; and fi-
nally, more ASHRAE GreenTips (targeting 50 to 60 total).
Work has begun on a second edition, and a revision subcom-
mittee of TC 2.8, Building Enviromental Impact and
Sustainability, has been formed.
The Concepts of Green and Sustainability
The first chapter of the ASHRAE GreenGuide discusses in
depth the concepts of green and sustainability to clarify the
meanings of these terms as used in the book.
Both general and specific definitions of green are given. The
general definition addresses what is meant by green design,
saying:
“A design that is green is one that is aware of and re-
spects nature and the natural order of things; it
is a design that minimizes the negative human
impacts on the natural surroundings, materials,
resources and processes that prevail in nature.
It is not necessarily a concept that denies the
need for any human impact, for human exist-
ence is part of nature too. Rather it endorses
the belief that mankind can exist, multiply, build,
and prosper in accord with nature and the
earth’s natural processes without inflicting ir-
reversible damage to those processes and the
Grumman
long-term habitability of the planet.”
Now this is a very broad definition — more like a belief or elements of good design? What contribution do those charac-
credo about the nature of green. However, it does provide overall teristics make toward energy efficiency or toward sustainability
guidance on what to consider a contributor to green design.
More specifics are provided in the following:
A green building is one that achieves high perfor-
mance, over the full life-cycle, in the following areas:
• Minimal consumption—due to reduction of need and
more efficient utilization— of non-renewable natural
resources, depletable energy resources, land, water and
other materials as well. (Corollary to this is maximiza-
tion of the effective use of renewable resources to meet
building needs.)
• Minimal atmospheric emissions having negative en-
vironmental impacts, especially those related to green-
house gases, global warming, particulates, or acid rain.
• Minimal discharge of harmful liquid effluents and solid
wastes, including those resulting from the ultimate demo-
lition of the building itself at the end of its useful life.
• Minimal negative impacts on site ecosystems.
September 2004 Building for the Future | A Supplement to ASHRAE Journal
• Maximum quality of indoor environment, including
air quality, thermal regime, illumination, acoustics/
noise and visual aspects.”
This definition is very close to those of other organizations
involved in green buildings, and it gives one some definitive pa-
rameters for measuring success.
The ASHRAE GreenGuide also states its preferred meaning
for sustainability, which often is cited in the same breath as
green — and that is the simple and direct “providing for the
needs of the present without detracting from the ability to ful-
fill the needs of the future.”
The common thread running through both definitions is mini-
mizing non-renewable energy resource use, avoiding environ-
mental degradation in its many forms, and reducing a building’s
negative impacts on its surroundings — all of which are di-
rected toward achieving sustainability of the planet over the
long term, leaving enough behind to sustain future generations.
Has Green’s Scope Become Too Broad?
The issue raised here is whether some of the characteristics
that have come to be included within the scope of green have
diverted attention away from green building design’s main pur-
pose: enabling the built environment to make a fair-
share contribution to Earth’s sustainability. A June
2004 Chicago Tribune article on “green architecture,”
for instance, cites such features as median planters,
avoiding inhospitable (interior) environments, uplift-
ing spirits and surroundings of occupants, drawing
people together, and reshaping the human ecosys-
tem, along with features that save energy, or at least
have the potential to do so.
While the foregoing characteristics are laudable
and worthy design goals, the question is whether
they belong as elements of green design or simply
as defined earlier?
Human productivity improvements, which studies purport
result from better indoor environments, certainly are a benefit
for the business or institution with improved worker satisfac-
tion and work output, but does this goal, however worthy, re-
ally contribute substantially to sustainability? (To be sure,
human productivity counts, and if conditions are so bad that
occupants cannot do their job, that could matter in the long
term. But, it is doubtful that most buildings, where no special
effort was made to create a particularly good indoor environ-
ment, are so bad that long-term sustainability is affected.)
The perceptive reader, at this point, may have wondered why
the last bullet of the ASHRAE GreenGuide’s specific green
definition—addressing the quality of the indoor environment—
was included, given the previous discussion. It was included
with reservations, the main reason being simply to maintain
compatibility with the definitions of other organizations.
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Does good or even superb indoor environmental quality have
much impact on long-term sustainability? Will it impact a
project’s energy efficiency that much or reduce a building’s
negative environmental impact on its surroundings? (To be sure,
some IEQ-improving features, such as properly executed natu-
ral lighting and its interface with electric lighting, can save
considerable energy.)
Again, good indoor environmental quality should be sought
every time a design is done, just as should all the characteris-
tics of good design. The issue raised here is whether that char-
acteristic, along with some others cited as examples, is more a
good design characteristic than a green one.
And why would this matter? Because the possibility exists
that the attention given to such characteristics, in the name of
green design, may be distracting the design community from
concentrating on the characteristics that really do contribute to
sustainability—and from making some real progress in achiev-
ing it in the long term.
Measuring Success
More building developers and owners are interested in being
seen as green, and more design firms are engaged in producing
what are claimed to be green buildings. The trade and general
press have picked up on this trend and are publicizing these
projects. Many of these accounts cite, in addition to perhaps some
proven energy features, such characteristics as landscaped roofs,
daylighting, automatic shading devices, solar systems, wind gen-
erators, harvested rainwater, or recycled laundry water, etc.
Claims of energy savings are made (usually based on projec-
tions rather than actual historical data), and the capital costs of
the entire project or individual features are cited sometimes.
This all makes for good press. However, a key question for
engineers in particular is whether these green projects really
measure up, especially to the first four bullets of the green
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ASHRAE GREENGUIDE
definition cited previously: Do they really make a fair-share
contribution to what we define as sustainability?
This all points to a need for a database of hard information on
green building performance based on actual historical utility use
and cost, and on recorded experience. The author is aware of
several research projects in the planning stage where this kind
of data will be collected and assembled. However, except on a
whole-building basis, it may not be so easy to obtain.
For instance, do landscaped roofs really yield substantive
benefits (beyond providing a “warm, fuzzy feeling” to owners,
designers, and occupants)? Are energy savings that great? Com-
pared to what alternative? What about less obvious factors such
as added weight to the roof structure (especially after a sus-
tained and heavy rain)? What does maintenance entail over the
long term? What if the roof proper develops a leak and must be
accessed?
It may, in many cases, be hard to separate out the energy
savings of a particular green feature from a building’s docu-
mented total energy savings (even with metering techniques),
so there might have to be some reliance here, as a fallback, on
analysis techniques. On the other hand, added capital and main-
tenance costs, and water costs, easily could be tracked and sum-
marized.
In summary, a growing need exists for hard data. What is
needed first is what overall benefits or drawbacks (e.g., en-
ergy; capital cost; maintenance; rental impact, if applicable)
exist for green buildings in operation, based on actual and
verified historical data. Second, some specific data must be
collected or derived, by whatever practical means available,
for the more commonly used green design techniques or fea-
tures. This would enable green building design teams to fo-
cus on what really matters, based on experience.
David Grumman is editor of ASHRAE GreenGuide.
September 2004