Presenters:

Liz Dunn, Consulting Director, Preservation Green Lab

Dave Hewitt, Executive Director, New Buildings Institute

Jayson Antonoff, Energy / Climate Change Policy Advisor, City of Seattle

Existing buildings represent the vast majority of building energy use, but prescriptive energy codes do a poor job of encouraging widespread retrofit. Compliance with energy codes is determined at permit time, using prescriptive or predictive models, with no post-construction accountability for actual performance. Prescriptive codes trail rather than lead innovation because they don’t allow for new unproven approaches to load reduction or local renewable generation. The City of Seattle and the New Building Institute have teamed up with the National Trusts’ Preservation Green Lab to pioneer a new energy code compliance framework, for both new and existing buildings, based on actual post-construction performance outcomes. Owners would have the flexibility to pursue whatever retrofit strategies they deem appropriate to their individual buildings, but would be required to actually achieve a pre-negotiated performance target, demonstrated through mandatory annual reporting of energy consumption. Together with city rankings, targeted incentives to trigger upgrades of the worst performers, and extensive sub-metering requirements, these policies could capture the effects not just of building design but of actual commissioning and tenant behavior, and serve as the foundation for massive-scale market-driven improvements and potential district-level energy performance trading schemes.


Session Format:  LECTURE.

Presenter Bios

Liz Dunn

Liz Dunn is a real estate developer and urban policy consultant who specializes in adaptive reuse and small-scale urban infill projects. She is currently the Consulting Director of the Preservation Green Lab for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The PGL partners with selected cities to create polices that leverage the value of building reuse and retrofit as part of their sustainability and climate action plans.

Dave Hewitt

Dave Hewitt is Executive Director of New Buildings Institute (NBI), a national nonprofit which conducts research, develops strategy and publishes technical guidance to reduce building energy use, primarily in the commercial sector. Prior to joining NBI, Dave directed the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance’s commercial sector portfolio. He has also served as Director of Research, Development and Evaluation at Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships; Director of the Energy Office for the City of Portland, Oregon; and the first Executive Director of the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation.

Jayson Antonoff

Jayson Antonoff is the Energy / Climate Change Policy Advisor for the City of Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development, where he support projects and develops long range policies to further the City's goals for energy efficiency and reduction of greenhouse gas impacts within the built environment – including buildings, neighborhoods, and infrastructure. Jayson was previously co-founder of International Sustainable Solutions, where he researched global best practices in urban sustainability.