Last week, the Energy Trust of Oregon released a thoroughly researched and well-documented report summarizing their efforts to establish an “asset-based” energy performance metric for existing homes. The study tested and compared the most highly regarded modeling tools from around the country, including Earth Advantage’s. (Spoiler alert: Earth Advantage’s modeling system was ranked first overall.)
My office, as one of EAI's Education Specialists, is quite close to our classroom. Naturally, the classroom dialouge tends to drift over the walls, so I've become pretty adept at tuning it out. Every once in a while though, something catches my ear. The most recent example of this was a statement made at our Sustainability Training for Accredited Real Estate Professionals (STAR) class a few months ago.
Ella Wong wrote in to update us on the status of her net-zero, passive house, duplex "Trek Haus" being built in southeast Portland by architect/contractor Robert Hawthorne and builder Bart Bergquist. KATU-TV just aired a segment on Tuesday featuring the Portland State University mechanical engineering students who are studying the phase change insulation material being tested in one of the units (the other is the control unit that uses more standard insulation).
Recently an Earth Advantage Institute certified Sustainable Homes Professional, Bruce Butler, wrote to us to let us know how our training paid off for him. Bruce has developed sustainable house plans for stock plan purchase.
I'd like to add that the pay-off is really for all of us. These aren't your ordinary stock plans! As we move toward more sustainable building, we need designers like Bruce to make house plans available to builders and consumers.
With recent affirmation by the Army Corps of Engineers that Arctic warming has resumed at a record pace, the planet has never been under such stress. How can we change our built environment to be more harmonious with our earth? The PBS series E2 points out that "design today must reflect a new spirit, one that sees nature and commerce as one; not as mutually exclusive but mutually coexistent."
Featuring Edward Mazria on the future of design.
Think of it as a series of TED talks with a common sustainability theme… On November 4th sustainability leaders from around the Northwest will convene for Green Day Forum. Discussions will take place around regional trends and policy, how sustainable building is moving to the next level, whether technology influences occupant energy behavior, and what the issues are that green building is ignoring.
Read More »In a typical year, millions of houses are built. Each house will last 50 to 100 years. Today each new house encumbers society with a debt of energy required to operate it over its life. The vast majority of houses built today are old-fashioned energy hogs and each one is a missed opportunity.
Energy visionaries have set their sights on homes that create more than they consume. In ten to twenty years, every new building could be a “zero-energy building,” Or “net zero.” The technology exists today, all we lack is the proper motivation.
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