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Smarter Sustainability Decarbonization & Electrification

Our Smarter Sustainability journey refocuses our Industry Purpose and Why while presenting an amazing opportunity for us to express to the world how we can make a difference and lead the transformation. The biggest takeaway is that we, as individuals and even companies have very little control over our collective carbon footprint.

Government really matters "that system or group of people governing an organized community"

My journey's goal is to achieve improved Sustainability for all. While gathering information and writing it has been a re-awaking of my personal carbon-free goals and reminds me of how I find myself living over 30 years almost carbon-free in a highly automated passive solar home with a recycled brick mass storage wall, in a close walkable community now with an electric vehicle. All of my industry presents as AutomatedBuildings.com has been projected remotely to the industry from that carbon free home corner office location. Almost no changes were needed for Covid, just no traveling to events. " more Carbon savings ". My main recreational activities are also carbon-free; biking, hiking, sailing, & kayaking.

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All supporting my life goal "Live where you want to play while bringing manageable parts of your work with you". I am embracing the teachings of my mentors old and young to improve my personal Sustainability as a life goal. There are severe limits to what individuals can do to achieve true substantially, this only happens collectively. Hence the following thoughts.

My friend and sustainability mentor Alex Zimmerman the Founding President of Canada Green Building Council - CaGBC provides these thoughts in his blog

Personal vs Societal Responsibility for GHG Emissions

“The discussion around the climate crisis and solutions to it is often dominated by a focus on choices made by individuals. There is an insidious aspect to this. It implies that if causes, and therefore solutions, to the climate crisis arise largely as a result as a consequence of aggregate individual choice, then climate change is your fault because you are not making the correct choices, and further, it is somehow a moral or ethical failing on your part. Not only that, it lets societal institutions avoid acknowledging their responsibility and acting on it.” "But really, how much of climate impact is in fact due to personal choice and how much is effectively beyond our individual control because of societal choices? I decided to explore this question by looking at our household carbon footprint and the effect of some changes that we have made recently" “What lessons can be drawn from this exercise?” “The first is that personal choice can indeed make some difference.” “Also, and I think this is the biggest take-away, is that we, as individuals, have very little control over the carbon footprint of the remaining categories” “My point is this: while there are things we can and should do as individuals, the majority of the carbon footprint we have is determined by societal choices, choices and decisions made by government. In this struggle, government really matters and therefore who you vote for matters – politics matters.”

Alex Zimmerman is a writer, adventurer, and amateur boatbuilder, sideline occupations which paralleled his mainstream career as technologist, executive, environmentalist and consultant in the green buildings industry before his retirement. He can now afford to pursue his former sideline occupations full time.

What is Smarter Sustainability? This Forbes article "A Smarter World Will Be More Sustainable" starts to explain. A world that anticipates and automates, which promises to envelop users in an integrated array of services that don’t just wait to be asked to help (on demand) but rather serve as trusted participants in the choices and actions we take. This automation can deliver a range of tangible sustainability benefits, from energy savings to reduced emissions.

The province in Canada where Alex and I live has created 100 page pdf  A Building Electrification Road Map for British Columbia - The abundant supply of clean, renewable electricity in BC and the mature state of high efficiency, electric technologies for most building space and water heating applications, means electrification is recognized by all levels of government as a critical component of strategies for decarbonizing the province's building sector.

This is fueled and supported by Canada Green Building Council - Who Mission is, A transformed built environment leading to a sustainable future. CaGBC’s Zero Carbon Building Standard is the new measure of green building innovation.

Carbon emissions represent the true climatic impact of buildings. Only by focusing on emissions during design, and assessing emissions once in operation, can we ensure the low-carbon outcomes Canada needs.

Massive infrastructure investment is needed in the electricity grid worldwide. Renewable power generation and energy storage is a smarter, faster and less expensive infrastructure improvement choice. Storage will change how electric systems are engineered – building to average demand rather than peak.

Very pleased to have Brad's article A Practical Guide to Deep Carbon Reduction Retrofits - Eliminating the bulk of emissions from existing buildings poses unique challenges, but bringing an in-depth understanding of building operations into the design process offers a path forward.  We have several excellent examples of this outcome Vancity Credit Union Headquarters and Park Place and Coquitlam Centre Mall.

Brad proceeded with this article, Data Driven Design – Retrofitting for a Low Carbon Future How we design and size equipment needs a modern approach as we retrofit with low carbon heating systems. All of that BAS data you’ve been archiving can help.

This global article describes Decarbonization in the USA  https://memoori.com/california-continues-to-set-the-standard-for-building-decarbonization/
California is especially known for its green regulations, where it has continuously set new standards for vehicles, power generation, and building efficiency in the US.

This global shift is to a smarter stronger more diverse greatly enhanced electrical supply with reduced Carbon emissions. My last article Smarter Buildings Decarbonize states, The new measured variable is carbon. Are you ready to measure, record, analyze, and react?

Over the last 18 months, Climate Tech VC has obsessively reported on the explosion of activity in climate tech investing. We’ve tracked ~1,000 unique investors who have collectively participated in funding ~600 venture capital climate tech deals since Q2 2020.

In Japan - An exhibition gathering decarbonisation solutions such as Corporate PPA, Renewable Energy, Technology for Energy Management, Net Zero Energy Building, Next-Gen Ventilation, etc.
Those who are in charge of corporate management, executive board, corporate planning, factory/building management, etc. will visit to find decarbonisation solutions.

All of the above speak to our industry, presenting amazing opportunities to add sustainability to all we do. We need to talk about carbon reduction collectively and how A smarter world will be more sustainable and use this to evolve, grow and market our products and services .

Our present crusade is gathering followers for the coalition led by the Monday Live Group

WE ARE THE COALITION FOR SMARTER BUILDINGS - C4SB We envision a world where people live, learn, work, and play in healthy, comfortable, and productive built-spaces, enabled by smart digital technologies that ensure sustainable and economically responsible development and operation.

The Monday Live group realized the need to explain easily and quickly how our products and services connect

Using the Monday Live - Open Source Stack Tool

As we all start to use the tool its value greatly increases this quick pictorial stack summary shows how each user evolves the tool. Some great examples with linkage to their source on Monday Live YouTubes.

The purpose of the stack was to quickly explain ourselves. So here is my take using the stack as the medium to explain with linkage to where the info came from. The captured examples says it all and quickly explain our varied solutions.

The pictures are worth a thousand words

Industry input on Smarter Sustainability

James Dice - Energy efficiency and electrification

"Energy efficiency and electrification are the two main drivers of decarbonisation of the buildings sector. That transformation relies primarily on technologies already available on the market ).

Digitalisation and smart controls enable efficiency gains that reduce emissions from the buildings sector by 350 Mt CO2 by 2050."

To get to a zero carbon buildings sector, this IEA report says we must:
1. Retrofit >85% of buildings to zero‐carbon‐ready level by 2050 (and ensure that zero‐carbon‐ready compliant building energy codes are in place by 2030 at the latest)
2. Build 100% zero‐carbon‐ready new building construction by 2030
3. Scale up heat pump production by 10x by 2050
4. Install solar thermal on 1.2B buildings by 2050
5. Adjust our residential energy heating and cooling setpoints to avoid 14% of demand by 2050
6. Increase appliance efficiency by 40% by 2050
7. Sell only LED lighting by 2025
8. Provide electricity and clean cooking to 9.7B people by 2050
9. Install 7500 TWh of distributed solar PV generation on buildings
10. Install 3.5B privately owned EV chargers in buildings

I think we as an industry must unite around this list.

The Net Positive Manifesto
Both practically and morally, corporate leaders can no longer sit on the sidelines of major societal shifts or treat human and planetary issues as “someone else’s problem.” For their own good, they must play an active role in addressing our biggest shared challenges. The economy won’t thrive unless people and the planet are thriving.

Society’s expectations of business have changed more in the past two years than in the previous 20. A pandemic, expanding and ever-more-expensive natural disasters, George Floyd’s murder, attacks on democracy, and more: All moved us past a tipping point. Both practically and morally, corporate leaders can no longer sit on the sidelines of major societal shifts or treat human and planetary issues as “someone else’s problem.” For their own good, companies must play an active role in solving our biggest shared challenges. The economy won’t thrive unless people and the planet are thriving.

Audette offers a platform that creates low-carbon transition plans for large commercial real estate portfolios, digitizing the process of assessing energy conservation potential in buildings. The company’s software captures data from a variety of sources, including utilities, maintenance requests, building reports, and sensors in smart buildings. Audette then uses this data to identify and review opportunities for low-carbon building improvements.

“With the impacts of climate change growing more apparent, the need for low-carbon planning has never been greater,” said Naismith. “Retrofitting the built environment represents an enormous opportunity for rapid decarbonization, and Audette is helping asset managers realize these ambitions.”

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