Key Building Industry Organizations Establish Commercial Buildings Initiative to Drive Progress on Net Zero Energy Buildings

Washington DC December 21, 2007 -- Given the growing consensus on the need for aggressive public and private action to address increasing energy costs, carbon emissions, and global climate change, key building industry organizations have formed the Commercial Buildings Initiative (CBI) and examined how to transform commercial buildings energy use at a workshop on the Initiative in Washington, D.C. December 10, 2007.

The Commercial Buildings Initiative is an alliance of industry, academic, and government minds focused on the cost-effective and widespread delivery of Zero Net Energy Commercial Buildings. As a broad-based public/private partnership, CBI’s will plan, coordinate, and implement comprehensive activities to transform energy performance in commercial buildings over the next few decades, through technology, market, and policy innovation.

CBI and its goals are closely aligned with key industry-leading organizations’ efforts to significantly reduce energy consumption in commercial buildings and to achieve advances that approach zero net energy buildings by 2030. Founding sponsoring organizations include the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers, the American Institute of Architects, the United States Green Building Council, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the U.S. Department of Energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Alliance to Save Energy. CBI’s goals are echoed and supported by the recently enacted Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (Section 422).

The next Commercial Buildings Initiative workshop will be held at the ASHRAE 2008 Winter Meeting in New York City January 22 from 1:00 – 3:00 PM. This public workshop will serve as an educational event and will include an open discussion forum for attendees. For further information on this workshop, and on the Commercial Buildings Initiative in general, please see http://buildings.lbl.gov/cbi/.

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