At the AIA Convention in Miami last Thursday, several Northwest firms presented on their efforts to track and benchmark energy performance on all their projects. The session focused on how firms are doing in meeting their AIA 2030 commitments. Margaret Montgomery, Director of Sustainability for NBBJ and Chris Chatto on the ZGF Sustainability team, as well as Paula Vaughan of Perkins + Will each described their methods and presented their findings and data to date. It was impressive to see the downward trend lines in energy consumption from earlier projects to more recent ones for all the firms. Perkins + Will has developed a web-based tool, called 2030e2, to help determine 2030 compliance.

ZGF reported that they have now benchmarked all their projects worked on by the Seattle office and were advancing with other offices. Just the fact of reporting (mostly modeled performance at this point) has had an impact on the firm’s interest in improving performance.

NBBJ has been working on reviewing and revising their practice since 2006. Part of that process has been the use of the IDL Puget Sound to help in research and tracking. In early 2008 they signed on to the 2030 Challenge of Architecture 2030 and in early 2009 they signed on the the AIA’ 2030 Firm Commitment.  Part of that commitment requires reportiong on project performance in terms of energy and carbon emissions.

Chris Jordan, a Seattle-based artist, delivered a very interesting keynote address on the impacts of mass consumption.  Check out his work here www.chrisjordan.com.

NEEA’s BetterBricks initiative will be exploring the findings from the two Northwest firms in a future article. Stay tuned.

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