Better buildings by design: Overcoming barriers to efficiency
- Rocky Mountain Inst., Snowmass, CO (United States)
Buildings use roughly a third of the energy--and two-thirds of the electricity in the US--and, unfortunately, waste most of it. Most offices, schools, factories, shopping malls, apartment complexes, houses, and other buildings are heated, cooled, ventilated, and lit in abysmally inefficient ways--not because their developers, architects, contractors, operators, and owners were venal or stupid, but because they all faithfully did their jobs, responding to the incentives they saw. Indeed, the market in efficient building services is so imperfect that it is best described as spherically senseless--it makes no sense no matter which way you look at it. The good news--now being demonstrated by farseeing architects, developers, contractors and engineers--is that the numerous institutional barriers to efficiency can be profitably overcome. Indeed, the compelling economic and environmental advantages of better design represent a tremendously lucrative opportunity. To seize it, however, one must first understand where the barriers are, and how they can be surmounted.
- OSTI ID:
- 6771532
- Journal Information:
- Strategic Planning for Energy and the Environment; (United States), Vol. 14:3; ISSN 1048-5236
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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