Throughout the world, climate change and environmental issues are arguably the greatest issue of our time. This has catalysed a major shift in the building design process, as well as related governmental regulation and voluntary codes.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighted that buildings are responsible for the single largest proportion of global energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and raw material usage. It is estimated that buildings actually account for around 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions and that direct and indirect emissions from the building sector have increased by 75% between 1970 and 2004.
Due to the dramatic and swift change in the perception of buildings and their role in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, designers are now facing a number of issues and challenges in developing sustainable buildings. How can they steer through today’s maze of sustainable design strategies, technologies, industry standards and regulations to achieve energy and carbon reductions whilst ensuring good performance and occupant comfort?
Building design teams are increasingly appreciating that good energy efficient design requires an understanding of how a building will perform. This can be achieved by leveraging a range of different modelling and analysis techniques that look at all aspects of energy consumption and its impact on and interrelationships with carbon footprint, thermal comfort, daylight, solar and other building performance metrics.
Our technology has been built to address these issues and answer how building designers can ensure and demonstrate that the building is efficient and comfortable, complies with the required codes or regulations, and will continue to perform as intended throughout its life.
