Enhancing Existing Buildings Through LEED for Operations and Maintenance
According to the USGBC, decarbonizing existing buildings is a major priority to reduce the impact of the built environment on global emissions. While new buildings are hopefully more energy-efficient, upgrading the buildings we already have is crucial to avoid both operational and embodied carbon emissions for decades to come.
Existing buildings offer immediate opportunities for operational emissions reduction and can help us achieve an environmentally responsible and socially equitable future. This is because
- Renovating an existing building has a much lower carbon footprint than building a new building (lower embodied carbon).
- When a renovation includes energy efficiency upgrades, it also reduces the current operating emissions associated with that energy consumption (lower operational carbon).
- Decarbonizing existing buildings through renovation opportunities comes along with opportunities to improve health and indoor environmental quality (IEQ): thermal comfort, air quality, lighting, acoustics and more.
- Reusing buildings is an investment in people, by strengthening existing neighborhoods, as renovating and upgrading buildings also generates more jobs per dollar invested than new construction, and the jobs tend to be local and favor small businesses.
The three steps for revitalization of existing buildings, whether for energy efficiency or, now, for decarbonization, has essentially remained the same over the years, with the addition of one new strategy that has risen to the top in the last few years:
- Eliminate on-site combustion of fossil fuels, such as through mindful electrification.
- Improve building efficiency/passive strategies: insulation, windows, shading, air sealing, daylighting.
- Improve systems efficiency: lighting, HVAC, water heating, appliances, controls, etc.
- Offset the remainder with renewable energy: probably photovoltaics, ideally on-site.
These steps are critical for older buildings (those built 15 or more years ago), but even newer buildings constructed to LEED for Building Design and Construction standards can benefit from a reassessment, through existing third party frameworks, after five years of operation.