Green-building author offers five top lessons for performance projects

Sources: Routlege Publishing, New York City; Building Design + Construction, Arlington Heights, Ill.

Building Design + Construction magazine has summarized key take aways from author and green-building thought leader Jerry Yudelson: a typical project should be able to achieve the same energy and water use as LEED Platinum-certified buildings, as there is nothing magical about good design; high-performance projects stand out because of building teams’ commitment to achieving “best-in class” results; high-performance green design uses about the same energy everywhere in the world; there is no inherent conflict between buildings with architectural merit and those with high-performance green characteristics and low-energy outcomes; and, there are no standard definitions of building energy use, no good ways to “tease out” core energy use from special operations such as onsite data centers. The lessons were culled from a book published in early 2013, The World’s Greenest Buildings: Promise vs. Performance in Sustainable Design (Routledge). www.greenbuildconsult.com