Carbon Neutral Building

The building sector is one of the most resource-intensive industries. In Egypt, buildings consume 60% of electricity, produce 8% of CO2 emissions, and anthropize agricultural land, peri-urban and urban landscapes. To compensate for these consumption patterns, building envelopes can become productive in terms of greening and energy production. This encompasses the implementation of productive building systems that include (a) greening systems such as building-integrated vegetation and agriculture systems and (b) solar energy systems such as building-applied and integrated photovoltaics. For Egypt, the transformation toward more productive buildings still lacks a holistic understanding of their status and implementation requirements. This paper undergoes a comprehensive analysis of the two systems’ classifications, benefits, challenges, and implementation aspects based on a thorough assessment of 121 studies and 20 reports addressing them. This is coupled with a contextual analysis us...

Today, more than 50 per cent of the world’s population lives in cities, which will increase to 70 per cent by 2050. Cities account for 75 per cent of the energy consumed worldwide and are responsible for 80 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. The potential energy-saving is enormous, as buildings account for about 40 per cent of the global energy demand. This resource demand for buildings could be minimized through holistic carbon neutral design coding with integrated life-cycle scenarios, intelligent project delivery and synchronous digital manufacturing processes. For policy makers and the building industry, intelligent long-term solutions are required to reduce the impact of design, consumption of scare resources and the environmental impact. This essay evaluates case studies and how the future of computationally developed carbon-neutral architecture will affect the design and integrated practice through parametric-topological and/or algorithmic modelling. The findings within the essay suggest that these synchronous design tools offer new visions in the Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI) with integrated digital factory-to-file manufacturing processes. These emerging planning protocols for industrial-scaled modes of production for carbon-neutral buildings go beyond the novel design coding.

Natural ventilation is the most conventional and one of the significant alternative applications for energy efficiency. Cross-ventilation is commonly used in hospitals, shopping centres or greenhouses. In this study, cross-ventilation for a greenhouse was investigated. The greenhouse buildings may differ in design depending on the region and climate. Therefore, when natural ventilation methodology is carried out in these buildings, the effect of solar radiation should also be taken into consideration. There have been many studies on natural ventilation in the literature, but while these studies have been conducted, the impact of solar irradiation has never been combined. In the present study computational geometry was created according to 4 different roof inclinations: 0°, 15°, 30°, and 45° - provided that the inlet and outlet opening positions are fixed. Moreover, each inclination was simulated at the following hours of the day: 10:00, 13:00 and 16:00 in June. The hex-dominant grid...

Central Air Conditioning is more reliable for easy operation with a lower maintenance cost. The effective design of central air conditioning can provide lower power consumption, capital cost and improve aesthetics of a building. This paper establishes the result of heating load calculation under different climatic conditions by using E-20 for a multi-story building. Heating load items such as people heat gain, lighting heat gain, infiltration and ventilation heat gain and cooling load due to walls and roofs. Using ISHRAE and CARRIER fundamental hand books and here the study of air water vapor mixture (called psychometric) for human comfort in the air conditioning system for the city Hyderabad.

Many organizations have become concerned about the environmental impact of their facilities and operations. In order to lessen environmental impact, quantitative assessment of practice based on improvements from a baseline condition is needed. The Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) has determined that the establishment of a carbon footprint baseline for its building and vehicle fleets will aid in prioritizing limited renovation funds and purchasing decisions. The procedure for establishing the carbon footprint baseline for KDOT building utility use is documented. A methodology for estimating the energy and carbon emissions for building energy use with some unavailable data also was developed. It was estimated that the carbon footprint baseline for KDOT’s 122 complexes that have utilities is 11,891 metric tons of CO2 equivalents.

The number of mosque buildings is continuously increasing with the Muslim population, which is in fast growth around the world. In particular, the demand of new mosque buildings is high in the urban areas, due to increasing urban population growth in many parts of Muslims countries, as a result of economic growth and political instabilities in some parts of the Muslims world. Mosques are becoming more overcrowded and as a result a number of researches have been conducted to address the issue of thermal comfort of mosque users. Additionally, mosque building is unique because of its intermittent operation and various users, which require a unique heating or cooling strategies. On the other hand due to environmental pressure to suppress global warming, more energy efficient and sustainable buildings design is one of the current issues in building industries. This research aims to explore the sustainable techniques for mosque buildings in different climate zones. This research assesses ...

With the growth of direct-to-consumer (D2C) and e-commerce enterprises, the warehousing sector in India has expanded significantly. However, it has also increased the carbon footprint in supply-chain management, inadvertently making warehouses a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. These pollutants are attributed to various factors, such as high energy consumption due to heating, cooling and lighting, the use of airconditioning , excessive paper consumption and inventory waste, and static and mobile material handling equipment.

Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) governments are encouraging advances in renewable energy and its deployment to reform domestic energy market policy. GCC countries including United Arab Emirates (UAE) all have begun to explore renewable energy technologies. This research intended to develop a framework model to use Grid Tied photovoltaic renewable energy (GT-PV) in the housing design of the GCC region particularly in UAE. In this regard, research has analyzed the various types of housing plans and worked out the possibilities of retrofit design to adapt renewable energy model to implement (GT-PV) in existing housing for their energy needs.  This study has determined the total energy need of each type of house, data of energy need was statically analyzed, and renewable energy output was calculated. The end result of research has surfaced a comprehensive model to design a grid-tied photovoltaic renewable energy system to cater the need for private housing in UAE

Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) governments are encouraging advances in renewable energy and its deployment to reform domestic energy market policy. GCC countries including United Arab Emirates (UAE) all have begun to explore renewable energy technologies. This research intended to develop a framework model to use Grid Tied photovoltaic renewable energy (GT-PV) in the housing design of the GCC region particularly in UAE. In this regard, research has analyzed the various types of housing plans and worked out the possibilities of retrofit design to adapt renewable energy model to implement (GT-PV) in existing housing for their energy needs.  This study has determined the total energy need of each type of house, data of energy need was statically analyzed, and renewable energy output was calculated. The end result of research has surfaced a comprehensive model to design a grid-tied photovoltaic renewable energy system to cater the need for private housing in UAE

One of the key issues of the contemporary city is “urban voids”, characterized by disused buildings. Such spaces can be the starting point for a new urban setting, where the city reconnects to the rural environment. Vertical farming can be a new paradigm connecting these often-opposed concepts, bringing several advantages. This paper presents an experimental case study about a typical situation in a peripheral context of the city of Trento. An industrial building under decommissioning is restored as a vertical farm through a circular economy perspective, combining natural resources with ICT, consumption, and reuse processes. , ,

Universities have always had an important leadership role in society in demonstrating the types of changes that need to occur with respect to the prime issues of the time. All around the world, universities are lining up to declare themselves the next carbon neutral school as part of the global trend of becoming "sustainable." But what does it really mean to be carbon neutral? In 2007 Victoria University's School of Architecture and Design (SoAD) declared themselves the first carbon neutral campus in the world through the use of sponsored and purchased carbon credits. However 100% reliance on offset schemes is not the answer as it does not guarantee the capture of carbon forever. Also, the continuing purchase of carbon offsets could be costly and maintaining businessas- usual without any significant changes will result in continuing environmental degradation as a result of the SoAD's unsustainable activities. This research explores various solutions for reducing th...

The positioning of leaders at the Leaders Summit on Climate held this year, makes Brazil rethink series of actions related to the environmental issue. For HEIs, as opinion makers and responsible for the qualification of professionals who work in different areas, it is indispensable this discussion to be made in their environments as well. However, there are few with effective environmental management system or able to present a parameter that clearly shows their concern about the sustainable issue. Some universities have already structured systems involving the dean office. This work aims to identify the main difficulties in the localization of the items that constitute each of these footprints internally in a Higher Education Institution (HEI), by determination of different environmental footprints (ecological, water and carbon). A preliminary survey shows that in some cases, simple control would assist in the quantitatively follow-up of fuel expenses, among others. I.

Book Description:
According to many authorities the impact of humanity on the earth is already overshooting the earth’s capacity to supply humanity’s needs. This is an unsustainable position. This book does not focus on the problem but on the solution, by showing what it is like to live within a fair earth share ecological footprint.

The authors describe numerical methods used to calculate this, concentrating on low or no cost behaviour change, rather than on potentially expensive technological innovation. They show what people need to do now in regions where their current lifestyle means they are living beyond their ecological means, such as in Europe, North America and Australasia. The calculations focus on outcomes rather than on detailed discussion of the methods used. The main objective is to show that living with a reduced ecological footprint is both possible and not so very different from the way most people currently live in the west.

The book clearly demonstrates that change in behaviour now will avoid some very challenging problems in the future. The emphasis is on workable, practical and sustainable solutions based on quantified research, rather than on generalities about overall problems facing humanity.


Review of the book:
"Informed, informative, scholarly, insightful, thoughtful, and thought-provoking... [A] vitally necessary addition to professional, academic, corporate, and governmental library Environmental Studies reference collections." - The Midwest Book Review, June 2013

"‘Sustainability’ is a term that is bandied about all the time, casually applied to anything that is slightly better than the usual, however marginal the improvement might be. This is a book that corrects that mis-use, setting out exactly what a sustainable lifestyle actually entails." – Jeremy Williams, Make Wealth History

"The key contribution of this collection is the provision of extensive, detailed comparative assessments of the relative ecological footprint associated with different dimensions of our resource consumption, providing at times surprising insights into the comparative impact of, for example, automobile versus air travel, or the ecological footprint reduction that could be achieved with a lowering of meat consumption." – Canadian Studies in Population, Debra J. Davidson, University of Alberta

About the editors (and authors):
Robert and Brenda Vale are Professorial Research Fellows in the School of Architecture, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. They share common research interests in ecological footprinting and sustainable building design, and are both currently working on the new Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FRST) project to deliver ecological footprinting and systems approaches to sustainable development of communities.

Carbon footprint Nepal Airlines Mitigation Distance Fuel Abstract This paper deals with evaluation and analysis of carbon footprint of an airline operator, Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) by using its actual flight and maintenance data from 2016 to 2019. NAC is a multi-fleet operator, of both turboprop and turbofan aircrafts. Carbon footprint in terms of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emission has been calculated for NAC’s airline operations per individual aircraft, fleet-type and operating sector (i.e., international and domestic), and total ground handling operations. In each of the study years, contribution to NAC’s total CO2 production from its domestic fleet was found out to be very small (below 6% of yearly total), even though its fleet number outnumbered that of international fleet. This indicates better optimization opportunities for international-sector (turbofan) aircrafts than domestic-sector (turboprop) aircrafts. Reductions in fuel on-board as per prescribed levels, better airpo...

The analysis of building characteristics indicates that there are some uncertainties influencing its energy performance: Environment, volumetry or operating conditions. It is important to have a low-cost system that performs this analysis and energy management by optimizing the coupling between production and consumption. Knowing the relationship between the annual thermal needs with different construction parameters can help to define this system and allow understanding the expected heating and cooling consumption based on easily available information. In this work, a numerical methodology has been applied to estimate the thermal loads of a building without internal gains. For this purpose, a simulation environment has been developed to execute a sensitivity analysis through the interconnection between TRNSYS 16.1 and GenOpt programs. Volumetry, building materials according to Spanish regulations and percentage of external windows are evaluated as analysis variables of the parametr...

: EW-201135, Coupling Geothermal Heat Pumps (GHPs) with Underground Thermal EnergyStorage (USTES) was proposed because, in the US, the fundamental design of GHP systems,with their underground Groundloop Heat Exchanger (GHX) or water supply wells, has beenlargely unchanged for decades, while the international design community has progressed to moreinnovative and efficient architectures. Energy consumption associated with Heating, Ventilationand Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems are generally a significant contributor to a buildingsentire energy consumption. In pursuit of reducing energy consumption, the HVAC industry istypically progressing to develop various types of HVAC technology to help reduce the energyconsumption of an associated HVAC system. Historically, conventional GHP HVAC systemsare considered one of the most, if not the most efficient active HVAC systems. Most DoD (andnon-DoD commercial) facilities in many geographic regions are cooling dominated due to theconsistent pres...

Climate change caused by global warming provided a compelling context to engage engineering and ecology students in a semester-long, interdisciplinary, service- learning activity. We addressed three levels of inquiry throughout the semester: global, institutional, and personal. At the global level of inquiry, traditional class- room lectures and discussions reviewed climate change science and the role of energy systems in climate

Sustainability has been a rising concern for facility projects since the early 1990s. It is conscious that in terms of carbon emissions, energy usage, water use, utilisation of raw materials, waste production and many other factors, construction and operation of buildings have enormous direct and indirect environmental consequences. Increased economy and population will create more and more challenges for the design, construction and operational community to fulfil the new requirements for infrastructure that are affordable, safe, resilient and sustainable while reducing their environmental impact. The building envelope's key feature is to offer shelter, safety, solar and thermal control, control of moisture, control of indoor air quality, access to sunshine, and outdoor views, fire resistance, acoustics, cost-effectiveness, and aesthetics. This study seeks to promote awareness on the energy friendly design strategies which economically minimize operational expenditure, while enhancing comfort of the occupants in the building. This work would allow architects, engineers and builders to choose the most efficient or climate-reactive envelope alternative in order to improve thermal environment efficiency of the construction design being proposed.

Dear colleagues,
This Special Issue aims to attract works of scientific interest to deepen our understanding of these fields with different approaches. Therefore, research activities about different strategies for climate change adaptation and mitigation in the energy sector are welcome.
Topics for this Special Issue include but are not limited to:
carbon footprint and energy efficiency climate neutral business energy-related carbon emissions reduction carbon capture and storage renewable energy decarbonization of energy supply reducing energy remand energy efficiency enhancement behavioral changes circular carbon economy carbon neutrality at universities climate mitigation in cities energy infrastructure resilience adaptation measures of the energy sector

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/ClimateAdaptation_Mitigation

Buildings could play a critical role in energy and food production while making high density cities more resilient. Productive fac¸ades (PFs), as flexible and multi-functional systems integrating photovoltaic (PV) and vertical farming (VF) systems, could contribute to transforming
buildings and communities from consumers to producers. This study analyses the architectural quality of the developed PF concept drawing on the findings of a web-survey conducted among experts e building professionals in Singapore. The developed design variants are
compared with regards to key design aspects such as fac¸ade aesthetics, view from the inside, materialisation, ease of operation, functionality and overall architectural quality. The study also compares and discusses the results of the web-survey with the results of a previously conducted door-to-door survey among the potential users e residents of the Housing & Development Board (HDB) blocks. The findings confirm an overall acceptance of the PF concept and
reveal a need for synergetic collaboration between architects/designers and other building professionals. Based on the defined PF design framework and the results of the two surveys, a series of recommendations and improved PF prototypes are proposed for further assessment and implementation in order to foster their scalability from buildings into communities and cities.

A waste audit is an analysis of your facility's waste stream. A waste audit conducted on an Sri Sai Ram Institute of Technology, Chennai has been reviewed and the results are used for making waste management policies in educational institutions. The waste audit was conducted for a week from July 10-July 17 2017 in the institution with student strength of 2500. Everyday waste was segregated according to various kinds of waste. The average waste of the week was calculated and food waste comprises most of the everyday's waste being 58% in a week's average and plastic waste being 17 % comes second. With the data available from the waste audit a solid waste management system is framed by using recycling techniques and alternative uses. Solid waste management policy can be used to create a zero waste campus.

As we enter a decisive decade for sustainability, is the window of opportunity for hotels closing?
Following a decade of growth which brought jobs and fostered local and regional development, the tourism and hotel industry has repeatedly outperformed the global economy.
More than 3,000 new hotels opened their doors in 2020 alone. However, the industry is also responsible for nearly one-tenth of all carbon emissions globally, with the hotel sector accounting for almost a quarter of all tourism emissions.
Under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the hotel sector must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions per room per year by 66 percent by 2030 and 90 percent by 2050 compared to 2010 (ITP, 2017). The technology required to decarbonize the industry is available now.
How do you see the calls for more sustainability within your organization and, in particular, our responsibility to bring about a carbon-neutral future?
View all responses from CEOs of the largest and most prominent hotel companies
(e.g. CEO Hilton; CEO Deutsche Hospitality; CEO NH Hotels; CEO Kempinski; CEO CitizenM): https://www.hospitalitynet.org/panel/125000028.html