As the construction industry pushes forward to solutions that are absolutely necessary for the future of sustainable life on this planet, there is an essential conversation that has to take place about the role of energy balance in the context of durability and resiliency.
The short version is that Net Zero, as a goal on its own, promotes a macro scale solution to energy production versus consumption. We must produce more than we consume. Agreed.
However, there’s an element that gets lost in this equation:
Buildings are for PEOPLE.
Photovoltaic panels do not protect your structure from moisture-driven damages. Wind turbines do not guarantee healthy indoor air. Simply looking at the NET energy balance over the course of a year does not address the time it takes for your structure to become unlivable in an extremely hot/cold spell.
One of the reasons we, at Emu, have dedicated ourselves to using the international Passive House standard as our building code is that we strongly believe that the adoption of this standard will holistically and preemptively address the problems that plague our built environment in the years to come.
Want to learn more?
Watch our one-hour presentation: “The Healthy Side of Zero-Energy: High-Performance Buildings” Please contact us if you’d like to have us speak to your community on this subject.
This presentation was recorded at the February 13, 2019 meeting of the Boulder Chapter of the Colorado Renewable Energy Society. Video produced by Natural Focus Digital, an environmental video production and aerial cinematography company based in Boulder, Colorado.
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