Leadership Charleston – Statehouse Sketch

TYD 2010 Sustainability Data Published

While sustainable goals have been integral to the Thompson Young Design approach since inception, today we published our findings from our 2010 projects. This week we also submitted our 2030 sustainability action plan, my favorite item being “no dry cleaning unless significant meeting or event.” I have complied with that for decades, but Yvonne Chouinard of Patagonia brought the inherent green-ness of this to my attention in his book about his company.

Above, PEUI stands for Projected Energy Use Intensity. Simply put it is a measure of kBTU’s/Square Foot/Year. Since you can’t read the graph, I have to tell you that our 2010 projects have a predicted  11.6% reduction from average energy use.  This measurement comes from compliance with the 2006 or 2009 International Energy Conservation Code; I think soon we’ll be able to show this number is a lot higher, which I’ll address below.

 LPD above stands for Lighting Power Density and measures Watts/Square foot. Our 2010 projects show a 12.9 percent reduction below the national average for lighting power density. 

The dark black lines above are the goals for the 2030 challenge . I think that we’re actually doing better than the graph shows. For example,  in many cases we’ve exceeded the minimum requirements of the Inernational Energy Conservation Code (IECC), but because we haven’t measured the energy use or done an energy model for the project, we can’t claim it. So this year (2011) we’re investing in an energy modeling  program to add value to our service and reduce energy use in our projects, and show that we’re closer to the line than it looks from the graph.

One very simple but remarkable thing about lighting power is something drilled into our heads all the time – that fluorescent lights save tons of energy. A 60 watt bulb can be replaced by a 15 watt fluorescent bulb, and energy use is reduced by three quarters.  The translation to the wallett is direct. Simons