Explore trends and issues impacting our industry
The dialogue on buildings and energy is quickly shifting. Not that many years ago the focus was on the push for more efficient equipment—an HVAC unit with a higher SEER. Then came the recognition that such progress had both practical limits and limits written into the laws of physics. Attention began to shift to systems thinking—how
If you’ve been in facility management long enough, you’ve encountered a few of these problems before: variable speed pumps that run close to 100% much of the time; a chiller that labors with low Delta T; or, worst of all, complaints of hot and cold spots in occupied spaces. So, what do you do? Look
Henry Ford once said, “You can have any color you want as long as it’s black”—a slogan that launched the early industrial model. And still today industry relies on economies of scale—and scaling means as little product differentiation as possible within a product line. Industrial efficiency thrives on product commoditization, but in a competitive global
Revolutions in the science, strategies, and prospects for building performance are happening faster than transformation of the American building stock. Within a decade the frontier moved from more energy-efficient building components to integrated buildings systems, opening dramatically new opportunities. Today the focus for strategic leaders is looking toward holistic buildings within systems-integrated communities that cut
