With New Memb=
ers, Green Building
Former ASHRAE President Kent
Peterson Named Committee Chair
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January 28, 2009
Convening Tuesday morning at the Winter Conference of the American Society =
of
Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), one of the
standard’s creators, the new committee approved an aggressive work pl=
an
that should produce a third public review of the proposed standard by the e=
nd of
next month.
If that goes smoothly, it could be ready for publication by January 2010. <=
br>
Known as 189.1 (Standard for the Design of High-Performance Green Buildings
Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings), the LEED-based standard was brought
through two public comment periods by the original committee since 2006,
although it had fallen behind schedule.
When applied to building codes, the standard would set a more rigorous
environmental baseline in areas like energy consumption and indoor air qual=
ity
for buildings to receive a certificate of occupancy. It is being jointly
developed by ASHRAE, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and the
Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA), and has been
championed by many green building proponents.
The meeting Tuesday in
In a statement issued shortly after the committee's disbandment became publ=
ic,
ASHRAE said it took action to "ensure maximum input and appropriate
expertise" in the standard's development, and pledged to reach out to
“all directly and materially affected parties.”
Since then, ASHRAE has moved quickly to reconstitute the committee. With 39
members (including 15 holdovers from the first committee), the group is now
nearly double its original size and includes new envoys from the retail, st=
eel,
timber and utility industries, as well as the commercial real estate sector,
which added representatives from the Building Owners and Managers Associati=
on
(BOMA) International and the National Multi Housing Council (NAHB).
At the meeting, the new committee displayed a sense of urgency and sought to
ease concerns that the recent break-up was a major setback.
“That’s water under the bridge, and now we move forward. We are=
on
a very fast-track schedule,” said Kent Peterson, the P2S Engineering
principal and immediate past president of ASHRAE who chairs the committee. =
Peterson replaced John Hogan of the Seattle Department of Planning and
Development in that role.
Committee members voted unanimously Tuesday to revise and build upon and the
work of the previous group, rather than start from scratch, an option that
ASHRAE left open to consideration. They have paired off into smaller working
groups to examine the standard over the next month, with a new draft due at=
the
end of that time.
“There are areas where we think we need to clean up and enhance the
document in many cases,” Peterson said.