Your building has the potential to change the world. Existing buildings consume approximately 40 percent of the energy and emit nearly half of the carbon dioxide in the US each year. In recognition of the significant contribution of buildings to climate change, the idea of building green has become increasingly popular. But is it enough? If an energy-efficient building is new construction, it may take 10 to 80 years to overcome the climate change impacts of the building process. New buildings are sexy, but few realize the value in existing buildings and how easy it is to get to “zero energy” or low-energy consumption through deep energy retrofits. Existing buildings can and should be retrofit to reduce environmental impacts that contribute to climate change, while improving human health and productivity for building occupants. In The Power of Existing Buildings, academic sustainability expert Robert Sroufe, and construction and building experts Craig Stevenson and Beth Eckenrode, explain how to realize the potential of existing buildings and make them perform like new. This step-by-step guide will help readers to: understand where to start a project; develop financial models and realize costs savings; assemble an expert team; and align goals with numerous sustainability programs. The Power of Existing Buildings will challenge you to rethink spaces where people work and play, while determining how existing buildings can save the world. The insights and practical experience of Sroufe, Stevenson, and Eckenrode, along with the project case study examples, provide new insights on investing in existing buildings for building owners, engineers, occupants, architects, and real estate and construction professionals. The Power of Existing Buildings helps decision-makers move beyond incremental changes to holistic, results-oriented solutions.

This book analyzes the trends and technologies of green and energy efficient building, identifying strategies for implementing energy savings and enabling the use of renewable resources in residential, commercial, healthcare and educational building sectors. The authors focus on best practices in temperate climates, providing in-depth coverage of urban heat island, climate change and fuel poverty mitigation through architectural optimization, leveraging renewable energy sources and utilization of cutting-edge cooling materials. Pragmatic emphasis is placed on improving the energy performance of existing building stock to meet short and long term objectives of climate and energy conservation strategies. Engineers, architects, designers, students, policy makers and efficiency professionals will all gain valuable insights and ideas from this practical handbook to greening the built environment.

Energy Efficiency in the Urban Environment is a study of energy crisis, urbanisation, and climate change, as well as a discussion of how to combat these global challenges. With a special focus on Egypt, this book addresses the macroscale of urbanism from the perspective of city dwellers' quality of life, and explores the microscale of buildings and

This book provides a comprehensive exploration of some of the most critical issues regarding the EU’s Energy Union policy. Applied European energy policies face a number of challenges ranging from the geopolitics of energy and energy regulation, to climate change, advancing renewable and gas technologies, and consumer empowerment structures. This book takes a multi-dimensional look into some of these vital issues regarding the European energy sector with a special focus on the effects the Energy Union policy has in two sensitive regional systems, Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. Energy, being by definition a multi-disciplinary field, presents a challenge for readers of any specific disciplinary background that need to grasp an overall understanding of the various aspects of this exciting sector. This book’s objective is to offer the opportunity for readers to get a quality, hands-on overview of the Energy Union by the professionals and academics that interact with it on a daily basis.

This book is the result of recent research that deals with the built environment and innovative materials, carried out by specialists working in universities and centers of research in different professional fields ─ architecture, engineering, physics ─ and in an area that that spans from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf, and from South Eastern Europe to the Middle East. This book takes the necessity of re-shaping the concept of building design in order to transform buildings from large scale energy consumers to energy savers and producers into consideration. The book is organized in two parts: theory and case studies. For the theoretical part, we chose from the wide range of sources that provide energy efficient materials and systems the two that seem to be endless: the sun and vegetation. Their use in building products represents a tool for specialists in the architectural design concept. The case-studies presented analyze different architectural programs, in different climates, from new buildings to rehabilitation approaches and from residential architecture to hospitals and sports arenas; each case emphasizes the interdisciplinarity of the building design activity in order to help readers gain a better understanding of the complex approach needed for energy efficient building design

The book covers chapters ranging from introduction to recent technological challenges, case studies of energy-efficient buildings with policy and awareness issues, fundamentals and present status along with research updates and future aspects on topics focusing on energy-efficient construction, materials Provides comprehensive information on energy efficient buildings including policy and energy audit aspects with case studies Examines application of PCMs in passive heating and cooling in buildings; role of active TES and energy saving potential

The book “Building Energy Audits-Diagnosis and Retrofitting” is a collection of twelve papers that focus on the built environment in order to systematically collect and analyze relevant data for the energy use profile of buildings and extended for the sustainability assessment of the built environment. The contributions address historic buildings, baselines for non-residential buildings from energy performance audits, and from in-situ measurements, monitoring, and analysis of data, and verification of energy saving and model calibration for various building types. The works report on how to diagnose existing problems and identify priorities, assess, and quantify the opportunities and measures that improve the overall building performance and the environmental quality and well-being of occupants in non-residential buildings and houses. Several case studies and lessons learned from the field are presented to help the readers identify, quantify, and prioritize effective energy conservation and efficiency measures. Finally, a new urban sustainability audit and rating method of the built environment addresses the complexities of the various issues involved, providing practical tools that can be adapted to match local priorities in order to diagnose and evaluate the current state and future scenarios towards meeting specific sustainable development goals and local priorities.