Software to Save the Planet?

All is not well with the third planet from the sun; and one of the culprits may come as a surprise:
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, buildings are the single largest contributor to global warming, accounting for almost half of total annual U.S. energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

As a consequence, an emerging answer to the continuing build-up of greenhouse gases is to design and build greener buildings; and when it comes to green buildings, it's pretty straightforward: reduce energy consumption and subsequent CO2 emissions.

Easy enough on paper, but how do you go about this?

USGBC's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) benchmark and certification program for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings lends a good and detailed hand by isolating and recognizing green construction achievement in five key areas of both environmental and human health:
-sustainable site development;
- water savings;
- energy efficiency;
= materials selection; and
- indoor environmental quality.

The Challenge
However, when the rubber gets closer to the road and it comes to designing a green building, be it an office building or a data center-especially if the owner and architect are aiming for a high LEED rating such as Gold or Platinum-a small ocean of factors enter the equation which elevates the design from chore to challenge.

In designing a green building, architects and engineers need to consider not only sustainable building materials, but they also need to determine, among other things, the optimum orientation of the building, available water recycling options, the best type of light fixtures, and the internal distances to windows for both natural light and ventilation. These and other factors all have bearing on the sustainability of the design.

To the Rescue
Now, what if there were a software that could design a building with all of these green factors in mind? A software that could calculate and display the carbon footprint ramifications of such and such an HVAC system or that would automatically work out the energy savings achieved by double, or triple, glazing. A software that could determine the impact of a 20 feet narrowing of the building structure; or of, say, better-rated exterior insulation.

Enter the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and Autodesk.

At the Chicago Greenbuild 2007 Conference and Expo last November, Phil Bernstein, Vice President at Autodesk, explored whether a design team could in fact receive real-time feedback on the carbon, energy, and water usage impact of their design choices; all the while tracking their LEED credits as well, also in real-time.

He did this in the form of a futuristic demonstration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) that allowed designers to change their plan on a touch screen, and immediately see the environmental ramifications of those changes.

The software database, he explained, would hold sufficient historic and product data to allow the designer to immediately view the result of design choices, and further enable him or her to adjust these choices to maximize LEED credits.

All to an enraptured and enthusiastic crowd.

To be sure, this software does not yet exit, but it is far more than a glint in someone's eye at this point.
As Rick Fedrizzi, Founding Chairman of the USGBC put it at the conference, "This kind of tool will have a tremendous impact on our ability to effortlessly integrate sustainability as a priority in everything that we do."
"Perhaps it will be available in beta form by the Boston Greenbuild 2008."

The USGBC and Autodesk Agreement
This development effort is the result of a 2006 agreement between Autodesk and USGBC, which aims to transform and automate the practice of sustainable design