tailieunhanh - Green Building Costs and Financial Benefits

There is growing recognition of the large health and productivity costs imposed by poor indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in commercial buildings—estimated variously at up to hundreds of billions of dollars per year. This is not surprising as people spend 90% of their time indoors, and the concentration of pollutants indoors is typically higher than outdoors, sometimes by as much as 10 or even 100 times. 6 The relationship between worker comfort/pro- ductivity and building design/operation is com- plicated. There are thousands of studies, reports and articles on the subject that find sig- nificantly reduced illness symptoms, reduced absenteeism and increases in perceived produc- tivity over workers in a group that lacked these features. 7 For example, two. | Green Building Costs and Financial Benefits by Gregory H. Kats Green Building Costs and Financial Benefits by Gregory H. Kats Sponsors Barr Foundation Environmental Business Council of New England Inc. Equity Office Properties Massachusetts Technology Collaborative Massport In co-operation with The City of Boston Green Buildings Task Force Greater Boston Real Estate Board Boston Society of Architects Western Massachusetts AIA Green Roundtable Developers Roundtable Northeast Sustainable Energy Association Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Real Estate Finance Association Health Care without Harm Springfield Chamber of Commerce New Ecology Inc. The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative is the state s development agency for renewable energy and the innovation economy. The agency administers the Renewable Energy Trust which is maximizing the benefits of clean energy and helping to create jobs for the Commonwealth by stimulating new supply and demand for green power. The Trust was created in 1998 through the electric restructuring law and is funded through a monthly surcharge on electric utility bills. For more information please visit the agency s website . Captions for cover photos top to bottom The . Williams Federal Building in Boston includes 30 kW of solar photovoltaics and a 75 kW cogeneration system. Through an MTC grant a data acquisition system has been installed at the site to monitor the production and savings of these systems. Artists for Humanity is building a new facility in the Fort Point Channel district of Boston to house its arts education programs. The building has been designed to reduce energy use by 65 and to include significant daylighting and other green building features. Up to 100 of remaining energy needs will be met by the installation of 45 kW of solar photovoltaics funded by MTC. In its redevelopment of an historic mill building as a mixed-use office and commercial facility Alternatives Unlimited has focused on the .