How do you convince clients to prioritize energy efficiency?

Show clients that along with delivering the best designed building for the goals & budget, we want to use todays great building science tools to ensure their investment will be a healthy comfortable building that will cost less to operate & maintain, holding its value.

Additionally, energy-efficient practices can contribute to a more comfortable environment by creating consistent indoor temperatures, reducing drafts, and minimizing humidity variations. This leads to better occupant comfort and productivity, which can positively impact their overall experience within the space. By investing in energy-efficient technologies and practices, your clients can achieve both financial savings and improved comfort for their occupants.

The easiest way to convince the clients is to provide a payback period calculation and LCC (life cycle cost) analysis. Moreover, with the increasing cost of electricity across the globe, it will soon become a necessity to have energy efficient designs and renewable energy sources.

Identify the increased value that building more sustainably, such as to Passive House standards, will have on their property investment. This will become more prominent as society asks for property credentials before purchasing as happens in Europe.

It may be useful for initial meetings to focus on engagement tailored to to discuss values. Personal values expressed in conversation, or even game based activities, can be tied to the various benefits of sustainable design. If we feel that we are making value based judgments concerning design issues then those design decisions are much less likely to be taken out during any subsequent value engineering exercise.

Integration of passive design, renewable energy, smart technology and green materials: These elements work together synergistically. Passive design minimizes energy demand, renewable energy sources meet that demand sustainably, smart technology optimizes usage, and green materials support healthy interiors. This comprehensive approach creates a balanced, energy-efficient, and environmentally responsible system that benefits occupants, operational costs, and the planet. Presenting these concepts in a cohesive manner shows how each component complements the others to form a holistic and efficient system that aligns with your client's goals for sustainability, cost savings, and occupant comfort.

As an example I've used one of the popular tools to give building specific cost-performance relationships. This hastens most clients' decision making process per proposed strategy as they're able to make informed decisions based on parameters such as final utility cost, utility cost savings, projected incremental cost all in the local currency! It also gives the investment payback time in years and number of people impacted!

To achieve broad adoption among developers and builders, it is crucial to emphasize financial incentives. Utilizing localized case studies and pertinent data analytics that directly impact the bottom line of similar projects in the region can be more persuasive than discussing climate change and its consequences. Because let's face it there are decision-makers who think climate change is not real.

Applying holistic tools that have a measured outcome in reduced energy use such as Passive House can be applied to avoid piecemeal solutions that favour certain industries.

There are only a FIVE general principles to employ: 1. Air Tightness (the biggest bang for your buck. Membranes are cheap insurance.) 2. Thermal Efficiency (Continuous insulation or wood stud cavity insulation.) 3. Window and door quality. (There are Passive House level windows available for not much $.) 4. Vapor Control. (Placed on the WARM side of the insulation and ALWAYS minimum 15mil thickness below slab.) 5. Spray Foam. (Dont depend on this for all of the above.)

Relating to their everyday events usually does a lot, either through where they work or their homes, getting them to talk about how they feel when they visit or interact with different places (thermal comfort, visuals, materials etc), and now bringing in the logic behind how spaces/built asset influence how we feel, work be it positive (access to natural light, biophilic spaces) or negative (sick building syndrome, air draft etc). By letting them speak of how they relate to their spaces and how they affect them clients can be guided on what measures they can take to improve the quality of their lives within these spaces, and also do it sustainably.

Showing this issue to employers that you are an important part of excellence and improving conditions for the benefit of the environment allows them to find a sense of duty and move towards it, and in this way, show them step by step. These actions motivate them more

It is crucial to ensure a full understanding of the benefits of energy efficiency within a process. Customers should be engaged in the process and encouraged to apply critical thinking to develop solutions tailored to their business. A customer who isn't involved in the energy efficiency process may experience subsequent failures, rendering the solutions unsustainable. Energy efficiency solutions exemplify accountability and responsibility, not only in terms of cost savings but also concerning environmental sustainability.

It's beneficial for the clients to understand the difference between the operational costs when designing energy efficiency. Minimising the loss of energy and continuous monitoring of the systems guide the facilitation team and enhance the maintenance and life of the building.

Work with local consultants as much as possible to ensure solutions suit the immediate context. This avoids redundant considerations where they aren't required or under designed solutions. For example an upland tropical climate allows for mostly passive design, however what happens if the site is situated within a highly polluted area? An airtight system may be required which would require AHUs filtering incoming air for which there are many ways to precondition temperatures passively. Low U- Values are required for facades in the Northern Hemisphere however in some climates this may be an extra cost with little or no effect on the performance of the building as ambient exterior temperatures may be close to internal temperatures.

Majority of people will consider sustainable design as green design, however, there has to be a clear definition that describes the two not only to clients but practitioners as well. Although there are many integrating definitions of the two and in most cases, describes similar things, I would first suggest looking at the clients understanding of their needs and priorities. It is my belief that any building can achieve green design injection as part of the overall design, however, sustainable design is a standard that can be achieved without need to describe to the clients....it should be a designers standard to the overall environment, built and natural.

The EDGE (Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies) software is free and offers a measurable way to model and cut back on the resource intensity of your building. The online platform quickly allows you to determine the financial viability of including green aspects on your projects.

By making it a strict guideline on the rules and regulations from the government Imposing taxes, fines on the activities which involves such practices