Moving from a Floundering Prescription-based to an Outcome-based Building Energy Performance Code

Context

What is the link between this famous quote by #alberteinstein on #insanity and how #building #design and #construction, #policymakers and #buildingscience community, me included, around the world has treated #buildingenergycode development and, but more importantly, its #implementation?

The Problem?

Building Energy Code is widely viewed as one of the most effective ways to improve the overall #energyefficiency of any country's #buildingstock. The entire process of developing codes has evolved with the widespread use of #energysimulation tools, transforming the process of building energy code development around the globe, esp. in the last two decades. And yet, there is a massive gulf between the quality and stringency of building energy codes development and its #enforcement and #implementation.

In a remarkable demonstration of #groupthink, policymakers, and the building science community kept prescribing all around the world - OECD?and Global South countries alike - that the solution lies in creating awareness and #capacitybuilding of millions of govt officials, building inspectors, permit-giving officials along with architects and consultants, companies manufacturing building materials, lighting, HVAC and electrical systems to help enhance the #adoption and #compliance with the ever-increasing stringency of the building energy codes. Global Building Performance Network's Policy Evidence Library gives a maximum rating of 4/10 on enforcement standards to a sample of countries and states from the US, Europe, and Asia. Over a span of almost half a century, there has not been a single country, barring some self-declaration from China, that can show consistent evidence that a prescriptive compliance approach based on an army of knowledgeable and honest code compliance officials at the city and town level a) performing quality inspections to maintain the integrity of the code compliance and approval process in a consistent and uniform manner and; b) leading to the expected #buildingperformance through consistent and uniform evidence.?

An Alternate Approach

Based on research, analysis and documentation spanning close to five decades around the world and complementing it with observations, professional experience, research, and policy work during this time, I propose a fundamental shift in the way building energy codes should not only be designed but more importantly implemented around the world:

• Traditionally, most comprehensive building checks consist of the following stages: desk review, site inspection at several construction stages, and final site inspection. In a detailed survey encompassing 22 countries, authors concluded that enforcement of building codes is not uniform and consistent since it is under the purview of local authorities. Conducting training programs while offering compliance resources and aligning penalties and incentives with desired outcomes may lead to better results. They further highlighted this as being particularly important, given the trend toward increasing complexity of building energy codes. (Evans M., Roshchanka V., Graham P. 2017)
• Nations do not have the ways and means to train an army of local government officials who can perform rigorous building energy code compliance. They never had, and based on past experience and evidence, they never will. The problem is exacerbated in Global South because of limited resources and capacity. And even if we believe for a moment that these resources will magically appear, maintaining quality and consistency during the compliance process will be a formidable challenge. And even if that were to happen, there is not enough evidence that the prescriptive compliance method leads to predicted or actual building performance. It is time to abandon this insanity.
• As building energy codes move from an operational energy focus to #netzeroenergy or #embodiedcarbon focus, we need to have a framework where future knowledge and information that is currently not available to the design, science, technology, and policy-making community can be absorbed and plugged as and when it becomes available and sometimes in a dynamic manner rather than waiting for the code-cycle to commence and conclude;
• Future building energy codes need to be more outcome-based and less prescription-based to bring a culture of accountability and performance throughout the design and construction industry over the entire lifecycle of the building. Given the rapid advancement in energy simulation tools, the gulf between code development and compliance/implementation has kept expanding. Upon reflection, it should be obvious that the building energy code community’s attempts to keep transferring the science and knowledge of energy-efficient and increasingly net-zero energy buildings are misplaced and will lead to underwhelming results.?
• The solution lies in using #sensor #metering #energymanagement technologies to validate the predicted performance of the buildings through measured and verified building performance. We should also prepare ourselves for future technologies that will get more sophisticated and be able to perform code compliance that is much more #costeffective and #accurate - an Achilles Heel for the sustainable building design practitioners and a persistent problem that we have been unable to address properly for decades. ?

The principles for developing the building code or, indeed, for designing any building will not change - that's not what I am advocating for. To design all buildings, one must use sustainable building design principles - focus on the envelope, energy efficiency, and renewable energy - do everything from the first principles. This mantra for designing net-zero energy, water, and waste buildings stays the same. The big change I am advocating is rather than relying on people to individually check and verify the component-level performance, which remains very important (U-value, SHGC of glazing, lighting efficacy, co-efficient of performance, or season energy efficiency ratio, motor or boiler efficiency, etc.), we deploy?carefully selected and vetted technology?to help out. This has posed the biggest and intractable challenge, and there are still no workable and assured solutions. The building design and construction community needs to agree on metric/s that will be an "outcome" of all the design, materials, systems selection, and controls for efficient operation, etc. which can be measured and verified with the help of sensors, meters, and energy management systems, simplifying the whole process without depending on a well-trained and super-motivated army of people. The metric can be around thermal comfort, heat flux, or energy use, normalized and customized by suitable parameters.

The Big Prize

By pivoting in the journey of building energy code development and evolution and learning from close to half a century of experience, the global building design and construction community can show #leadership and take concrete action to make good progress toward addressing a #wickedproblem through thoughtful actions rather than hope. With our planet’s future at stake and the building sector’s key role in creating a #netzero future, it is high time that we stop this #insanity and commit to taking concrete and specific actions by promoting building performance, around the globe, in this decade of #climateaction.?