Sustainability and Resilience

In the current utility and building management landscape, sustainability and resilience goals, rising energy costs, lean operation and maintenance (O&M) budgets, and natural or human-induced disasters present fundamental challenges in the way communities and campuses manage their energy and facility resources. This paper focuses on two key concepts – sustainability and resilience – and their applications in the current design and construction industry. ...

INTRODUCTION

Sustainability

Sustainability has been a priority interest for many organizations, and this is especially true in ASHRAE. Sustainability is defined, similar to the definition developed by United Nations Brundtland Commission in 1987, as “providing for the needs of the present without detracting from the ability to fulfill the needs of the future” in ASHRAE GreenGuide (ASHRAE 2010). Another definition from ASHRAE is that sustainability is “the concept of maximizing the effectiveness of resource use while minimizing the impact of that use on the environment” (ASHRAE 2006).

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Resilience

Since the United Nations Brundtland Commission in 1987 sustainability has been a hot topic for decades, while resilience has only become popular recently and most of engineers and architects are still not very familiar with the concept. Drawing upon the work of National Research Council, resilience is defined as “the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events” defined by America’s design and construction industry (American Institute of Architects (AIA) 2016). Another common definition of resilience is “the capacity to adapt to changing conditions and to maintain or regain functionality and vitality in the face of stress or disturbance” (Nall 2015).

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