Priorities on the Road to Sustainability
Part One: Why Buildings Matter

R.Christopher Mathis

MC2 Mathis Consulting Company, Inc.

Local, national, and global trends have caused us to try to define and layout an action plan toward the goal of “sustainability”.  Essential to any sustainability plans or goals are critical decisions about our buildings – the ones we’ve already built as well as those in our future.   These critically important sustainability decisions involve a diverse array of topics including:

• Energy and power policy, planning, and governance
• Water policy and planning
• Community planning and infrastructure development
• Building codes – for new construction as well as for existing buildings
• Building design and performance targets – minimum code and beyond code
• Building operations and maintenance
• Commissioning of building envelopes, HVAC systems, lighting, and controls
• Human Comfort and the Built Environment

Any broad objectives toward “sustainability” require that we re-examine and re-assess the role and importance of our buildings, how we govern them, plan them, repair them, and operate them.

As building professionals, we go to work every day and do what we do.  But often we fail to remember or even to fully understand WHY what we do every day is so important.

In this seminar noted building scientist, author, educator, and ASHRAE Fellow R. Christopher Mathis will provide a renewed perspective on the importance of our buildings.  He will take us on a journey through some of the emerging trends, challenges, and opportunities on the road to sustainability.  Chris will offer a detailed perspective on the role buildings play in our local, national, and international economies.  He will also share those sometimes less-than-obvious connections between critical building performance decisions and the impacts on national and international energy policy, local and regional utility planning, between air conditioning demand and the availability of clean water, between building performance, and national energy security.  Chris will also put some scale to these interconnections in ways we will likely have not considered – for both new construction as well as for the expanding challenges and opportunities embodied in our addressing the performance of our existing buildings.

As a key member in shaping building performance codes and standards at ASHRAE and at the ICC, Chris will share his perspective on key code and regulatory trends in building performance, and where he sees the residential and commercial codes that shape our industry are heading.  He will use the current code requirements of ASHRAE 90.1-2019 as the starting point for his discussions on anticipated priorities for future building performance goals.

The seminar will conclude with an interactive Q&A on these topics.

Who Should Attend?

Provocative and informative, the presentation should be of interest to a variety of disciplines, including but not limited to Policy Makers, Design and Engineering Professionals, Property Developers and Owners, Facilities Managers, Municipal personnel, and others.  Students in engineering, architecture, environmental science, urban planning, and other disciplines will certainly enjoy the expansive scope and content.  All in attendance should gain a new or renewed sense of the critical importance of our buildings on the road to sustainability.