Move over, kale

Health Co-Benefits of the Built Environment (CoBE)

Author

Trip Edwards
January 05, 2024

Happy New Year and welcome to Civil Engineer Wire, a newsletter devoted to civil and architectural engineers in a time of great change. If this post was forwarded to you and you like what you see, click below or head over to civilengineerwire.com to subscribe. Let’s dive in.

Generative AI’s take on a healthy building, brought to you by DALL-E 3

Headline: Researchers from Harvard, Boston University, and Oregon State University are aiming to quantify the health benefits of energy efficient buildings through a novel tool that measures emissions.

So what: It’s not just about sleep cycles, what you eat, and how often you make it to the gym (cue the resolutions 🫠). The built environment has a significant impact on our health. As we covered before, the IEA has shown that buildings account for 30% of global energy consumption (40% in the US) and 26% of energy-related emissions. The researchers are aiming to quantify decreases in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from changes in building energy consumption. To do this, they created the Health Co-Benefits of the Built Environment, or CoBE, tool. CoBE’s mission is to quantify the health and climate co-benefits of individual buildings to improve the health and well-being of people and our planet (health and wellness, so hot right now).

Under the surface: CoBE assesses the emissions footprint, including greenhouse gases and air pollutants, associated with the energy use of a building or a portfolio of buildings. It also evaluates climate impacts and public health effects, comparing emission intensities against established climate policies. The tool can be used to assess current building performance and for future planning. CoBE v.2 includes enhancements such as the ability to perform impact evaluations based on user input data, calculate impacts for both electricity use and heating fuels, and evaluate impacts of both commercial and residential buildings.

According to the research, for every $1.00 of energy savings, the tool can show an additional climate and health co-benefit of $0.02 to $0.81, which could help to improve the ROI of traditionally high-cost green building construction and retrofit projects.

Parichehr Salimifard, Marissa V. Rainbolt, Jonathan J. Buonocore, Mahala Lahvis, Brian Sousa, Joseph G. Allen, A novel method for calculating the projected health and climate co-benefits of energy savings through 2050, Building and Environment, Volume 244, 2023, 110618, ISSN 0360-1323, ScienceDirect.

While the research is geared largely toward monitoring climate and health impacts, the CoBE team also makes a case for healthy buildings being good for business.

Expectations have changed: Buildings must be both healthy and green, safe and smart. Building owners and operators must consider such features or retrofit existing buildings to attract capital or talent. It’s a no-brainer from a business decision-making standpoint.

Joseph Allen, Co-PI of the CoBE Project & Director of the Harvard Healthy Buildings Program, CoBE website quote.

  • With the office market correction continuing its slide, institutional investors are seeing a push for greener buildings. Sources familiar with the market claim that it is now standard practice for most large commercial building trades to include a carbon footprint analysis.

  • Other tools like the EPA’s AVERT or ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager® cover avoided emissions from renewable energy and typically focus on regions vs specific buildings.

Net, net: The CoBE tool is a valuable new resource for building owners, urban planners, operators, investors, and others who want to better understand the impact of a building’s energy consumption and are interested in reducing that impact. With traction, CoBE could pave the way for an increase in green building construction and retrofit projects.

🎁 Want to win a YETI M12 soft backpack cooler?

Forward any of our issues to other civil and architectural engineers in your network and ask them to subscribe. Starting in February, we’ll include a running leaderboard in each issue and send a new YETI M12 cooler to the reader who’s referred the most subscribers at the end of the year.

The Industry Scoop

  • Cities on the East Coast are sinking: Major U.S. Atlantic coast cities, including New York City, Long Island, Baltimore, and Virginia Beach, are experiencing rapid land subsidence, sinking at rates exceeding 2 mm per year, according to research from Virginia Tech and the U.S. Geological Survey. The study, utilizing space-based radar satellites, warns that the sinking land poses risks to critical infrastructure, including roads, railways, airports, and levees, with areas exceeding 5 mm per year, surpassing the global rate of sea level rise. (Source: Science Daily)

  • What a century of earthquakes has taught Japan: The recent earthquake in Ishikawa, Japan, rekindles memories of the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima. While the latest quake has caused significant damage, Japan's success in implementing stringent building codes and seismic measures since previous disasters has helped mitigate the impact and demonstrates the country's resilience in the face of seismic threats. (Source: BBC)

  • Arup revenue climbs past £2 ($2.5) billion: Arup, the architecture and engineering firm, reported a 20% increase in revenue to £2.2 ($2.7) billion, with profit rising from £37 ($47) million to £39 ($49) million for the 12 months ending March 31, 2023. Strong growth in climate-related sectors, particularly in energy and water, contributed to the positive performance, while the UK market saw a 21% revenue increase, and employee numbers rose by 9% to 16,946. (Source: Building Design)

The Ladder

Dive in & Connect

For your benefit, we have a dedicated slack channel for Civil Engineer Wire subscribers to connect, share insights, and support one another on their journeys to make an impact in the world of civil and architectural engineering. If you’d like to join, simply click the subscribe link below and we’ll send you an invite. Or, feel free to send us a note at [email protected]; we’d love to connect.

Our next issue will look at emerging AI-powered microwave resonator sensors embedded directly into coatings to monitor a structure’s integrity in real time and reduce catastrophic damage. As always, email us your thoughts and follow us on X @CivilWire and LinkedIn.

Until next time; happy goal crushing.