Investors force zero-emission buildings

by   CIJ News iDesk III
2023-03-22   09:58
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In achieving climate goals, decarbonization of the building sector plays a key role, as the real estate market is responsible for 38 percent of global CO2 emissions, according to UN data. "For new buildings, especially industrial ones, designs incorporating green solutions have become standard. In fact, this is often enforced by investors," stresses Marcin Kosieniak, designer and co-owner of the PM Projekt design office and RRJ Group expert.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that achieving net zero carbon emissions in buildings by 2050 will only be possible if direct CO2 emissions from buildings are halved before the end of the decade.

The data shows that buildings also account for about 50 percent of the consumption of all extracted raw materials, 33 percent of water use and 35 percent of waste generated.

Ecology drives changes in the real estate market:
Regulations, including EU directives requiring companies to meet sustainability goals, have forced changes that are best seen in the industrial real estate market.

"Reducing CO2 emissions and other ecological solutions are undoubtedly the basis of modern design, where the architectural design is checked in detail by the plant designer for detailed solutions. He makes the appropriate calculations, according to which we are able to say precisely not only what CO2 consumption will be, but also what energy consumption will be, how and from where it can be recovered for reuse. In the case of new investments - especially in the industrial market, but not only - ecological solutions that save both energy and water are often also a requirement of investors. Why? Because green certification significantly raises the price for future tenants, for example," points out Marcin Kosieniak, designer and co-owner of the PM Projekt design office and RRJ Group expert.

He notes that also in the case of other types of buildings - industrial plants, public facilities or in the residential sector - energy-efficient, water-saving solutions are becoming increasingly popular.

"It is crucial to know that if a proven installation systems designer works on the project, almost all possible ecological solutions can be precisely checked and recalculated. Thus, it is not only about the use of solar panels, which are already popular, but also about heat recovery, for example. It is becoming increasingly common to reuse dump, waste heat, such as from server rooms or chillers, to heat halls with machinery, or other parts of related facilities. In manufacturing plants, where after analyzing the facility we can plan precisely where to recover energy from and where to reuse it, this translates into reduced heat consumption by up to 20-30 percent," Kosieniak says.

"Often, too, having a design in hand from an architectural office, we make detailed calculations of heat gains for various types of glazing, so we can tell the architect precisely what type of material, with what solar reflectance, he needs to use. In several projects, we have also effectively used ground-sourced cooling as part of the building's passive cooling," he enumerates.

What other green solutions are being used today in modern building design?
"In addition to energy recovery, the trend is becoming water recovery, energy-efficient top-regulated faucets, especially in public buildings; the use of rainwater, or so-called gray water. Large facilities usually have their own water tanks. Dust collection systems with re-recovery of filtered air can perform well, which is sometimes crucial, especially in production facilities in industries such as welding or carpentry," mentions Marcin Kosieniak, co-owner of the PM Projekt design office.

"Certainly, precise calculations, experienced designers of such systems and good cooperation with the architect play a key role in designing the systems. Today, there is increasing talk of reducing CO2 in the work process. And so in the computational system created, thanks to the aggregation of data from various projects, we can plan quite precisely the work of individual people devoted to the project: calculate the time required to complete the entire project, the number of people, the time spent on handling the project and the like. This is what affects only the necessary CO2 emissions - this time in the design process. In addition, we specify precisely what the client is paying for," concludes Marcin Kosieniak, designer and co-owner of the PM Projekt design office and RRJ Group expert.