-Technical Resources:
Upcoming Guides | Papers and Proceedings | Standards | Position Documents
The CEBD, utilizing volunteers and outside contractors, is developing a series of seven decarbonization guides. The guides are tools for engineers, building operators, facility managers, design professionals and policy makers to decarbonize the building stock. Come back to see when the newest versions are available.
CIBSE TM65 for North America: The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) developed and published ‘TM65 Embodied carbon in building services: a calculation methodology’ in 2021. TM65 outlines the need for assessment of the embodied carbon of mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) systems and guidance on how to estimate the embodied carbon of MEP products when environmental product declarations (EPDs) are not available. TM65 provides valuable guidance for the MEP community and beyond; however many of the method’s inherent assumptions are specific to the United Kingdom (UK). There is a need for this type of guidance for other parts of the world, and CIBSE has developed a guidance ‘Addendum’ for adapting TM65 for other parts of the world: ‘How to use TM65 outside the UK’. This guidance addendum defines how to create a regional TM65 addendum. The objective of this effort is to develop an addendum of TM65 for North America (Canada, USA, Mexico). Having a standard method for estimating the embodied carbon of MEP products that is consistent with a globally recognized approach will help fill in the missing gaps in embodied carbon data until more EPDs are available.
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Decarbonizing Building Thermal Systems: A Guide for Applying Heat Pumps and Beyond: Developed in partnership with the Department of Energy through NREL, this guide focuses on how heat pumps should be applied and how they should be operated in commercial and multifamily buildings to support decarbonization. The guide provides guidance to design engineers on various heat pump-specific design elements including application and sizing in different climate zones, system configuration and refrigerants, electrical requirements, and control and operation strategies for space and hot water applications. The Heat Pump Application and Operation Guide will represent a critical resource to building designers and operators to support widespread adoption of this building decarbonization strategy. Stay tuned as the guide becomes expanded in 2025!
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Grid-Interactive Buildings for Decarbonization
Stay up to date with the future of sustainable building practices with theGrid-Interactive Buildings for Decarbonization: Design and Operation Resource Guide. This guide is aimed at addressing the challenge of decarbonization in the built environment. Grid interactivity is a relatively new practice for most ASHRAE members, and buildings have a role in decarbonizing the power grid and managing their carbon budget; therefore, this guide provides information to enable readers to maximize carbon reduction through a building’s interaction with the electric power grid.
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Building Performance Standards: A Technical Resource Guide
The Building Performance Standards: A Technical Resource Guide is guide is intended to provide technical basis and resources to policymakers, building owners, facility managers, design professionals and ASHRAE members when developing and implementing a Building Performance Standard (BPS). The guide focuses on larger building types and scope of BPS as developed by leading U.S. cities and states. The guide covers BPS aimed toward reducing building operating energy use and resulting emissions and does not cover embodied energy or carbon, which will be addressed by The Whole Life Carbon Guide for Building Systems.
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Decarbonizing Hospital Buildings
This guide for hospital facility managers, capital planners, hospital architectural and engineering teams, sustainability leaders, contractors and other building stakeholders specifically shows how to reduce GHG emissions in hospital buildings. Background: North America hospital buildings have one of the largest carbon use intensities (CUI) of all building types. Owners of these buildings have a high interest in contributing to population (public) health by first, doing no harm. The challenges for decarbonizing healthcare buildings are much more complex than those for other buildings because of their unique needs in terms of the number and complexity of systems, infection prevention needs, regulatory environment, abundance of technology to deliver healthcare services, and needs for resilience. This guide will fill the need for hospitals but will also provide insight for other building types.
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Upcoming Guides
Additional guides are planned for 2024.
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ASHRAE Decarbonization Conference Proceedings
International Buildings Decarbonization 2024 Conference | Madrid, Spain
Conference materials available here
International Building Decarbonization 2022 Conference | Athens, Greece: The conference provided a venue for information and idea exchange, between stakeholders in the built environment industry, concerning the timely and important topic of reducing carbon emissions from buildings. A primary goal of the conference was to bridge North America and Europe collaboration in decarbonization efforts. All conference papers are available here.
Standards
Many ASHRAE standards address decarbonization and others are quickly evolving to address the issue. The table below lists ASHRAE standards that address energy efficiency, GHG emissions, refrigerant emissions, and/or renewables or may include such references in future updates.
More information about ASHRAE Standards can be found on the Standards and Guidelines page.
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