Legrand Whitepaper Examines Market Drivers and Gaps in the Evolution of High Performance Buildings

Entitled “Where is ‘High Performance’ for Buildings Headed?”, the whitepaper is one of a three-part series of educational research that discusses the status, regulations, policies and other key variables that are shifting the performance expectations of today’s bulding environments.

CI Staff

Legrand, North America, a provider of electrical, data and AV solutions, has released its latest installment in a series of white papers examining trends and drivers in the rapidly expanding High Performance Buildings (HPB) market.

The white paper, entitled “Where is ‘High Performance’ for Buildings Headed?”, evaluates the growing range of performance attributes today’s buildings are expected to achieve and observes that significant gaps remain in the influential mechanisms that shape the HPB landscape.

According to Legrand, The High Performance Building (HPB) landscape is moving beyond simply “green” to encompass a broader range of attributes, such as healthy, productive, and even “resilient” – reflecting a growing attention to the status of the building occupant, not just the building itself. The company’s research says that for today’s buildings to be considered “high performance,” they must optimize across multiple attributes:

  • Sustainable: Pertains to environmental performance of building elements and strategies.
  • Cost-Effective: Pertains to selecting building elements on the basis of lifecycle costs (weighing options during concepts, design development, and value engineering) as well as basic cost estimating and budget control.
  • Secure/Safe: Pertains to the physical protection of occupants and assets from manmade and natural hazards and addresses the specific needs of disabled people.
  • Productive: Pertains to occupants’ well-being – physical and psychological comfort – including building elements such as air distribution, lighting, workspaces, systems, and technology.
  • Functional/Operational: Pertains to functional programming – spatial needs and requirements, system performance as well as durability and efficient maintenance of building elements.

Yet, the research further shows that the building performance mechanisms available in the market today do not comprehensively address or incentivize all of these attributes.

The paper underscores an area of increasing attention in the HPB arena: building occupants. Legrand explains ways in which HPBs deliver greater economic, social and environmental value for both building owners and occupants. By focusing on occupant health, comfort and security, companies can reap a return on their investment through employees that are more productive in their daily work environments.

“Our latest white paper shares all of the current trends taking place in High Performance Building construction,” says Susan Rochford, V.P of Energy Efficiency, Sustainability & Public Policy for Legrand, North & Central America.

“We published it to encourage dialogue within the building community about the path to achieving the full potential of high performance buildings, ultimately leading to the development of effective solutions that will meet the unique needs of all stakeholders in the industry.”

This white paper is one of a three-part series of educational research that discusses the status, regulations, policies and other key variables that are shifting the performance expectations of today’s built environment.

To read Legrand’s latest white paper entitled, “Where is “High Performance” for Buildings Headed?”, click here.

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