Energy Star’s Roots – the Foundation of the Green Building Movement
10:31
Sometimes, looking at how things started offers ideas for how its future will play out.
The hallowed US Federal energy conservation program, known as Energy Star, has been in the news lately. It is being attacked, falling victim to the label of being an outdated government program that is no longer relevant. How did this happen? Where did it come from anyway? Let’s discuss its roots and see what that has to do with the present-day green or sustainability movement.
Where It All Started
More than four decades ago, in the early 1980s, the City of Austin wrestled with the question of investing in its third coal-fired power plant, as well as in a new nuclear power plant. Public concern over another carbon-based power plant, as well as a fear of atomic fission, was high.
A group of us at the University of Texas School of Architecture questioned the necessity of these plants in the first place. We believed a robust energy conservation program could negate the need for additional power. We referred to this concept as the "Conservation Power Plant."
At the same time, forward-thinking Austin City Council member Roger Duncan had the City of Austin contract with Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute to develop an energy conservation plan for the City. This dovetailed nicely with our advocacy for, and volunteer participation in, a newly formed citizen commission called the Resource Management Commission, which was created to address the City's utility “resources,” including power and water treatment plants.
As a recent graduate working for an Austin-based architect assigned to the commission, LM Holder III, FAIA, I attended meetings. From these discussions Austin Energy Star emerged—a program that identified and addressed peak power usage in Austin and what we could do to reduce it. The concept became referred to as Demand Side Management.
Unveiling the Peak Demand Culprit
An investigation revealed a surprising truth: There were only about 150 “peak” hours a year that strained Austin's power grid enough to justify the proposed new coal-fired power plant. These critical hours coincided with summer weeknights when residents returned home from work to make dinner.
Air conditioners battled the Texas heat, lights flickered on, and appliances whirred to life for dinner prep. To combat this peak demand, a multi-pronged program was launched. Incentives encouraged residents to upgrade to energy-efficient air conditioners and fluorescent lights.
The three appliance showrooms in town displayed little blue stars we purchased at a local stationery supply store and distributed to be applied to the particularly efficient refrigerators, dishwashers, and washing machines guiding consumer choices.
This program, Austin Energy Star, with its tiny blue star insignia, was named after the place of its creation in the capital of the Lone STAR Republic. It proved wildly successful and captured the attention of the DOE (U.S. Department of Energy), which negotiated its adoption and transformed it into the national program we know today, sans the name Austin in front of it.
Secret Weapon: UT Professor Paco Arumi's Innovation
While volunteer student participation is always essential in creating any new movement, one of the program's innovations stemmed from the intuitive knowledge gained from a remarkable professor, Francisco “Paco” Arumi. Professor Arumi, who drew me to UT's graduate program over those of MIT and UC Berkeley in 1980, pioneered a revolutionary tool, the first computer-based energy analysis system for the building industry.
This program, known as DEROB (the Dynamic Energy Response Of Buildings), analyzed how buildings consumed energy based on design, construction, climate, and occupant behavior. It pinpointed energy use for specific functions, such as air conditioning, space heating, lighting, hot water heating, and appliances.
DEROB's insights revealed that existing building codes didn't address Austin's unique climate effectively, nor that of the southern United States, for that matter, where population growth was exploding.
Armed with this knowledge, the assumptions of the Austin Energy utility planners were challenged, paving the way for not only the Energy Star program but also the creation of the first successful Green Building program in North America, if not the world.
The Power of Demand-Side Management
The resulting analysis underscored a fundamental principle: The most cost-effective kilowatt is the one you don't have to buy in the first place. This philosophy prioritizes reducing consumption over increasing production through renewables or other low-carbon methods of generating electricity–a valuable lesson for sustainable resource management, including drinking water resources.
The Austin City Council was already facing opposition from citizens to a proposed water treatment plant. It became clear that reducing water consumption would eliminate the need to build a new and environmentally challenging water treatment plant.
Through implementing the afore-mentioned peak-energy demand reductions and water conservation programs that encouraged Xeric-scaping over traditional residential landscaping, among other strategies, Austin successfully put off the need for a new water treatment plant and new power plants for more than two decades. This was no small feat, given how rapidly Austin’s population was expanding at the time (1980s–2000s).
The Birth of Green Building in America
When the City faced the need for expanded landfill space to manage its growing waste stream, the Resource Management Commission, which I later chaired, discovered that a large contributor to the waste ending up in our landfills was from the construction industry. By applying the demand-side management approach to this problem, we recognized the need to engage the building industry by educating it on the importance of reducing waste and promoting the recycling of building materials. (The construction and operations of buildings amount to almost fifty percent of all the energy consumed in America, and their consequential effects on greenhouse gas emissions, our climate, wastestream, and our health.)
In late 1980s a handful of key leaders within the Austin Environmental & Conservation Services department, including Division Manager Michael Myers, Energy Manager Doug Seiter, Lawrence Doxsey, Mary McLeod and Sue Barnett—along with inspiration from Pliny Fisk and the Austin-based Center for Maximum Building Potential—assembled a residential rating system that pulled together multiple energy and environmental goals into a single package that exceeded the purview of Energy Star.
Energy and water conservation, health and air quality, building materials recycling, and waste-stream management, as well as the “embodied energy” of building materials, were all addressed in a new program designed to be efficient and user-friendly, exciting both the professional building and design community and homeowners.
Various names were considered; the term “green” was just beginning to be popularized. To reflect our expanded mission and to bring local builders and architects into the fold, the program name was changed from Austin Energy Star to the Austin Green Building Program. Hence, Austin’s local program became the first of its kind in North America and ultimately had a profound impact on architecture, building, and land development.
The very first “Green Building” conference in America was Austin’s in 1989. In 1992, the Austin Green Building Program was recognized internationally at the Rio de Janeiro “Earth Summit” as one of the world’s most innovative approaches to “Sustainable Development.” Years later, this program and its carefully nuanced checklist of green building strategies, was a critical building block of what is now known as the US Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program.
Further Combating Climate Change
The various green building and energy conservation programs of today evolved from the concept of managing resource demand and then modeling our buildings to measure consumption and reduce it by adjusting the building’s program and design to better reflect its climatic setting. Passive design strategies that harnessed the earth’s forces to naturally heat, cool, ventilate, and daylight a building were encouraged by other pioneers such as Ed Mazria.
This “Climate-Responsive Design” approach is the very foundation of “low carbon footprint” living–the overarching goal of all such programs since the beginning of the sustainability movement.
It is no stretch to credit the work of Professor Arumi, his University of Texas colleagues, such as Professor Michael Garrison, among others, and the University of Texas School of Architecture graduate students they inspired with the creation of one of the most effective resource conservation programs in the world.
Building on this constructive influence, the aforementioned City of Austin program pioneers have expanded their reach to inspire others at leading national institutions, including NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) and the DOE, as well as in publications such as Environmental Building News (which became Building Green).
Furthermore, the intuitive knowledge gained from the use and deployment of Professor Arumi’s DEROB program, and its derivative building modeling programs, will continue to inspire change agents in the building industry for decades to come—and hopefully inspire the nuancing of present-day building modeling programs to dig deeper and go beyond the now common “sustainability” strategies.
A pragmatic goal here is to help the architectural design community take on the increasing challenges of climate-change with more accuracy – and vigor! Sustainability-focused programs will come and go. But the foundational DNA that created them in the first place should not be forgotten. Internalize them because developing an intuition based on these foundations will lead us to even better, more relevant, strategies for living well with a significantly reduced carbon footprint.
Peter Pfeiffer, FAIA is a renowned architect, building scientist, author, and sustainability pioneer with over four decades of experience. As the founding principal of Barley | Pfeiffer Architecture, he has led the firm to national recognition for its innovative, climate-responsive designs.
Energy Star’s Roots – the Foundation of the Green Building Movement
Sometimes, looking at how things started offers ideas for how its future will play out.
The hallowed US Federal energy conservation program, known as Energy Star, has been in the news lately. It is being attacked, falling victim to the label of being an outdated government program that is no longer relevant. How did this happen? Where did it come from anyway? Let’s discuss its roots and see what that has to do with the present-day green or sustainability movement.
Where It All Started
More than four decades ago, in the early 1980s, the City of Austin wrestled with the question of investing in its third coal-fired power plant, as well as in a new nuclear power plant. Public concern over another carbon-based power plant, as well as a fear of atomic fission, was high.
A group of us at the University of Texas School of Architecture questioned the necessity of these plants in the first place. We believed a robust energy conservation program could negate the need for additional power. We referred to this concept as the "Conservation Power Plant."
At the same time, forward-thinking Austin City Council member Roger Duncan had the City of Austin contract with Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute to develop an energy conservation plan for the City. This dovetailed nicely with our advocacy for, and volunteer participation in, a newly formed citizen commission called the Resource Management Commission, which was created to address the City's utility “resources,” including power and water treatment plants.
As a recent graduate working for an Austin-based architect assigned to the commission, LM Holder III, FAIA, I attended meetings. From these discussions Austin Energy Star emerged—a program that identified and addressed peak power usage in Austin and what we could do to reduce it. The concept became referred to as Demand Side Management.
Unveiling the Peak Demand Culprit
An investigation revealed a surprising truth: There were only about 150 “peak” hours a year that strained Austin's power grid enough to justify the proposed new coal-fired power plant. These critical hours coincided with summer weeknights when residents returned home from work to make dinner.
Air conditioners battled the Texas heat, lights flickered on, and appliances whirred to life for dinner prep. To combat this peak demand, a multi-pronged program was launched. Incentives encouraged residents to upgrade to energy-efficient air conditioners and fluorescent lights.
The three appliance showrooms in town displayed little blue stars we purchased at a local stationery supply store and distributed to be applied to the particularly efficient refrigerators, dishwashers, and washing machines guiding consumer choices.
This program, Austin Energy Star, with its tiny blue star insignia, was named after the place of its creation in the capital of the Lone STAR Republic. It proved wildly successful and captured the attention of the DOE (U.S. Department of Energy), which negotiated its adoption and transformed it into the national program we know today, sans the name Austin in front of it.
Secret Weapon: UT Professor Paco Arumi's Innovation
While volunteer student participation is always essential in creating any new movement, one of the program's innovations stemmed from the intuitive knowledge gained from a remarkable professor, Francisco “Paco” Arumi. Professor Arumi, who drew me to UT's graduate program over those of MIT and UC Berkeley in 1980, pioneered a revolutionary tool, the first computer-based energy analysis system for the building industry.
This program, known as DEROB (the Dynamic Energy Response Of Buildings), analyzed how buildings consumed energy based on design, construction, climate, and occupant behavior. It pinpointed energy use for specific functions, such as air conditioning, space heating, lighting, hot water heating, and appliances.
DEROB's insights revealed that existing building codes didn't address Austin's unique climate effectively, nor that of the southern United States, for that matter, where population growth was exploding.
Armed with this knowledge, the assumptions of the Austin Energy utility planners were challenged, paving the way for not only the Energy Star program but also the creation of the first successful Green Building program in North America, if not the world.
The Power of Demand-Side Management
The resulting analysis underscored a fundamental principle: The most cost-effective kilowatt is the one you don't have to buy in the first place. This philosophy prioritizes reducing consumption over increasing production through renewables or other low-carbon methods of generating electricity–a valuable lesson for sustainable resource management, including drinking water resources.
The Austin City Council was already facing opposition from citizens to a proposed water treatment plant. It became clear that reducing water consumption would eliminate the need to build a new and environmentally challenging water treatment plant.
Through implementing the afore-mentioned peak-energy demand reductions and water conservation programs that encouraged Xeric-scaping over traditional residential landscaping, among other strategies, Austin successfully put off the need for a new water treatment plant and new power plants for more than two decades. This was no small feat, given how rapidly Austin’s population was expanding at the time (1980s–2000s).
The Birth of Green Building in America
When the City faced the need for expanded landfill space to manage its growing waste stream, the Resource Management Commission, which I later chaired, discovered that a large contributor to the waste ending up in our landfills was from the construction industry. By applying the demand-side management approach to this problem, we recognized the need to engage the building industry by educating it on the importance of reducing waste and promoting the recycling of building materials. (The construction and operations of buildings amount to almost fifty percent of all the energy consumed in America, and their consequential effects on greenhouse gas emissions, our climate, wastestream, and our health.)
In late 1980s a handful of key leaders within the Austin Environmental & Conservation Services department, including Division Manager Michael Myers, Energy Manager Doug Seiter, Lawrence Doxsey, Mary McLeod and Sue Barnett—along with inspiration from Pliny Fisk and the Austin-based Center for Maximum Building Potential—assembled a residential rating system that pulled together multiple energy and environmental goals into a single package that exceeded the purview of Energy Star.
Energy and water conservation, health and air quality, building materials recycling, and waste-stream management, as well as the “embodied energy” of building materials, were all addressed in a new program designed to be efficient and user-friendly, exciting both the professional building and design community and homeowners.
Various names were considered; the term “green” was just beginning to be popularized. To reflect our expanded mission and to bring local builders and architects into the fold, the program name was changed from Austin Energy Star to the Austin Green Building Program. Hence, Austin’s local program became the first of its kind in North America and ultimately had a profound impact on architecture, building, and land development.
The very first “Green Building” conference in America was Austin’s in 1989. In 1992, the Austin Green Building Program was recognized internationally at the Rio de Janeiro “Earth Summit” as one of the world’s most innovative approaches to “Sustainable Development.” Years later, this program and its carefully nuanced checklist of green building strategies, was a critical building block of what is now known as the US Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program.
Further Combating Climate Change
The various green building and energy conservation programs of today evolved from the concept of managing resource demand and then modeling our buildings to measure consumption and reduce it by adjusting the building’s program and design to better reflect its climatic setting. Passive design strategies that harnessed the earth’s forces to naturally heat, cool, ventilate, and daylight a building were encouraged by other pioneers such as Ed Mazria.
This “Climate-Responsive Design” approach is the very foundation of “low carbon footprint” living–the overarching goal of all such programs since the beginning of the sustainability movement.
It is no stretch to credit the work of Professor Arumi, his University of Texas colleagues, such as Professor Michael Garrison, among others, and the University of Texas School of Architecture graduate students they inspired with the creation of one of the most effective resource conservation programs in the world.
Building on this constructive influence, the aforementioned City of Austin program pioneers have expanded their reach to inspire others at leading national institutions, including NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) and the DOE, as well as in publications such as Environmental Building News (which became Building Green).
Furthermore, the intuitive knowledge gained from the use and deployment of Professor Arumi’s DEROB program, and its derivative building modeling programs, will continue to inspire change agents in the building industry for decades to come—and hopefully inspire the nuancing of present-day building modeling programs to dig deeper and go beyond the now common “sustainability” strategies.
A pragmatic goal here is to help the architectural design community take on the increasing challenges of climate-change with more accuracy – and vigor! Sustainability-focused programs will come and go. But the foundational DNA that created them in the first place should not be forgotten. Internalize them because developing an intuition based on these foundations will lead us to even better, more relevant, strategies for living well with a significantly reduced carbon footprint.
By Peter Pfeiffer, FAIA, Guest Columnist
Peter Pfeiffer, FAIA is a renowned architect, building scientist, author, and sustainability pioneer with over four decades of experience. As the founding principal of Barley | Pfeiffer Architecture, he has led the firm to national recognition for its innovative, climate-responsive designs.Also Read