REHVA, a European HVAC association, has outlined recommendations for preventing indoor spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus through HVAC and plumbing systems. These include window-driven natural ventilation (except in toilets) and turning off central re-circulation.
Coronavirus restrictions bring air pollution down globally
As the COVID pandemic forces more and more countries into quarantine, a conspicuous trend has been emerging with respect to the air pollution levels. Significant reductions in air pollutants like PM 2.5, PM 10, Nitrogen oxide (NOx) and Carbon dioxide (CO2) have been observed globally ever since the start of the outbreak in China, which reported these observations as early as mid-March. In India, the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR)Ā has reported an average 50% drop in air pollution levels for several cities within a short span of 3 weeks i.e. mid-March (when the lockdown was implemented) to the first week of April. These declines have been attributed to the severely diminished human activities, particularly in densely populated cities like New Delhi and Mumbai.
COVID-19 signaling a change in design practices?
With the threat of the pandemic, a lot of focus was placed on safe practices to curb the spread of the virus as much as possible. One of the causes for the spread of the virus has been the air conditioning systems in buildings. This has led to the realization of the importance of good ventilation and access to sunlight in buildings.Ā
Behavioral science can help achieve net zero goals
While there have been huge leaps of progress that has been made in terms of the technologies or practices that help us in achieving net zero goals whether at a community level or at an organizational level, thereās still a need for push at the micro level. Behavioral science helps in better understanding how to incentivise people to start making changes at the ground level that will help in achieving the larger goals. For example, people moving into or out of a property may be more willing to invest in retrofitting. Assigning relative scores for building energy performance could motivate owners towards retrofitting to avoid dropping into lower rank.
Poor quality data is the biggest roadblock to net zero transition
According to the latest report by Energy Data Taskforce, a group of UK government appointed experts, the biggest hindrance in transition to a net zero energy system is poor quality, inaccurate or missing energy data. They have called on the UK to modernise its energy system, setting out five core recommendations to capture, coordinate, use, and optimise energy data to help drive decarbonisation, energy efficiency, and cost reductions for bill payers.
Europeās greenest freezer to be installed by ice cream maker Mackieās
Mackie’s, which produces ten million litres of ice cream a year, is set to install a biomass technology freezer at its family farm in Aberdeenshire, in a move designed to cut both costs and carbon emissions for the Scottish firm. The new refrigeration system has been built to run on ammonia produced using hot water from a large biomass boiler on site. They hope to cut CO2 emissions by up to 80 per cent and drive down its energy costs by as much as 70-80 per cent once the new freezer is fully installed.
New ālow ecological footprintā method for vaccine inoculation
Intensive research is underway for an effective vaccine for the COVID-19 virus. Once itās discovered, the next challenge will be manufacturing and distributing it across the world. The ecological footprint left by global immunization campaigns and the refrigeration and transport they involve is often overlooked. Researcher Maria Croyle and her team have come up with a needle-free, shelf-stable delivery solution inspired from- candies!
EU not on track to meet its energy efficiency targets for 2020
While EU is on track to meet its 2020 greenhouse emission and renewable energy targets, energy efficiency will be a big miss. The targets that were set in 2012 failed to accurately predict the rise in energy consumption. In 2018, energy consumption of the whole EU was 5% above their 2020 target.
Tech innovations that may help reduce carbon impact
With the growing awareness about the need for reducing carbon emissions and embodied carbon in construction, there has been an influx of investment on creating software and tools that help achieving that. Whether it is understanding the materials used in the production of materials, or measuring carbon emissions of the production process or the carbon emission post construction, thereās a tool that can be used to calculate all of them. This in turn helps in targeting the ever so important goal of net zero carbon
Resilient plans may not be resilient enough to global crisis
The whole world is preparing for the challenge of climate change and the major urban cities have created resilience plans for the same. While these plans include energy efficiency and clean energy, there are only a few cities that have extensive initiatives in place. ACEEE conducted a global survey looking at some of the plans and shared its findings and recommendations.
India should focus on becoming more energy efficient
Energy efficiency is the most cost-effective climate mitigation option. The primary energy intensity improvement in India slowed down for a third consecutive year. While there have been steps taken in 2019 that bode well for the future, there needs to be more initiatives from the government and the people to make strides in making India more energy efficient.
2020 Greenbuild Leadership Award winners in India
In recognition of their work in advancing the development of sustainable and resilient buildings, cities and communities, architect & engineer Padma Shri Ar C N Raghavendran along with 5 organizations – Citi, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd., GMR Group, Infosys Limited and Tata Realty & Infrastructure were awarded the 2020 Greenbuild Leadership Awards at this year’s Greenbuild India conference by The U.S. Green Building Council.
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