– (Washington, DC) – The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has
announced the recipients of its 2008 Green Building Research Fund grants.
The Green Building Research Fund was created to spur research that will advance
sustainable building practices and encourage market transformation. The USGBC
committed $2 million to the program, while the Research Fund is generating
$1,150,825 in matching funds and leveraging additional activities and
partnerships. A quarter of the fund is dedicated to research on occupant
impacts in K-12 schools.
“We’ve identified an enormous need for green
building research,” said Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO and Founding Chair of
USGBC. “The research grants are part of USGBC’s commitment to better
understand what is working and what more can be done, which will inform USGBC’s
programs and the entire building industry.”
Continued Fedrizzi,” The
selected proposals drive knowledge, policies, tools and technologies and inspire
corresponding industry and government-wide action.”
USGBC’s Research
Committee, in its role as the grant selection panel, reviewed 216 pre-proposals
and 38 full proposals, spanning a broad range of topics, including K-12 school
facility research. The highly competitive field was narrowed down to 13
final selections.
“The portfolio of research projects address a
range of critical environmental needs in the building industry, encompass
diverse approaches and proposed outcomes, and are well distributed
geographically across the U.S.,” said Gail Brager, Chair of USGBC’s Research
Committee.
The selected proposals excelled due to the quality of topic,
methodology and expected impact. Research topics covered each of the five
categories of environmental performance that are addressed within the LEED green
building certification system. Grants ranging from $90,000 to
$250,000 were awarded to the 13 research teams.
The research projects
selected for funding include:
• A Green Roof Energy
Calculator
• An Open Source Searchable Database to Assess
the Impact of Environmental Strategies on Outcomes in Healthcare
Facilities
• Design for Reuse Primer
•
Development and Implementation of a New Protocol for Testing the Ability of
Building Materials to Passively Reduce Indoor Ozone and Its Reaction Products
• HVAC Control Algorithms for Mixed-Mode
Buildings
• Improvement of Porous Pavement System for
on-site Stormwater Management
• Integrated Building Water
Management (IBWM) Modeling - A Proposed Tool for LEED Assessment &
Education
• Investigating Opportunities for Improving
Building Performance Through Simulation of Occupant and Operator
Behavior
• Multi-Variate Study of Stormwater BMPs
• Quantifying the Impact of Daylight and Electric Lighting
on Student Alertness, Performance, and Well-being in K-12
Schools
• The Evaluation of Green School Building
Attributes and Their Effect On the Health and Performance of Students and
Teachers in NY State
• Transportation Energy Intensity
Index
• Using a New Application of Existing Monitoring
Technology to Quantify the Relationship between Classroom Ventilation and
Student Performance
To see the list of grant recipients and research
abstracts, download the recipient list (
http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=4698).
Visit the GBRF Web page (
http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1875)
for additional information and periodic updates.
The grant program was
announced in February 2008 in response to the USGBC’s Research Committee’s
findings published in Green Building Research Funding: An Assessment of Current
Activity in the United States (
http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=77#usgbc_publications)
that indicate that applied research and development fall alarmingly short of
what is needed to meet the challenges of a building sector that has a profound
impact on people and the environment.