THE EFFECTIVENESS OF BOMA BESt AND LEED CANADA EB:O&M IN GREENING COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS

LEED Canada for Existing Buildings:Operations and Maintenance(LEED Canada EB:O&M)and Building Owners and Managers Association’s Building Environmental Standards(BOMA BESt)are complex green rating systems that offer owners,managers,consultants,and tenants distinct value propositions for existing buildings.Upon close examination,significant variations between the systems are evident in certification process,cost,rigor,engagement,marketing,accessibility,transparency,management,and program philosophy.Despite the many differences between the systems,they are often seen to be complementary programs and are sometimes used in tandem for the same building.This paper reports on a survey of the industry perceptions of the value and strengths of the LEED Canada EB:O&M and BOMA BESt rating systems with respect to the above criteria.As a result of the fundamentally different nature of the programs,preferences for LEED Canada EB:O&M and BOMA BESt are determined by stakeholder values and the programs are used for a variety of reasons.

DETERMINING THE EFFECT OF BUILDING GEOMETRY ON ENERGY USE PATTERNS OF OFFICE BUILDINGS IN TORONTO

The project investigated the potential of building geometry to minimize energy consumption in office buildings.Five distinct geometries were modeled as mid-size office occupancies in the context of Toronto,Ontario,and examined with varied design parameters:window to wall ratio(WWR)and external static shading devices.IES VE software was used to predict the annual energy consumption of the five archetypes for 40 permutations.The outcome of this research showed that the variation of the total energy use from one shape to another was relatively small.WWR appeared to have a stronger impact on the energy pattern of a building than its shape.Overall,the energy performance of the archetypes were observed to conform to their individual building aspect ratios.The findings are thus expected to provide useful guidelines for architects on utilizing building geometry as an energy saving measure in the design of office buildings.

PERFORMANCE OF SUSTAINABLE BUIL DINGS IN COLDER CLIMATES

Building performance evaluations(BPEs)were carried out for nine Canadian green buildings using a standardised assessment framework.The aim was to explore and measure the discrepancies between the operational performance of the buildings and their predicted performance,as well as to identify lessons for their owners,design teams and the construction industry.The objective of this paper is not to report individual buildings in detail(we refer the reader to the individual building reports)but to report on some general lessons that came from doing this study.Overall these buildings performed well compared to benchmarks.However,the findings suggest that occupancy is not well understood and often incorrectly predicted during design,and that this affects various aspects of performance,including energy and water use.Also energy and water use modelling is often undertaken principally for building code/green rating compliance purposes and does not necessarily represent an accurate prediction of likely operational use.Combined with variations in occupancy this can lead to considerable discrepancies in performance from the modelled values.This may be understood by experts but is often misleading to building owners and others.Water use is often not well predicted and also not carefully managed in buildings and there is a lack of understanding of what constitutes good water performance.Overall,it is important to recognise that each building has its own individual“story”that provides necessary context for effective management and improvement of the building during its ongoing life.It is proposed that a BPE process allows that context to be better understood,and enables more effective decision making about building management,improvements,occupant satisfaction,energy use,etc.