Laboratories for the 21st Century (Labs21) is
designed to meet your needs as laboratory and high performance facility
designers, engineers, owners, and facility managers. Co-sponsored
by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department
of Energy (DOE), Labs21 offers professionals worldwide an extraordinary opportunity
for information exchange and education through three interactive
components:
Why Laboratories and High Performance Facilities?
These facilities represent an ever-expanding growth opportunity
for advanced, environmentally preferred, building technologies.
The typical laboratory, for example, uses far more energy and water
per square foot than the typical office building due to intensive
ventilation requirements and other health and safety concerns. Because
the requirements of laboratories and related high performance facilities
differ so dramatically from those of other buildings, a clear need
exists for an initiative exclusively targeting these facilities.
The primary guiding principle of the Labs21
approach is that improving the energy efficiency and environmental
performance of these facilities requires examining the entire facility
from a "whole building" perspective. Adopting this perspective
allows owners to improve the efficiency of the entire facility,
rather than focusing on specific building components. As Labs21
participants understand, improving the efficiency of individual
components without examining their relation to the entire system
can eliminate opportunities to make other more significant efficiency
improvements.
If you have any questions about the Labs21 program, including how
to become involved, please contact
labs21@erg.com.
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