Labs21 is dedicated to the pursuit of sustainable, high performance,
and low-energy laboratories that will:
- Minimize overall environmental impacts.
- Protect occupant safety.
- Optimize whole building efficiency on a life-cycle basis.
- Establish goals, track performance, and share results for continuous
improvement.
To demonstrate their commitment to this philosophy, Labs21 Partners
commit to the following:
- Adopt voluntary goals.
- Assess opportunities from a "whole buildings" approach.
- Use life-cycle cost analysis as an important decision-making
tool.
- Incorporate a comprehensive, whole building commissioning process
into new construction and retrofit projects.
- Employ a range of energy and water efficiency strategies.
- Measure energy and water consumption and track emission reductions.
- Evaluate on-site power generation, combined heat and power technologies,
and renewable power purchases.
- Build with "green" construction materials.
- Promote energy and water efficiency efforts.
- Expand beyond the laboratory building.
Labs21 seeks to create environmental showcase laboratories by encouraging
laboratory owners, operators, and designers to adopt the "Labs21
Approach." This strategy involves taking an initial evaluation
of a laboratory's energy use from a comprehensive perspective when
considering efficiency improvements. This requires focusing on all
of a laboratory's energy systems and wastes, including its HVAC
and electrical power supply, rather than focusing on specific energy-using
components.
Such an approach allows laboratory owners and operators to pursue
integrated energy and water conservation measures with significantly
higher efficiencies and cost savings than the traditional approach
of addressing components sequentially or individually. Adopting
the Labs21 Approach will encourage laboratories to: 1) make capital
investment decisions based on life cycle cost savings; 2) pursue
advanced, energy-efficient HVAC technologies; 3) design systems
that recover and exchange waste heat and other forms of free energy;
4) incorporate renewable energy systems.
The resulting showcase facilities will reduce emissions, streamline
energy and water usage, and decrease overall costs—all while
preserving the integrity of the laboratory's mission.
To learn more about the Labs21 approach, review the Labs21
Approach Document (
4 pp., 208 KB, about
PDF).
|
