USGBC grants

The U.S. Green Building Council, Washington, D.C., 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. 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 health care 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 modeling—a proposed tool for LEED assessment and education. • Investigating opportunities for improving building performance through simulation of occupant and operator behavior. • Multivariate 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 New York. • Transportation energy intensity index. • Using a new application of existing monitoring technology to quantify the relationship between classroom ventilation and student performance.
“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.”