CaGBC Conference: Lessons Learned - Part 2

Another very important lesson, which confirmed what I have been becoming increasingly convinced in from my own experience - THERE IS PRACTICALLY NO PERFORMANCE MONITORING after the building or system has been commissioned. All kind of reasons can be put forward for that - from lack of time, resources to confidentiality considerations. However, sustainable technology and "green" industry can not evolve or even properly function without a feedback loop ! Lack of consistent real-life data is a major factor slowing down progress of the industry.

Here is what I propose should be done. A network of performance (a.k.a. "green" or "sustainable") buildings and facilities should be created. They should be connected via centralized online data and performance optimization repository in a "smart info-grid" of a sort. The data obtained from each node (facility-member) should be presented in (or translated into) the universal consistent format and made available for other facility-members for comparison, benchmarking and cross-reference.

One of the good examples of guidelines for implementing the intelligent network infrastructure is Unified Access Network Design based on the CISCO concept of Borderless Campus Architecture.

University and college facilities, such as CIRS at UBC in Vancouver and Centre of Excellence at Okanagan College in Penticton, BC must collaborate with the industry on creating such a network and become first nodes of such network. The network should utilize Systems Architecture principles of  expandabikity (i.e. allow adding new nodes), and evolvability (i.e. allow seamlessly adding new functionality). This can become a major factor in propelling the sustainable (high-performance, "green", alternative) technology and buildings industry, which is currently threading the water.