Direct Steel staff utilize their LEED AP and LEED Green Associate credentials to address the total impact on resources needed to build, operate and reuse a building, including:
Potential Energy Savings – Heating, cooling and ventilation of a typical commercial building accounts for 31 percent of the electricity consumption, excluding the industrial sector. Additionally, 38 percent of the total electricity is used for indoor lightning (Energy Information Administration, 2008)
Regulations – “The main regulatory bodies for energy standards (ASHRAE and IECC) are estimating that energy codes will become 30 percent more stringent over the next 5 years. The goals of the ASHREAI and IECC will continue to drive the movement to increase energy efficiency as evident in several new energy-related standards that have been recently introduced” ~ MBMA Association-Energy Design Guide 2010
Efficient Design – the AIA has adopted the Architecture 2030 Challenge to design, construct and operate buildings using drastically lower amounts of fossil-fuel generated authorized the Zero-Energy Commercial Building Initiative.
Life Cycle Assessment – Life-cycle costing (LCC) and life-cycle assessment (LCA) are becoming more important in the selection of material and building systems.