Resources — Jan/Feb 2020

Sustainability Events Calendar for 2020

 

Have you started planning your sustainability engagement program for 2020 yet? If so, The Planet Mark 2020 Green & Sustainability Events Calendar is a handy tool to check out what’s coming up.  

Click Here to download The Planet Mark sustainability Events calendar.

Implement Energy Management Information Systems (EMIS) in your building portfolio

Presented by the DOE Better Buildings Initiative, EMIS gives property owners and managers the ability to see their energy use and take action to reduce waste. This toolkit gives an introduction to EMIS.

Click Here for the EMIS website.

 

The Current State of Business Interruption

 Agile Recovery has made available for download a definitive guide to disaster planning titled “The Current State of Business Interruption”.

It’s imperative that companies understand the risks and potential impacts of business interruptions, regardless of the cause. In this report, we gathered

industry data on what’s been prompting business interruptions (BI) in recent years, highlighting the extent of disruptions and their cost. Having mapped out today’s current landscape of BI, we wanted to once again demonstrate the integral role of a Business Continuity Disaster Recovery plan in a company’s ecosystem.

 

 

 

 

The Advanced Energy Design Guide—Achieving Zero Energy series

ASHRAE | 2019

ASHRAE has released The Advanced Energy Design Guide—Achieving Zero Energy series provides a cost-effective approach to achieve advanced levels of energy savings.  The four-color Guides offer contractors and designers the tools, including recommendations for practical products and off-the-shelf technology, needed for achieving a zero energy building which is defined as a building that, on an annual basis, draws from outside resources equal or less energy than it provides using on-site renewable energy sources. 

 These Guides have been developed through the collaboration of ASHRAE, the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES), and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), with support from the Department of Energy (DOE), to help meet all of an owner’s energy performance requirements. In an effort to promote building energy efficiency, ASHRAE and its partners have made these Guides available for download (PDF) at no charge.

Click Here to request the Free Download

 

World Economic Forum | The Global Risks Report 2019 – 14th Edition

The Global Risks Report 2019 is published against a backdrop of worrying geopolitical and geo-economic tensions. If unresolved, these tensions will hinder the world’s ability to deal with a growing range of collective challenges, from the mounting evidence of environmental degradation to the increasing disruptions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The report presents the results of our latest Global Risks Perception Survey, in which nearly 1,000 decision-makers from the public sector, private sector, academia and civil society assess the risks facing the world. Nine out of 10 respondents expect worsening economic and political confrontations between major powers this year. Over a ten-year horizon, extreme weather and climate-change policy failures are seen as the gravest threats.

This year’s report includes another series of “what-if” Future Shocks that examine quantum computing, weather manipulation, monetary populism, emotionally responsive artificial intelligence and other potential risks. The theme of emotions is also addressed in a chapter on the human causes and effects of global risks; the chapter calls for greater action around rising levels of psychological strain across the world.

Click Here to download the 2019 Report PDF

 

Actuaries Climate Index

The Actuaries Climate Index® (ACI) is intended to provide a useful monitoring tool—an objective indicator of the frequency of extreme weather and the extent of sea level change. This website provides graphics and data for download for those who wish to explore the Index. The ACI is available for the United States and Canada and 12 subregions thereof, and will be released when analysis of data for each meteorological season is complete, on both a monthly and a seasonal basis (months ending February, May, August, and November).

In April of 2019, a change was made to the ACI calculation methodology. The methodology used to produce releases prior to April 2019 is referred to as “ACI 1.0”, while the methodology currently in use is referred to as “ACI 1.1”. A description of the change of methodology, and the rationale for the change, can be found in the data disclosure.

The six components of the Actuaries Climate Index are:

  1. High temperatures;
  2. Low temperatures;
  3. Heavy rainfall;
  4. Drought (consecutive dry days);
  5. High wind; and
  6. Sea level.

Click Here to reach the Actuaries Climate Index website

 

International Green Construction Code (IgCC)

The 2018 International Green Construction Code (IgCC) provides the design and construction industry with the single, most effective way to deliver sustainable, resilient, high-performance buildings. The ‘IgCC-powered-by-189.1’ joint initiative frames the essential sustainable construction building blocks on which future resilient initiatives can develop and expand.

By collaborating on developing the 2018 IgCC, the strategic developing organizations supporting it envision a new era of building design and construction that includes environmental health and safety as code minimums. The goal of the 2018 IgCC will provide fundamental criteria for energy efficiency, resource conservation, water safety, land use, site development, indoor environmental quality and building performance that can be adopted broadly.

Click Here to reach the IgCC website

 

Climate Disclosure Project (CDP)

CDP is a not-for-profit charity that runs the global disclosure system for investors, companies, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts. Over the past 15 years we have created a system that has resulted in unparalleled engagement on environmental issues worldwide. Find out more about how we work.

Click Here to reach the CDP website

 

Better Buildings | Smart Energy Analytics Campaign

The Smart Energy Analytics Campaign is a public-private partnership that encourages the use of a wide variety of commercially available Energy Management and Information Systems (EMIS) technologies and ongoing monitoring practices to help uncover those energy-saving opportunities and improve building performance. Since it’s launch in 2016, the Campaign has brought together commercial building owners who are using or planning to use Energy Information Systens (EIS), Fault Detection and Diagnostics (FDD) and Monitoring-Based Commissioning (MBCx).

Click Here to reach the Smart Energy Analytics Home Page

Click Here to reach the Technical Assistance Page

 

McKinsey & Company | Climate Risk and Response: Physical Hazards and Socioeconomic Impacts 

Released in January 2020, this report poses the question: How could Earth’s changing climate impact socioeconomic systems across the world in the next three decades? A yearlong, cross-disciplinary research effort at McKinsey & Company provides some answers.

Click Here to view the report Home Page (PDF available online)

 

Global Commission on Adaptation 

The Global Commission on Adaptation was launched in The Hague on 16th October 2018 by 8th UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The Commission launched with the mandate to encourage the development of measures to manage the effects of climate change through technology, planning and investment. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon leads the group with co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, and World Bank CEO, Kristalina Georgieva.

The Commission was launched with the support of 17 convening countries including China, Canada and the UK and low-lying countries vulnerable to climate change including Bangladesh and the Marshall Islands. It also included 28 Commissioners representing all sectors of the globe and all sectors of development and industry.

The Netherlands initiated the Global Commission on Adaptation to share its knowledge on how it has managed to adopt innovative water management solutions as sea levels rise.

Click Here to view their report “Adapt Now – A Global Call for Leadership on Climate Resilience”