Sustainability Flashcards
”.. a form of development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generation to meet their own needs”
From a 1987 report, Our Common Future, by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland.
Sustainability
A three-dimensional framework for sustainable development proposed in 1994 by Task Group 16 of the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction.
Framework for Sustainable Development
One of the three dimensional framework for sustainable development. These are the characteristics:
Reduce resource consumption
Reuse resources
Recycle resources for reuse
Protect Nature
Eliminate toxics
Apply life-cycle costing
Focus on quality
Principles
One of the three dimensional framework for sustainable development. These are the characteristics:
Land
Materials
Water
Energy
Ecosystems
Resources
One of the three dimensional framework for sustainable development. These are the characteristics:
Planning
Development
Design
Construction
Use & Operation
Maintenance
Modification
Deconstruction
Phase
A broad philosophy and social movement that advocates or works to protect and sustain natural resources and ecosystems from pollution and its effects, esp through political activism and education.
Environmentalism
The preservation, protection, or restoration of natural resources, ecosystems, and their habitats for the future.
Conservation
The branch of biology that deals with the relations and interactions of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.
Ecology
The study of the interaction of people with their environment and institutions.
Human Ecology
A system formed by the interaction of biological community with its physical environment.
Ecosystem
The variety of life in a particular habitat or ecosystem, often used as a measure of its health; greater biodiversity implies greater health.
Biodiversity
The branch if science dealing with the occurence, distribution, and circulation of the earth’s water, esp its movement in relation to land.
Hydrology
The wastewater produced by toilets and urinals.
Blackwater
The relatively clean wastewater generated from such domestic activities as dishwashing, bathing, and laundry, which can be recycled on-site for flushing toilets and landscape irrigation to reduce the consumption of fresh water.
Gray Water
An undeveloped or underdeveloped site, either left to nature, used for agriculture, or considered for commercial development.
Greenfield
An abandoned or previously used industrial or commercial site whose future use is affected by real or perceived environmental contamination.
Brownfield
The gradual increase in the average temperature of the earth’s lower atmoshphere and oceans since the mid-20th century, due to an increase in the greenhouse effect resulting from the burning of fossil fuels and emission of greenhouse gases.
Global Warming
Any of a number of gases in the earth’s atmosphere, such as methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), and ozone (O3), that absorbs and emits thermal radiation. While the presence of some naturally occurring greehouse gases is required to contain the heat necessary for life on earth, increased production and buildup of greenhouse gases by human activities can contribute to the greenhouse effect and global warming.
Greenhouse Gas, GHG
A hydrocarbon deposit, such as oil, coal or gas, formed in the geological past from the remains of living organisms and now burned for fuel. Fossil fuels release energy upon burning, when the carbon and hydrogen within them combine with the oxygen in the air to form carbon dioxide (CO2), or carbon monoxide (CO) and water (H2O). Other elements within the fules, such as sulfur or nitrogen, are also released into the air after combining with oxygen, causing further pollution with SO2 and nitrogen oxide gases.
Fossil Fuel
Global warming that results when some of the infrared radiation passing through the atmosphere is absorbed and reemitted by greenhouse gas molecules and water vapor in the atmosphere, raising the temperature of the lower atmosphere and the earth’s surface.
Greenhouse Effect
A measure of the greenhouse gases produced by human activities involving the burning of fossil fuels.
Carbon Footprint
A term describing any of a number of practices that neither contribute to nor reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere. These practices are generally designed to balance the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere with similar amounts that are recaptured through the use of renewable nergy, sequestered by carbon projects, or offset by buying carbon credits.
Carbon Neutral
Natural energy resources, such as solar, wind, wave, tidal, hydroelectric, and geothermal energy, that theoretically can be replenished by natural processes at the same rate as it is used. While striking an appropriate, cost-effective balance between energy conservation and generating renewable energy is the goal, minimizing energy use is a necessary first step, irrespective of the fact that the energy may come from renewable resources.
Renewable energy
The radiant energy emitted by the sun, including ultraviolet radiation, visible radiation, and infrared radiation. The energy from the sun can be used for passive heating, daylighting, hot-water heating, and generating electricity with photovoltaic (solar cell) systems.
Solar Energy, Solar Radiation
The angular elevation of a celestial body above the horizon.
Altitude
A graphic depiction of the path of the sun within the sky vault projected onto a horizontal plane.
Solar Path Diagram
The time of the year, on or about June 21, when the sun reaches its northernmost point on the celestial sphere, marking the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere.
Summer Solstice
Either of the two times during the year when the sun crosses the plane of the celestial equator and when the length of day and night are everywhere aproximately equal, occurring about March 21 (vernal equinox or spring equinox) and September 21 (Autumnal equinox).
Equinox
The time of year, on or about December 21, when the sun reaches its southernmost point on the celestial sphere, marking the beginning of winter in the northern hemisphere.
Winter Solstice
The angular distance north or south from the equator of a point on the earth’s surface, measured in degrees along the meridian passing through the point.
lattitude
A great circle on the earth’s surface passing through both geophysical poles.
Meridian
The angular distance east or west on the earth’s surface, measured from the prime meridian at Greenwich, England, to the meridian of a given point and expressed either in degrees or a corresponding difference in time.
Longitude
The average rate at which radiant energy from the sun is received by the earth, equal to 430 Btu per hr per sq ft (1.94 cal per min. per sq cm), used in calculating the effects of solar radiation on buildings.
Solar Constant
The amount of solar radiation incident on a surface, esp the rate at which such radiation is delivered per unit surface area, expressed in kilowatt-hours per square meter per day (kWh/(m2 * day).
Insolation
A house designed to absorb and stone solar heat in order to supplement or replace conventional heating methods.
Solar House
A heating system using solar energy as the primary source of heat.
Solar-heating system
A solar-heating system using mechanical means, such as solar collectors, fans or pumps, to collect, store, and distribute solar energy.
Active Solar-heating system
A device or system designed to use solar radiation to heat an absorber through which a transporting medium, such as air or water, is circulated.
Solar Collector, Collector
The placing of a building in relation to the path of the sun, either to maximize the amount of heat gained from solar radiation during the coldest months, or to minimize the amount of heat gained in the warmest months.
Solar Orientation
Any of various technologies or techniques that uses nonmechanical, nonelectrical means, such as radiation, conduction, and natural convection, to distribute heat and daylight.
Passive System
A solar-heating system using a building’s design and construction and the natural flow of heat to collect, store and distribute solar energy, with minimal use of fans or pumps.
Passive Solar-Heating
The outside temperature at which the sum of solar and internal heat gains balances the heat losses through a building’s envelope, ventilation, and infiltration. Below the balance point temperature, supplementary heat is required to maintain the desired indoor temperature.
Balance point temperature
A bank of earth placed against one or more exterior walls of a building as protection against extremes in temperature.
Berm
A stack of black, water-filled drums placed on the inside of a window wall to absorb solar heat and then release it slowly into the interior of a building
Drumwall
A massive exterior wall having vertical channels through which solar-heated air passes, serving as a heat reservoir for short time periods and radiation to interior wall surfaces and spaces.
Murocaust
A glass-fronted exterior masonry wall that absorbs solar heat for radiation into the interior of a building, usually after a time-lag of several hours.
Trombe Wall
A roof, balcony, or terrace that is exposed to the sun and used for sunbathing.
Sun Deck
A glass-enclosed porch, room or gallery used for sunbathing or for therapeutic exposure to sunlight.
Solarium
A glass-enclosed porch or room oriented to admit large amounts of sunlight.
Sunroon, Sun parlor, Sun porch
A method of passive, nonmechanical heat exchange based on the natural convection of a heated liquid expanding and rising and being replaced in the loop by cooler liquid returning by gravity.
Thermal Siphon
Technologies or techniques, such as natural ventilation, evaporative cooling, or high thermal mass, used to cool buildings without consuming power.
Passive Cooling
An opening, as in a wall, serving as an outlet for air, smoke, fumes, or the like.
Vent
To provide a room with fresh air to replace air that has been used or contaminated.
Ventilate
The process of ventilating a space by the natural movement of air rather than by mechanical means.
Natural Ventilation
The tendency of air or gas in a shaft or other vertical space to rise when heated, creating a draft that draws in cooler air or gas from below.
Chimney Effect
The replacement of the volume of air contained within a room with an equivalent volume of fresh air within a given period of time. The term air changes-per-hour is often used to specify ventilation standards.
Air Change
The circulation of fresh air through open windows, doors, or other openings on opposite sides of a room.
Cross Ventilation
A louvered opening or motor-driven fan for replacing stagnant air with fresh air.
Ventilator
A wind- or motor-driven fan for assisting the natural air flow through an attic space.
Attic Ventilator
A method for improving the natural ventilation of buildings, consisting of a vertical shaft in which air heated by solar energy rises by convection, pulling in cooler air at the base of the chimney from underground or via heat-exchange tubes.
Solar Chimney, Thermal Chimney
A renewable energy power plant that uses the updraft of a solar chimney to drive electricity-producing turbines.
Solar updraft Tower
A cooling system that humidifies and cools warm, dry air by passing it through evaporative cooling pads or water sprays at the top of a tower, causing a downdraft of cooler, humidified air into the occupied space below and in the process, drawing in more air at the top of the tower.
Downdraft cooling tower
Equipment that incorporates one or more fans and duct systems to draw in a continuous supply of fresh air to the living areas of a house while exhausting an equal amount of stale air, providing controlled, uniform ventilation through the living area of a house.
Whole-house ventilator
A motor-driven fan that pulls air in from open windows and exhausts it through attic and roof vents, providing 30 to 60 air changes per hour for both whole-house cooling and attic ventilation.
Whole-house fan
A whole-house ventilating system suitable for cold climates, consisting usually of a single fan that extracts indoor air from a house while make-up air infiltrates through leaks in the building shell and through adjustable, passivem vents.
Exhaust Ventilation System
A whole-house ventilating system consisting of a fan and duct system that introduces fresh air into one or more rooms of a house while air leaks out through holes in the building envelope, exhaust-fan ducts, and any window or wall vents.
Supply Ventilation System
A system of mechanical ventilation in which fresh air is forced into the space to be ventilated from a chamber (plenum chamber) at a pressure slightly higher than atmospheric pressure, so as to expel stale air.
Plenum Ventilation
A device that rotates an array of blades or vanes about an axis in order to produce a current of air.
Fan
A fan for ventilating an interior space by drawing air from the interior and expelling it outside.
Exhaust fan
A fan that receives air along its axis and discharges it radially.
Centrifugal Fan
A whole-house ventilating system consisting of two fans and two duct systems and capable of introducing fresh outside air while exhausting an approximately equal quantity of stale inside air. Balanced systems allow the use of filters to remove dust and pollen from outside air before introducing it into the house.
Balanced Ventilation System
A whole-house ventilating system that provides a controlled way of ventilating a house while minimizing energy loss through the use of either heat-recovery ventilators or energy-recovery ventilators.
Energy-recovery ventilation system
A ventilation system that adjusts outside ventilation air based on the number of occupants in a space or zone and the ventilation demands that those occupants create, using a combination of hardware, software and control sensors.
Demand-controlled ventilation
An energy-recovery ventilation system that uses a heat-exchange core to transfer heat from the exhaust air stream to the prefiltered fresh air stream in the winter and, during the summer, cool the prefiltered fresh air stream with the exhaust air stream.
Heat-recovery Ventilator, HRV
An energy-recovery ventilation system having a heat exchanger that transfers both heat and moisture, cooling and dehumidifying the incoming fresh airstream in the summer while heating and humidifying the cold, drier incoming airstream in the winter.
Energy-recovery ventilator, Enthalpy-recovery ventilator, ERV
Any of a number of hydrocarbon compounds, such as those produced in the manufacture of paints, solvents, adhesives and refrigerants, having significant enough vapor pressure to be released as a gas into the environment at normal temperatures. Many volatile organic compounds are toxic and are known or suspected to be human carcinogens. They also contribute to air pollution and smog by reacting with sunlight and producing photochemical oxidants.
Volatile Organic Compound. VOC
The evaporation of volatile chemicals at normal atmospheric pressure. Many building materials, such as paints, stains, carpet, insulation, plywood and particleboard can release chemicals into the air through evaporation, continuing for years after the products are initially installed.
Off-gassing, Out-gassing
An odorless, cancer-causing, radioactive gas that results from the natural breakdown of uranium in soil, rock and water.
Radon
A filtration device consisting of a mat of randomly arranged, typically fiberglass fibers, designed to trap pollutants and particles by forcing them to adhere to the filter fibers using one of the following techniques. Interception HEPA filters direct particulates to follow a line of flow in the air stream, come within one radius of a fiber, and adhere to it. Impaction HEPA filters direct particulates larger than the space between fibers to follow the contours of the air stream and embed in the fibers directly. Diffusion HEPA filters have baffles or other mechanisms that agitate and increase the collision of the smallest particulates with gas molecules, causing the flow to be impeded and delayed within the filter unit.
HEPA Filter
The phenomenon in which the incidence of light or other radiant energy upon the junction of two types of semiconducting materials induces the generation of an electromotive force.
Photovoltaic Effect
A quantum of electromagnetic energy having zero mass and no electric charge.
Photon
A solid, usually crystalline substance, such as silicon (Si) and gallium arsenid (GaAs), having a conductivity between that of an insulator and that most metals.
Semiconductor
A semiconductor deficient in electrons.
P-type semiconductor
A semiconductor having an excess of electrons.
N-type semiconductor
A solid-state device that converts solar energy into electrical energy by means of the photovoltaic effect.
Photovoltaic Cell, Solar Cell
A number of photovoltaic cells housed in a protective structure and electrically connected in series to obtain a certain voltage and in parallel to provide the desired amount of current.
Photovoltaic Module, Solar Panel
Multiple photovoltaic modules typically mounted on rooftops and electrically connected to generate and supply the required amount of electricity in commercial and residential buildings.
Photovoltaic Array
A policy of some public utilities that promotes investment in renewable energy-generating technologies by allowing customers to offset their consumption over a billing period when they generate electricity in excess of their demand.
Net metering
The incorporation of photovoltaic technology into the roof, walls, or windows of a building as either a principal or ancillary source of electrical power, often replacing conventional building aterials.
Building-integrated photovoltaics, BIPV
Power created and controlled by the damming of rivers. As the water stored behind a dam is released at high pressure, its kinetic energy is transformed into mechanical energy and used by turbine blades to generate electricity.
Hydropower, Hydroelectric Power
Power generated by a turbine that converts the kinetic energy of wind flow into mechanical power that a generator can use to produce electricity. The technology consists of blades, sails, or hollow drums that catch the flow of winds and rotate, causing a shaft connected to a generator to turn.
Wind Power
The thermal energy stored in the earth’s oceans from the sun’s heat and the mechanical energy of its tides and waves.
Ocean Energy
A process for generating electricity from the thermal energy stored in the earth’s oceans, utilizing the temperature differential between warmer surface-seawater and colder deep-seawater to run a heat engine - pumping warm surface-seawater through a heat exchanger where a low-boiling-point fluid, such as ammonia, is vaporized, with the vapor expanding to rotate a turbine connected to a generator. Cold deep-seawater — pumped through a second heat exchanger – condenses the vapor back into a liquid, which is then recycled through the system.
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, OTEC
The energy of sea waves harnessed and converted into electricity at either offshore or onshore locations. Offshore systems are situated in dep water and use either the bobbing motion of the waves to power a pump or the funneling of waves through internal turbines on floating platforms to create electricity. Onshore wave power systems are built along shorelines to extract the energy in breaking waves by utilizing the alternating compression and depressurization of an enclosed air column to drive turbines.
Wave energy
Any of the organic matter, such as plant materials and animal waste, that can be used to produce electricity, transportation fuels, and chemicals that would otherwise be made from fossil fuels.
Biomass
A combustible gas produced by the decay of organic matter in the absence of oxygen, composed primarly of methane, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide.
Biogas
The earth’s internal heat, used for direct heating and cooling in buildings or, in the form of hot water or steam pulled from deep geothermal reservoirs, for driving turbine generators to produce electricity.
Geothermal Energy
The burning of hydrogen or its use by fuel cells to combine electrochemically with oxygen to produce electricity and heat, emitting only water vapor in the process. Though hydrogen is readily available and has very high energy for its weight, it has very low energy for its volume, thus requiring new technology to more effciently store and transport it.
Hydrogen power
A roof of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation, a growing medium, and sometimes a root layer and drainage system, installed over a waterproof membrane to lower building temperatures, reduce the heat island effect, lessen stormwater runoff, and absorb carbon dioxide from the air.
Green Roof
A wall that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and, in some cases, soil or an inorganic growing medium.
Green Wall
A green wall having the climbing vegetation rooted in the ground and growing up either directly on the wall or on specially designed supporting structures.
Green Facade
A design approach that emphasizes efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, and spatial resources. Building in a sustainable manner requires paying attention to the predictable and comprehensive outcomes of decisions, actions and events throughout the life cycle of a building, from conception to the siting, design, construction, use and maintenance of new buildings as well as the renovation process for existing buildings and the reshaping of communities and cities.
Sustainable Design
A self-sufficient vertical garden attached to the exterior or interior wall of a building, consisting of a structural frame, layers of geotextile material, soil or other growing medium, an automatic irrigation system, and plant materials.
Living Wall, Biowall, Vertical Garden
Living walls clean and cool air by absorbing carbon oxides, heavy metal particles, and emissions, buffer sound and wind, decrease energy consumption by regulating air temperature, and shield structures from ultraviolet rays, weather, and temperature fluctuations.
Building to provide healthy environments in a resource-efficient manner, using ecologically based principles.
green building
A building that utilizes a computerized network of sensors and other electronic devices to unify a variety of building automation tasks, such as monitoring and controlling heating, air conditioning, and ventilating systems; lighting; telecommunications; building access and security; fire safety and suppression and elevator operations.
Smart Building
Cladding designed to conserve and reduce the energy needed for heating, cooling and lighting a building by integrating passive solar collection, solar shading, daylighting, thermal resistance, and natural ventilaton into its assembly. The assembly usually consists of a double-or triple-glazed unit on the interior, an air space for harvesting heat and containing adjustable blinds, and an exterior layer of safety or laminated glazing with operable panels and sometimes energy-generating photovoltaic technologies.
Smart Facade, Climate wall, double-skin facade
A roof that uses shingles, tiles or membranes containing energy-generating photovoltaic technologies or colored to reflect or absorb solar heat as required by the external and indoor conditions.
Smart Roof
A method of lighting control that reduces energy consumption by using photosensors to detect daylighting levels and automatically adjusting the output level of electric lighting to create the desired or recommended level of illumination for a space. If the daylighting from windows is sufficient to meet the user’s needs, the lighting control system can automatically turn off all or a portion of the electric lighting or dim the lighting, and immediately reactivate the lighting if daylighting falls below a preset level. Daylight harvesting falls below a preset level. Daylight harvesting controls can be integrated with occupancy sensors for automated on/off control to further increase energy savings as well as with manual override controls to allow for adjustment of lighting levels by occupants. Some control systems can also adjust the color balance of the light by varying the intensity of individual LED lamps of different colors installed in the overhead fixtures.
Daylight harvesting
A lighting control system that provides two levels of lighting power in a space, not including off. The switching system may control alternate ballasts or lamps in a luminaire, alternate luminaires, or alternate lighting circuits independently by such means as photosensors that detect the light level from available daylighting; occupancy sensors that detect user presence; time-based control panels, or manual switches controllable by occupants or the facility operator. Many energy codes in the United States require light level reduction controls, such as bi-level switching, in enclosed spaces of certain occupancies.
Bi-level Switching
A form of bi-level switching in which multiple lamps in a single light fixture can be switched on and off independently of each other, allowing for one or two steps between full output and zero illumination while maintaining the required uniform distribution of light sutiable for work. For example, a series of three-lamp fixtures with split-ballast wiring can provide four light levels: 100% (all lamps lit), 66% (2 lamps in each fixture lit). 33% (1 lamp in each fixture lit), and 0% (all lamps extinguished). Multi-level switching provides greater flexibility and lessens the abrupt changes in light level of bi-level switching.
Multi-level Switching, Step Switching
Accreditation by the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) that an individual has the required level of knowledge of the LEED rating system.
LEED Certification
A trademarked set of measurable criteria that promotes environmentally sustainable construction, developed by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) as a consensus among federal/state/local agencies, suppliers, architects, engineers, contractors and building owners.
Green Building Rating System
The Green Building Rating System for new construction addresses six major areas of development.
Sustainable Sites
Water Efficiency
Energy and Atmosphere
Materials and Resources
Indoor Environmental Quality
Innovation and Design Process
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