INTENT
The intent of this Imperative is to treat energy as a precious resource and minimize energy-related carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.
REQUIREMENTS
All projects must achieve a reduction in total net annual energy consumption (after accounting for on-site renewable power), as compared to a typical existing building with comparable climate, size, use, and occupancy, and combustion must be limited as follows:
Table 7-1 Energy Use Reduction Requirements
All projects must meter energy used by the project.
New and Existing projects must demonstrate a twenty percent reduction in the embodied carbon of primary materials compared to an equivalent baseline. Existing buildings may count in-situ primary materials against the required twenty percent.
All projects (except Landscape + Infrastructure) must select interior materials with lower than industry average carbon footprint for product categories for which embodied carbon data is readily available.
All projects must be designed to be “zero ready” through strategies such as designating area(s) and/or pre-installing wiring and connections for both electric vehicle charging and future installation of renewable energy systems.
CHANGES FROM LBC 3.1 TO 4.0
While several requirements in this Imperative were included in other Imperatives under LBC 3.1, for the most part this is a new Imperative under LBC 4.0. This Imperative requires projects to achieve high levels of energy efficiency and reduce embodied carbon in both primary materials and interior materials. While on-site renewable energy is not required in this Imperative, projects must take steps to be ready to install renewable energy systems in the future. The requirements related to metering and combustion limits moved from Imperative 06, Net Positive Energy in LBC 3.1 to this Imperative in LBC 4.0.
