Sustainable Design: Materials/Water Conservation/Energy Efficiency

This session focuses on three aspects of Sustainable Design: 1.MATERIALS SELECTION plays an important role in sustainable design throughout both process and material life cycles, including material extraction, processing, transportation, end-use and disposal. Minimizing generated waste and promoting material reuse can be achieved through well-calculated preliminary process feed and materials choices. This session will focus on material properties, procurement and sustainable reuse or disposal for materials used in a variety of industries and applications. 2. WATER CONSERVATION. According to the US EPA, between 1950 and 2000 the U.S. population nearly doubled; however, in that same period, public demand for water more than tripled. Similarly, commercial, industrial and institutional water use has also witnessed an increase in proportion to recent industrial and commercial growth. Water conservation practices and water management plans are deeply rooted in technical designs for optimized facility water use. Methods and technologies for successful water-savings processes and methods, as well as program implementation methods, will be covered to review sustainable design options. 3.ENERGY EFFICIENCY has come to the forefront of sustainable technology as one of the most effective means of enhancing commercial productivity while improving global environmental quality. Session topics will focus on a variety of timely issues including best practices, the role of energy efficiency in the building end-use sector, programs designed to incorporate energy efficiency at the industrial or facilities-based perspective, and renewable energy resources.