The triple bottom line of sustainability addresses the importance of environmental, social and economic considerations. It's something we all strive to achieve. That being said, the social aspect is often forgotten or overlooked, particularly in affordable housing. Very often, residents are spoken for and not included in the decision making process upfront. This session will highlight typical resident responses and concerns that we hear every day. It will also highlight new strategies that aim to improve interactions with residents, throughout the design process.

Successful Passive House teams throughout North America follow an approach that, if replicated at scale, can reduce the energy load and carbon output of the built environment at the level needed to address climate change, while improving building quality. Effective scaling requires maintaining an integrated team from early design through construction completion. In this session, we will identify challenges in the Passive House process and share the details of a proven approach to integrating teams, which can be easily and repeatably implemented in projects of all sizes and types.

To comply with NYC Local Law 97, buildings will need guidance on how to implement capital measures that effectively reduce carbon emissions. However, even detailed energy studies can have unrealistic recommendations if engineering design considerations are neglected. Meanwhile, design engineers tend to focus more on system sufficiency instead of efficiency. Practitioners are tasked with narrowing this knowledge gap and identifying crucial details that could make or break a building’s ability to implement recommendations.

The session will describe the Empire Building Challenge (EBC) process and Resource Efficient Electrification, expanding on the recent BuildingEnergy Magazine article on the same topic. We will update our learnings based on the work conducted by Cohort 1 of the Empire Building Challenge, and we'll be able to announce Cohort 2, as well as examining the work conducted with that group of real estate owners and MEP engineers. We're excited to continue updating the NESEA community on these efforts.

In 2021, HPD and NYSERDA launched a joint $24 million pilot giving direct grants to HPD Preservation projects to (holistically) electrify hot water, space heating or both. This was possible by relying on HPD's rigorous oversight paired with dedicated Technical Assistance from Steven Winter Associates and Taitem Engineering. By Fall 2022, we will have our first cohort (nearly 175 housing units) under construction and be in the design stages with a second cohort.

Current pathways to carbon emission reductions are primarily driven through electrification of heating via heat pumps. Types of heat pump technology that are underutilized in the NYC area are ground source heat pumps (GSHP)/geothermal energy and other thermal networks. Heating and cooling from geothermal energy and other thermal networks are not novel technologies and have been used in urban areas in North America and Western Europe for some time. However, these systems are still facing barriers to adoption.

Phius (formerly the Passive House Institute U.S.) introduced a new version of their certification standard in 2021 with the goal of making it easier and more affordable for single-family residential homes to achieve certification. In this presentation, you will learn about this new Prescriptive Path and how it can simplify the design and certification process for single-family homes and make certification available for a wider range of project teams, project sizes and project budgets.

As we consider how to decarbonize affordable multifamily housing communities, it is imperative to establish market-based momentum that does not solely rely on regulations and subsidy programs that may change year to year. Panelists will discuss the financing tools available to support a market in which decarbonization is business as usual. They will also showcase a set of financing solutions, as well as culture shifts, enabling them to invest in climate solutions for disadvantaged communities.

A building operator and a board member will discuss the evolving role of operators and the importance of training and operations and maintenance (O&M). This session will also explore free training available for operators and ways management companies/employers can work with the 32BJ Training Fund. Speakers will describe ways the building community can help influence and support training and O&M to empower incumbent operators to move away from fossil fuels and be equipped for the challenges ahead.

As we look to comply with NYC Local Law 97 (LL97), we must efficiently leverage other energy-related laws in order to make more cost-effective, timely, and holistic decisions regarding electrification and carbon reduction upgrades. Our panel will discuss the timelines of NYC laws for buildings, how they are interconnected, and how they can be leveraged.