What Sustainable Design Means to the Bottom Line

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>> You're looking at the Cathedral of Christ the Light, a sustainable, green friendly structure built in the center of Oakland, California. But before the cathedral looked like this, it started out as a digital model. Architects for the church used tools developed by software maker Auto Desk. The way it works, designers are able to map out green features digitally before starting the costly construction process. Linell Cameron is the director of sustainability at the company.

>> A lot of people believe that green design, sustainable design costs more money. And certainly that can be true if the idea of sustainability is inserted late into the process. So what we're trying to help our customers do is think about sustainable design as a design constraint right from the beginning.

>> In the case of the cathedral, designers decided to use natural light throughout the building, which is now reducing the need for both electricity and air conditioning.

>> They can understand the energy efficiency of the design, they can also understand the relative material impacts. So using one material versus another material, how that will impact the design. And it enables them to simulate how that thing, building or product, will perform in the real world.

>> Another example of sustainable design is the re-opening of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. The standout feature is the structure's living roof. The two and a half acre roof required designers to use 3D modeling and visualization software to help make the building more energy efficient.

>> So we're looking at some close-up images of the living roof here.

>> Right. So there's over a million and a half native plants on the roof, which again help keep the building cool. The skylights are required for the aquarium and the rain forest to get light down in the space. But that causes structural problems. So working with the 3D model to understand how they can place these skylights was a real challenge, and something that would have been impossible to do without the design tools that inaudible has at their hands.

>> One of the newer ideas at Auto Desk is software that helps architects measure specific environmental effects, such as solar, thermal, and air flow on building performance, and then attribute cost savings to the project.

>> We try and determine how good this building can get in terms of being carbon neutral. So this onsite renewable potential is all the wind energy and inaudible electric generation. We look at the natural ventilation potential in the building, so very quickly we determine if it's an opportunity to start opening the windows and rely on the breezes to cool the building and ventilate it.

>> Cameron says while green design isn't the top priority for all companies right now, she says sustainability can help the bottom line, and will one day be part of every day business practices.

>> You know, I've been in this field for fifteen or twenty years now, and my vision has always been that positions like mine, directors of sustainability, will actually disappear. And I think that's when we will be able to declare success, is when sustainable design is part of regular design, sustainable business is good business. I think it's gonna become very basic baseline expectations, hopefully sooner rather than later.

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>> For BNET, I'm Sumi Das.

==== Transcribed by Automatic Sync Techologies ====