Research Library
Water
On-Site Water Systems: Financial Case Studies
What’s Inside:
- Financial case studies from six projects around the country using on-site water capture, treatment, and reuse systems
- Return on investment, first cost, and maintenance cost data from a variety of different building types and sizes
Opportunities For Achieving Next Generation Water Infrastructure in CA, WA, and OR v1.1
What’s Inside:
• Review of the top ten industry-identified barriers to adopting innovative and sustainable water systems on the West Coast
• Potential solution pathways for each barrier discussed and vetted during the annual Water Summit at Living Future 2017
• Updated to include new solution pathways and resources
Making The Switch: Transitioning Toward Integrated Water Management in Puget Sound
What’s Inside:
• International, national and state level case studies
• Lessons learned in making transition to integrated, more decentralized water management
Policy Making For Healthy, Resilient Water Systems in Puget Sound
What’s Inside:
• Puget Sound water systems + Washington regulations
• Policy making recommendations
Clean Water, Healthy Sound: A Life Cycle Analysis of Alternative Wastewater Treatment Strategies in Puget Sound
What’s Inside:
• Brief history of wastewater treatment in North America and the Puget Sound region
• Strategies for decentralized treatment
• Life Cycle Analysis of wastewater treatment systems
Regulatory Pathways to Net Zero Water
What’s Inside:
• Living Building Challenge: Net Zero water and ecological water flow
• Codes and degulations related to Net Zero water
• Guidance to Seattle-area design teams pursuing the Living Building Challenge
Toward Net Zero Water – Best Management Practices for Decentralized Sourcing and Treatment
What’s Inside:
• Best management practices for designing safe, efficient and effective Net Zero water systems at various scales
• Overview of best practices and technologies for decentralized and distributed water systems
• Case studies illustrating best in-class examples of innovative water systems used by actual projects from around the globe
Achieving Water Independence in Buildings: Negotiating the Challenge of Water Reuse in Oregon
What’s Inside:
• Explains water reuse strategies and what current Oregon regulations allow
• Explores regulatory, technological and behavioral barriers to achieve net-zero water
Affordable Housing
+ Living Building Challenge: Framework for Affordable Housing
What’s Inside:
• Highlights pathways to overcome social, regulatory, and financial barriers to achieving Living Building Challenge certification in Affordable Housing
Building codes
Living Building Challenge Certification in Quebec: Challenge and Solutions
What’s Inside:
• Addresses regional challenges to the pursuit of the Living Building Challenge in Quebec
Code, Regulatory and Systemic Barriers Affecting Living Building Projects
What’s Inside:
• Addresses both systemic and specific regulatory barriers encountered by projects pursuing the goals and prerequisites established by the Living Building Challenge within the U.S. and Canada
City of Vancouver/Clark County Code Study
What’s Inside:
• Identifies and addresses code and regulatory barriers to the Living Building Challenge for sustainable, affordable, residential development
• Report 1: Findings
• Report 2: Strategies and Recommendations
• Report 3: Cost Benefit Summary
Building Reuse
Every year, approximately 1 billion square feet of buildings are demolished and replaced with new construction in the United States. The Brookings Institution projects that some 82 billion square feet of existing space will be demolished and replaced between 2005 and 2030 – roughly one-quarter of today’s existing building stock. Yet, few studies to date have sought to examine the environmental impacts of razing old buildings and erecting new structures in their place. In particular, the climate change implications of demolition and new construction, as compared to building renovation and reuse, remain under-examined.
For this reason, our research team has partnered with fellow organizations to compare the environmental impacts of building demolition and new construction relative to building renovation and reuse.
The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse
What’s Inside:
•Provides most comprehensive analysis to date of the potential environmental benefit of building reuse
•Offer policy=makers, building owners, developers, architects and engineers compelling evidence of the merits of reusing existing buildings as opposed to tearing them down and building new
Community Benefits
The Living Building Challenge (LBC) is not just a certification program for buildings; it is a creative framework for imagining the future, an advocacy tool to help push public and private policy as well as market transformation, and a platform that allows us to celebrate achievements and showcase buildings as beacons for change. LBC’s seven Petals and 20 Imperatives cover a full range of factors for creating net positive impacts for the environment, the building occupants and users, and the surrounding community. In particular, the Place, Equity, and Beauty Petals include requirements aimed at positively impacting the economic, social, and cultural health of the local and regional community through activities such as job creation, workforce development, neighborhood revitalization, designing for universal access and accessibility, creation of open space, and community engagement.
While LBC has led the way in centering equity in the built environment, we know it can and needs to do more. Over the past few years, there has been an increased awareness of the interconnectivity between social equity and the built environment, illuminating the importance of the building industry as a critical player in the transition to healthy, equitable, and sustainable communities. Many in the building industry look to ILFI and LBC to continue providing and evolving aspirational yet practical frameworks, resources, and tools that achieve and measure progress on social, environmental, and health impacts.
Leveraging Regenerative Buildings to Drive Economic, Social, and Cultural Change: Learnings from Pittsburgh
This Report of Findings is an output of the 2023-2024 Heinz Endowments one-year grant, which seeks to leverage the great work of
Pittsburgh to inspire local change and help communities beyond western Pennsylvania harness the wisdom of local communities. The report identifies and shares tools, resources, best practices, and success stories to elevate the voices and opportunities for Pittsburgh’s community-based organizations as well as to evolve and improve the rigor, impact, and access of ILFI’s Living Building Challenge.
Finance
There is a perceived cost premium associated with advanced green building practices. We have found, however, that this premium is less extensive than many people believe it to be. Unfortunately, current lending approaches, appraisal protocols and valuation models have hindered the adoption of environmentally sound building practices, slowing innovation and market growth at green building’s leading edge.
These barriers affect the perceived financial viability of environmentally sound projects. As a result, long-term deep sustainability is often considered a luxury available only for those who can afford ‘extras’. Advanced green building best practices are too often overlooked for market-rate building projects and rarely incorporated into the below-market affordable housing projects where they are needed most.
We are working with a team of economists, developers and valuation professionals to create a new model for real estate investment that will remove the artificial financial disincentives for deep green buildings. Our financial research is dedicated to clearing the way for dramatic improvement in the built environment’s relationship to the ecosystems it inhabits.
Net Zero and Living Building Challenge Financial Study
What’s Inside:
• Investigate costs, benefits and approaches necessary to improve building performance in the District of Columbia from LEED Platinum to zero energy, zero water and Living Building status
• Advises on policy drivers related to deep green buildings
The Economics of Change
What’s Inside:
• Expands methodologies used to evaluate the multiple benefits of high performance green buildings and infrastructure
Living Building Challenge Financial Study
What’s Inside:
• Investigates the economic obstacles to creating Living Buildings, and determine how these vary based on building type and location
High Performance Green Building – What’s It Worth?
What’s Inside:
• Helps bridge the gap in understanding between the financial and investment community and the building & design community
• Provides information about the valuation of high performance green buildings with a focus on commercial investment office properties
Energy
The International Living Future Institute envisions a safe, reliable and decentralized power grid, founded on renewable energy that supplies to incredibly efficient buildings and infrastructure without the crutch of combustion. Our energy research is aimed at identifying new, more efficient and cost-effective strategies for meeting the energy needs of our future’s homes, buildings and communities.
Saving Windows, Saving Money
What’s Inside:
• Offers insight for homeowners weighing the financial and energy tradeoffs between replacing or repairing older, less efficient windows
• Examines multiple window improvement options, comparing them to replacement windows across multiple climate regions