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Where Every Issue is a Green Issue| Providing Wisdom in Building a Sustainable Future | ||||||||||||||||||||
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New Life Cycle Calculator Compares the Cost of Green Vegetative Roofs With Conventional Roof Systems A major obstacle to the proliferation of green vegetative roofs has been that organizations have no effective way to compare the life cycle cost of green roofs with conventional roofs — until now. Professionals concerned with or responsible for sustainability, such as architects, designers and facility managers, will soon be able to use the Life Cycle Costing (LCC) Calculator. The first phase of the LCC Calculator was first unveiled at the Fifth Annual International Greening Rooftops for Sustainable Cities Conference. Many varied benefits can be factored into the investment of a green roof, such as lowering energy costs and having an employee-accessible green roof. As many benefits as possible will be incorporated into the LCC Calculator, with additional benefits to be calculated in future versions. The intent is for the LCC Calculator to expand as specific projects are uploaded into the case study memory. The LCC Calculator is used to compute roofing alternatives having the same purpose (functional utility) over the same time frame, then compare them to determine which has the lowest life cycle cost for the selected study period. Calculating a roof's life cycle cost is particularly useful in determining whether the higher initial cost of an investment is justified by reductions in future costs such as operating, maintenance, repair or replacement costs. The LCC Calculator also takes into consideration whether some roofs have lower initial costs but higher future costs. “The LCC Calculator determines the lowest cost investment for satisfying a specific roofing requirement over a specific time frame,” said Ralph Velasquez, Sustainable Technologies Manager for Tremco Roofing and Building Maintenance, which is one of the country's largest providers of roofing and building envelope systems and a leader in sustainable roofing technology. In a combined effort, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC), a network consisting of public and private organizations, with funding from Tremco, hired the Athena Institute to build the first phase of the LCC Calculator. Velasquez chairs the GRHC's Life Cycle Costing Subcommittee. The Athena Institute undertakes and directs various research and development activities that make it possible to factor environmental considerations into the building design process from the conceptual stage onward. “The value of the LCC Calculator is that it will allow users to explore both the hard and soft costs associated with green roofs versus conventional roofing systems,” said Jamie Meil, co-founder and director of the Athena Institute, “thus enabling organizations to better understand the benefits of green roofs from a more robust life cycle cost perspective. The final Web-based version will be designed to allow the end user to consider the study period, discount rate, general inflation rate, energy price inflation, investment cost data, financing data, residual or resale value, recurring operating and maintenance costs, and replacement costs. It is also capable of capturing other possible roof benefits such as storm water and heat island mitigation, extended roof durability, related energy costs and savings, development fee savings, marketing benefits, increased rentability and tenant health and productivity improvements that can be ascribed to a roofing system. During the first year of its availability, the LCC Calculator will be accessible exclusively from Tremco at www.tremcoroofing.com and from GRHC at www.greenroofs.net. “The LCC Calculator is truly groundbreaking in that it is a third-party, unbiased tool that can be used to make fully informed decisions about green roof technology as it applies to specific projects and organizations,” said Velasquez. About Ralph Velasquez and Jaime Meil Ralph Velasquez has been in the roofing industry since 1978. He has been deeply involved in the green vegetative roofing industry since 2000. He has worked on millions of square feet of roofing and re-roofing projects, as well as a large number of building envelope restoration projects for corporations, educational and institutional entities and governmental agencies across the country. Velasquez is a member of ASTM's Sustainable subcommittees, Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, the U.S. Green Building Council (serving his local chapter as board member and Advocacy Co-Chair) and numerous other related organizations. Jaime Meil is the prime developer of the Athena Institute's Environmental Impact Estimator software - the only commercially available decision-support tool in North America that facilitates life cycle-based whole building environmental assessment. |
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