Decarbonizing the U.S. building sector requires a rapid and sustained increase in the rates of energy efficient and low-carbon building retrofits and new construction. Given the speed and scale of action needed to decarbonize the built environment, new approaches are required to overcome traditional market and technical barriers. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Building Construction (ABC) Initiative aims to transform building construction and renovation practices in the U.S. using industrialized construction approaches to improve the speed, scale, and affordability of high-performance building retrofits and new construction. This presentation provides an overview of the ABC Initiative,
The speaker, Evan Sattler-Malloy, a research scientist at Berkeley Lab’s Building Technologies and Urban Systems Division, discusses industrializing instruction and its role in increasing the speed and scale of building decarbonization. He highlights key challenges faced by the building and construction industry in the 21st century, such as the decline in labor productivity, the doubling of the global building stock by 2060, and the inadequacy of annual retrofits in the US. He introduces the Department of Energy’s Advanced Building Construction (ABC) initiative including its key goals and accomplishments to date in the areas of building retrofit RD&D, industry-facing performance and cost guidance, technology commercialization and scaling, and its efforts to develop and deploy advanced building technologies in both renovation and construction markets. He also previews forthcoming Market guidance for residential buildings, which aims to promote the broader adoption of advanced building technologies.
