Catherine McKenna, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change, visited Carleton Aug. 14 to announce that the Ministry of Natural Resources is giving $350,000 to a Carleton research team to invest in a sustainability research project.
The Green Building Project began in early 2017, and is spearheaded by a group of Carleton professors. The aim of their project is to design more energy-efficient building plans by developing more effective ways to monitor energy consumption and quantify occupant behaviours in buildings.
The team consists of three engineering professors and four research assistants.
Liam O’Brien, an engineering professor and a team leader for the Green Building Project, said his team was surprised to receive the funding.
“[I feel] very proud [about the grant]. This thing was super competitive. We were pretty surprised because [this research] is a very non-traditional area. It’s not technology, it’s not directly going to lead to patents or big business . . . it’s slightly unconventional,” O’Brien said.
The research assistants helping with the project are three post-doctorate fellows and one PhD student, who are essential to the team, he added.
“Ninety per cent of the grant money goes towards paying our research assistants . . . I had some talented students, and I wanted to keep them,” he said.
The National Research Council (NRC) is one of many partners for the project.
“Our organization and Carleton Engineering share a common goal in wanting to drive down the energy consumption of buildings and wanting to do so in a responsible way that respects the comfort and the needs of occupants in the space,” Guy Newsham, the principal research officer for the NRC, said.
An essential element of the research is the fact that it is centered around the experience of the occupant of a building, according to Newsham.
“In North America, on average, we spend 90 per cent of our time indoors . . . I don’t think you can pick another element of science and technology research that affects so many people [and] so much of their lives than making buildings better places to be,” he said.
The project uses a multi-disciplinary approach, which also makes this research unique, Newsham added.
“A lot of the research that is done on energy efficiency in buildings is focused entirely on the engineering performance of the building itself, and it often ignores occupants’ interactions with buildings and the effects of that,” Newsham said.
The occupant-centric perspective adds greatly to the appeal of the project, he added.
“When proposing this [project] to companies, it often needs to be a business proposal that has benefit other than energy efficiency,” Newsham said.
The project formally finishes in March 2019. But, O’Brien said he hopes to reach organizations that will continue using the research, and that eventually his team will work towards changing the National Energy Code for Buildings.
The Green Building Project is part of a multi-project collaboration that Carleton has with the NRC, Newsham said.
“[The partnership] is leading us both towards a shared vision over the long term. Individual projects will come and go, but they are all aligned with our collaboration. The outcomes will continue after this individual project is over,” he said.
