Designing for Zero Carbon: Case Studies of All-Electric Buildings Released

Integral Group is proud to have two of its Zero Carbon-designed projects featured in a new book, Designing for Zero Carbon: Case Studies of All-Electric Buildings written by Edward Dean, FAIA, and published by Southern Edison California. In this publication, Dean makes a case for Zero Carbon design by looking at a short history of building design and carbon emissions, including embodied carbon considerations, grid harmonization and energy storage, and introduces the new paradigm: all-electric (Zero Carbon) buildings.

“Climate change and its effects are more apparent in our everyday lives than ever before, motivating massive social actions to address the source of the problem: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, primarily carbon (CO2) emissions. Approximately 39% of annual global CO2 emissions are generated for our buildings. It is no wonder that the building sector has always been a focus of these transformative efforts […] Zero-carbon buildings are therefore now the goal in the campaign against climate change caused by GHG emissions initiated by the built environment. This means all-electric new building construction and, the more difficult task, existing building renovations and retrofits to convert these structures to all-electric building operation.”

Case study projects featured include: