ATLANTIC CITY, NJ - For the forum “Should ASHRAE Have a Definition of a High-Performance Building,” one engineer posed the question, "How do you define energy efficiency or cost effectiveness?" Perhaps ASHRAE should just come up with guidelines, he suggested.

Another attendee stated that we need some guidance on what performance a base case building must achieve.

A representative from a manufacturer remarked that even a qualitative definition is a hurdle. Everybody has a really different viewpoint of building performance, he noted.

Publication date: 01/14/2002