ATLANTA – To help engineers respond to environmental challenges, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) is working to ensure sustainable design guidance is incorporated in its handbook. ASHRAE is conducting a review of the sustainability content of all handbook chapters and is looking at writing a new chapter on sustainability with a view toward integrated building design in its Fundamentals volume.
"While the word sustainability only recently entered the vocabulary of ASHRAE, the society was involved with sustainable building and HVAC equipment design long before the term was coined," said Norm Maxwell, P.E., chair of the handbook committee.