Past, Present, and Future; the type of thoughts used to establish goals

Nothing is closer to the mark in our industry than “the only constant is change”. It seems to have been the standard since the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987. As I approach 30 years in the industry it’s a good time for me to stop and evaluate how we’ve gotten to this point. The path the industry took to this point is sure to indicate what we can expect the future bring. The Montreal Protocol was the beginning of the environmental consciousness in our industry. With the need to drastically redesign equipment came the opportunity for manufactures to be innovative. The way to set your product apart was through efficiency and with government standards it became easy to see which products were in the lead. The hold outs died, the followers survived, the early adopters thrived.

The engineers have been the driving force behind what’s been sold to the construction industry. They‘ve been the ones to evaluate new technologies and incorporate the latest innovations into projects. The government outdoor air regulations forced the manufactures to change the equipment. The equipment changes forced the engineers to change the design. Then government indoor air quality regulations required manufactures to change the equipment and again the engineers changed the design. All the while the service industry just followed along. Then came something different; the engineers got together and wrote the next rule book. The Federal Government recently mandated that all states must meet or exceed ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2010 by October 2013. This is what the future holds minimum standard rating regulations, innovation for a higher standard, raising the minimum standard, more innovation, raising the standard, innovation.

Most of the service industry will be surprised to learn preventive maintenance is mandated under ASHRAE 90.1-2010. If the prediction holds true that 75% of the buildings that will be occupied in 2050 are already occupied today, than it is sure to mean this is only the beginning of service industry regulations. If we are not going to build efficient new buildings to save the environment we are going to need to make the existing buildings more efficient. As we watched an MSCA webinar today on filling out Energy Star Benchmarking someone said “I’ll bet in 10 years every building will be required to fill this out and meet a minimum”.  Minimum standard regulations, more innovation, higher standards, innovation, I think you see where we're headed. First the raw products were regulated, then the manufactures, then the engineering of new buildings, next the service and maintenance, and all that’s left to regulate is the existing building.