GBI and QA Graphics collaborate to advance building performance awareness

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ANKENY, IOWA — The Green Building Initiative (GBI) and QA Graphics have announced a collaboration that will provide users of the Green Globes assessment program with a creative solution to display real-time building performance data and educate occupants and the public about sustainable building practices.

The Green Building Initiative (GBI) is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to accelerate the adoption of sustainable building practices. QA Graphics has joined the GBI as an official supporter and will collaborate with the organization to help its members facilitate education about sustainable building practices.

“We’re excited to be a part of The Green Building Initiative,” Dan McCarty, president of QA Graphics said. “QA Graphics has helped a number of organizations educate about their sustainable efforts, and we look forward to working with those seeking Green Globes certification to offer a creative solution for ongoing education about green building.”

The Green Building Initiative supports building approaches that are environmentally progressive, practical and affordable for builders to implement, offering Green Globes, the first web-based green building assessment tool in the U.S. Green Globes provide an affordable and user-friendly way to achieve a credible green certification, and organizations can use QA Graphics’ Energy Efficiency Education Dashboard to satisfy a variety of points under this rating system as well as for ongoing building performance data and education purposes.

QA Graphics’ Energy Efficiency Education Dashboard (EEED) is an interactive interface used to educate about sustainable building practices, by creatively displaying real-time building performance data in a way that’s easy to understand and demonstrating how sustainable features like geothermal heat pumps or photovoltaic systems actually work.

The EEED is also used to motivate tenants to participate in the organization’s environmental efforts, through education as well as competitions encouraging occupants to see who can use less water or electricity. The application is similar to a website, typically shown online or on a display in a building lobby, and can be tailored to all ages, with games, interactive quizzes, and calculators that provide easy to understand comparisons, like how many swimming pools could be filled with water saved or how many homes could be powered by electricity saved.

“We appreciate QA Graphics' commitment to the sustainability process,” Ward Hubbell, president of The Green Building Initiative said. “As a supporter of the GBI, they have joined a cadre of professionals and companies who support green initiatives. To this end, we are collaborating with them to host several free educational webinars for the industry and expect to see other educational offerings because of our relationship with QA Graphics.”

The Green Globes system consists of two commercial certification programs: New Construction and Continual Improvement of Existing Buildings. The programs help building managers save energy, minimize greenhouse gas emissions, conserve water, and reduce pollution. The Green Globes’ interactive capability encourages owners, designers, and facility managers to consider sustainability at each stage of a building’s life cycle, providing a cost-effective way to build and operate green buildings.

The green building assessment tool is scalable and can be used on many kinds of buildings including schools, offices, universities, libraries, etc. When used in conjunction with other efforts, the Energy Efficiency Education Dashboard can achieve up to 34 points under the Continual Improvement of Existing Buildings track, and up to 27 points can be achieved under the New Construction track.

QA Graphics and The Green Building Initiative invite organizations to learn more about how the Energy Efficiency Education Dashboard can help achieve points under the Green Globes certification process. A webinar will be presented on Jan. 26 and Feb. 2 at 12:00 p.m. Central Time. Register here.

For more information about QA Graphics or the Green Building Initiative, please visit www.qagraphics.com, or www.thegbi.org, respectively.