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Sustainability Accounting Standards Board

Jessica Helfand | Smithsonian Institution

Time to break down best practice literature released by he Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) — one of the first names in organizations with a solid due process platform for leading practice discovery and promulgation of sustainability concepts for the private sector. Like the sustainability zietgeist itself; its topical areas are hydra-like — reaching into every sector, industry, and industry subsector — largely because money flows through all of them.

We approach the SASB bibliography as an open-source, consortia standards suite that challenges niche verticals known to most education community asset managers. Since the education industry has both a private and public revenue character, we follow SASB standards development and participate in proposal and commenting opportunities whenever possible.

Last year we selected six sector-specific SASB standards that, in our judgment, could lower #TotalCostofOwnership with improved management of sustainability advancement activity (See list below). We downloaded these standards, looked them over for actionable-specifics, but we did not submit comments of our own because of organizational changes we explain in our ABOUT and also because we could not find an individual institution or education industry trade association interested in collaborating with us on meaningful specifics. We will try again.

Until we find a collaborator you may be enlightened by the current status of the SASB suite; all of its products available to the public:

Download Current SASB Standards | Credentials required

At the moment two developments at the SASB are meaningful for sustainability professionals in education communities:

The Conceptual Framework document details the principles, objectives, assumptions, and definitions that guide SASB’s thinking and approach to Standard-setting/revising. The Conceptual Framework project will clarify and strengthen these core principles and concepts that govern SASB’s Standards.
The Rules of Procedure document ensures the clarity, robustness, and integrity of SASB’s operations and processes. The Rules of Procedure project will ensure that the operations and Standard-setting/revising processes detailed in the document reflect SASB’s procedures today.

CLICK HERE for access to a listing of active projects in several stages. No titles have been released for consultation as of the date of this post.

We encourage technical and business subject matter experts in education communities to try not to re-invent the wheel in developing sustainability policy templates but rather to collaborate with organizations whose existing consensus products can be adapted for education communities. Perhaps post-pandemic, some of the redundancies we have been reporting to the education facility industry will be sun-setted.

We maintain the SASB suite on the standing agenda of our Fintech teleconferences. See our CALENDAR for the next online teleconference; open to everyone.

Issue: [Various]

Category: Finance, Informatics, Management

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Jack Janveja, Richard Robben

More

Workspace / SASB

الصيانة بجامعة تبوك

ISO and Construction

Representative School, College & University Construction Contract General Conditions

Good data for the public good

Iowa City Farmer’s Market

Drivable path detection system for robotic snow removal

Tshwane University of Technology / Pretoria, South Africa

Performance of drivable path detection system of autonomous robots in rain and snow scenario

Agunbiade O. Yinka -Selemon M. Ngwira – Selemon M. Ngwira – Zuva Tranos

Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa

Prateek S. Sengar

Amity School of Engineering and Technology, Amity University, Noida

Abstract: Drivable path detection is an important factor to consider for a successful development of autonomous robot which is characterized as an intelligent vehicle. Researchers using different vision-based techniques have achieved remarkable result toward drivable path detection. Regardless of this achievement, environmental noise such as rain and/or snow can cause misdetection of drivable path which can lead to autonomous robot accident. In this paper, after investigating the effects of rain and/or snow, we introduced into the drivable path detection system a filtering algorithm that addresses the detection and removal of rain and/or snow for the optimization of the system. Experiments were carried out to show the effectiveness of the filter in the system. The results show that filtering algorithm assists the autonomous driving system in navigating perfectly during rain and/or snow scenario with minimal accident.

CLICK HERE for access to the complete paper

ऐमिटी युनिवर्सिटी, नॉएडा / Amity University Noida, India

False Alarm Reduction

“Students from the Pestalozzian Academy” | Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1806} | Meadows Museum Southern Methodist University

Security standards for the education industry develop on a near-weekly basis. Every incident spawns new workgroups that compete with incumbents, consortia and open source licensing organizations to set the standard of care through documents, accreditation, training and other revenue-capture instruments. We count the better part of 100 of them including the standards spawned from ad hoc alliances and partnerships.

The Security Industry Association in an ANSI-accredited standards setting organization that develops consensus products that promote interoperability and information sharing in the industry. The landing page for its standards setting enterprise is linked below:

SIA Industry Standards

Interoperability problems in the digital transformation of the education communities has been a challenge for decades. Competition among providers inevitably results in vendor lock-in. Given high degree of rehabilitation activity in facilities, getting legacy and new fire alarm systems to talk to one another is a worthy goal. The original University of Michigan standards advocacy enterprise had a few modest “code wins” in this domain from 2000 to 2016.

Interoperability challenges remain and are the signature characteristic of the transformation.

Last year the SIA initiated a revision cycle for its standard — SIA CP-01 Features for False Alarm Reduction — which asserts leading practice for reduction of false alarms. To paraphrase the benefits of this ANSI-accredited consensus document:

Saves facility management enterprises time and money with decreased alarm dispatches and programmable swinger shutdown.
Provides technical specifications for cross zoning and carbon monoxide zoning.
Provides commissioning, inspection, testing and maintenance guidance.
Provides guidance for installing security measures like the duress alarm that can be entered by a user to trigger a silent call for help while under threat from an intruder.
Features, including specifications for carbon monoxide zones and qualifications for swinger shutdown.

From the ANSI Project Initiation Notification Announcement:

Project Need: False Alarms and False Dispatches continue to be a thorn in the side of municipalities and law enforcement.

Stakeholders: Security integrators, security manufacturers, law enforcement, central stations, monitoring companies, and
some end-users (consumers) of security.

Scope: This standard details recommended design features for security systems, control panels, and their associated devices to reduce the incidence of false alarms. These features are applicable to both residential and commercial properties protected by an electronic security system. This standard is intended for use by manufacturers in the design of security systems and alarm signal receivers. It is also intended for reference by all affected parties, including security system installers, specifiers, and users; central station owners and operators; manufacturers of central station products, such as receivers and automation software; and local authorities

We will be watching for release of public review drafts. You are encouraged to communicate directly with SIA: CONTACT

The SIA suite is on the standing agenda of our periodic Security, Risk and Prometheus teleconferences. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.

Issue: [13-143]

Category: Security, Risk, Prometheus

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Josh Evolve, Jim Harvey, Richard Robben

LEARN MORE:

Fire Alarm and Security Industry Terminology

Indoor Air Quality

June 14, 2021

This title has stabilized for the moment. The current 2019 edition of the integrated significant changes, including:

New informative tables of ventilation rates per unit area for checking new and existing buildings ventilation calculations
Simplified version of the Ventilation Rate Procedure improving calculations for system ventilation efficiency and zone air distribution effectiveness
Modified Natural Ventilation Procedure calculation methodology
Revised scope to specifically identify occupancies previously not covered

Additionally:

Natural ventilation now requires considering the quality of the outdoor air and interaction of the outdoor air with mechanically cooledspaces.
Humidity control requirements are now expressed as dew point and not as relative humidity.

Many organizations that administer technical committees have been impeded by the circumstances of the pandemic but the entire ASHRAE catalog is tracked on a near-hourly basis in our algorithm. We will pass along public consultation notices on this title when they are released.

CLICK HERE to obtain the most current copy.

The ASHRAE committee writing standards for ventilation and indoor air quality (ASHRAE 62.2) has released another addenda for public review. Any changes to ASHRAE 62.2 is important because because those changes find their way into ASHRAE 90.1 — Energy Standard for Buildings. ASHRAE 90.1 is referenced into the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). The IECC is frequently found to be incorporated by reference into federal and state energy and air quality laws. Education communities own and operate significant real assets — boarding schools, residence halls, off-campus housing — in which assurance of indoor air quality is a responsibility.

Addendum b – Replaces the current definition of “readily accessible“ with a new definition that is intended to be less ambiguous and more compatible with building codes. The replaced definition of “readily accessible” is directly from the 2020 National Electrical Code (NEC). It also creates a new definition for “accessible” and makes edits in the standard to refer to one of the two definitions, where needed.

A definition of “Ready Accessible” has been on the agenda of National Electric Code committees for decades. Standards Michigan has been a participant in those discussions since 1996. The concept is deceptive in its simplicity; a topic covered in our Power teleconferences.

You will find the markup in its entirety at the link below:

ASHRAE’s Online Standards Action & Public Review

~~Comments are due September 6th.~~

We encourage subject matter experts in the education facility industry to comment — with special encouragement to design engineers, front line mechanics and HVAC shop foreman who are acclimated to the complexities of indoor air systems and have mastered best practice.

We maintain all ASHRAE best practice literature on the standing agenda of our Energy and Mechanical teleconferences. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting.

Posted March 1, 2020

The ASHRAE committee writing standards for ventilation and indoor air quality (ASHRAE 62.1) has released another addenda for public review. Any changes to ASHRAE 62.1 is important because because those changes find their way into ASHRAE 90.1 — Energy Standard for Buildings. ASHRAE 90.1 is referenced into the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). The IECC is frequently found to be incorporated by reference into federal and state energy and air quality laws.

Addendum a – clarifying that air density adjustments are permitted but are not required.

Addendum b – graphical re-circulated air definition in Figure 3-1:

ASHRAE’s Online Standards Action & Public Review

~~Comments are due March 22nd.~~

We encourage subject matter experts in the education facility industry to comment — with special encouragement to design engineers, front line mechanics and HVAC shop foreman who are acclimated to the complexities of indoor air systems and have mastered best practice.

University of Minnesota

We are happy to discuss all standards action in the ASHRAE suite any week day at 11 AM Eastern time. We also devote one markup session per month to action in Mechanical Engineering and Energy standards. See our CALENDAR.for the next online meeting; open to everyone.

Howard Community College

Issue: [12-21]

Category Mechanical, Energy, Facility Asset Management

Colleagues: Eric Albert, Richard Robben, Larry Spielvogel

Archive / ASHRAE 62.1 Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality

Electric Vehicle Energy Management

Edison electric vehicle | National Park Service, US Department of the Interior

The Canadian counterpart to the American National Standards Institute provides a platform for public comment on its consensus products:

CSA Group Draft Review

The platform provides an intuitive way into a draft standard and a way to comment upon it.

Today we take note of a product farther up the pipeline regarding electric vehicles. Earlier this year the CSA Group (CSA America Standards Inc.) has given public notice of its intent to develop a new standard to be titled: CSA C22.2 Electric Vehicle Energy Management Systems. From the ANSI New Project Initiation Notification announcement:

Project Need: CSA Group has been approached by the industry to develop standards and technical requirements for the deployment and safe operations of EVEMS within the Canadian regulatory structure and utility requirements. This project is intended to address this need and the existing gap in the standards required for the operation of EVEMS.

Stakeholders: Regulators, manufacturers, utilities, and industry associations.

With the rapidly growing penetration of Electric Vehicles (EVs), there is an increased demand to develop technology to support the efficient and safe charging of the vehicles with less impacts on the current electrical distribution infrastructure during peak charging times. In addition to managing the demand for electricity, EVs can become energy storage devices for the grid. This possibility raises the need to view EVs and related charging equipment as an Electric Vehicle Energy Management System (EVEMS). An EVEMS is a means of controlling electric vehicle supply equipment loads comprised of any of the following: a monitor(s), communications equipment, a controller(s), a timer(s) and other applicable device(s). Today there is no clear standard or guideline to help define the safe operations of an EVEMS although individual standards exist for some of the components within the EVEMS.

The announcement was filed in February 2019. CSA Group has only filed formal notification required in ANSI’s due process requirements*.

The project is on our watch list. Many research universities are on the receiving end of electric vehicle research projects and also have large campus transportation fleets that are converting to electric vehicles. Should any public review drafts be released we typically coordinate our response with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee which meets online 4 times monthly.

CSA Group consensus products are also on the standing agenda of our periodic Global teleconferences; open to everyone. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting.

University of Ottawa

Issue: [19-60]

Category: Administration & Management, Electrical, Energy, Facility Asset Management, International, Transportation & Parking, #SmartCampus

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Lorne Clark, Nehad El Sherif, Jim Harvey, Abra O’Leary

Source: ANSI Standards Action

LEARN MORE:

In 1919, the Canadian #Engineering Standards Association (CESA) was created to develop standards to move Canada forward as an industrialized nation and advance the #tech of the day. For a century, CSA Group has worked hard to bring #safety into virtually every facet of our lives. pic.twitter.com/9aGPARfnKH

— CSA Group (@CSA_Group) February 1, 2019

Water Reuse Treatment Systems

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Category Archives: Facility Asset Management