Photo credit billjacobus1

I had one of the most interesting calls of my RedMonk career last week. It was with Steve Lewis, CEO and co-founder of Living PlanIT (ignore the fact that they are using SilverLight on their homepage – that is prob because of Steve’s Microsoft background).

Living PlanIT are just coming out of stealth and have developed significant IP around sustainable urbanisation. To whit, as Steve explained to me on the call, up until now the construction industry was one of the final hold-outs in the technology revolution. There was very little by way of joined-up processes and consequently massive amounts of waste. Living PlanIT have created a new way of approaching construction projects which is technology led and will vastly reduce construction costs and footprints.

Living PlanIT haven’t just stopped there.

They have signed a letter of Intent with Cisco to work together to build a city in Paredes in northern Portugal on a 17 sq km site which house 225,000 people and will showcase, not just the company’s construction nous but also the city will be a sustainability showcase.

Cisco, as part of the agreement have committed to developing a global innovation center for sensor networks within the new city. They will also integrate tens of millions of sensors with Cisco’s network and computing platforms and integrate to demonstrate Cisco’s Smart+Connected Communities technologies and solutions at urban scale. This will be the ultimate test lab to develop technologies which can be quickly and easily deployed in other urban sustainability projects.

The city itself will run off renewable power and will generate 150% of its electricity needs. It will be importing waste from the surrounding towns and cities. The houses in the city will use 50-60% less electricity than comparable houses and 80% less water!

I asked Steve how they will achieve these kinds of savings and he told me they would be using a sensor network throughout the city – creating what he called an urban operating system. This is analogous, as Robert Eccles said, to a nervous system, which will make the city aware and able to respond quickly to events, minimising waste.

As an example, Steve mentioned that on average we waste 11 litres of water per day waiting for the shower to come to the right temperature. In the PlanIT Valley project in Portugal, water from the shower will only be delivered when it is the correct temperature, thereby in one swoop, saving 11 litres per person!

Renewables, storage (using ice, for example) and waste to energy will be used throughout so that the city will be importing waste from surrounding municipalities and exporting amino acid by-products for the pharmaceutical and food industries.

If they stopped right there Living PlanIT would be doing quite well.

However, with Steve’s background in the software industry, he wants to make this a platform! The idea being that Living PlanIT licenses its technology to other companies to quickly crank out new construction based on these principles.

Indeed, according to Steve, they already have inquiries for the development of another 30 cities and 16 other re-fits (including a recently announced agreement with Las Vegas)!

With projected population growth of 2-3bn, the world has to deliver between 9,500 and 10,000 new cities over the next 40 years to house everyone, so the scale of the opportunity is significant, to say the least. And, frankly, if these new cities are not developed sustainably, we are all in trouble!

Living PlanIT is no small project but if Steve and the guys can pull this off, it could change how the cities of tomorrow work. For good.

You should follow me on twitter here.

This post, written by Tom Raftery originally appeared on GreenMonk: the blog GreenMonk: the blog - Green from the roots up, Sustainable from the top down

Speaking of LEED certified buildings, I found a great site yesterday which outlines how the LEED certification process has been streamlined using Adobe software.

On their site carahsoft link to a whitepaper (pdf warning!) which goes into detail on how the Adobe Livecycle software made the LEED certification process vastly more efficient.

From the whitepaper:

Traditionally, applying for LEED certification has been time-consuming and paper-intensive. For example, a manager seeking certification for a new or existing structure would have to complete a complex spreadsheet with up to 69 tabs and submit thousands of pages of supporting documentation for various building components, such as heating systems, landscaping, and interior finishes. After receiving an application, USGBC copied the materials to share across a review team made up of staff and third-party experts. The entire process—from the initial submittal of materials to achieving LEED certification—could take years.

Because of the perceived difficulty in achieving certification, many organizations did not apply. To address the problem and streamline its internal operations, USGBC adopted Adobe LiveCycle server software….

Ultimately, USGBC used Adobe LiveCycle software to create and deploy more than 400 two-page intelligent Adobe PDF forms that building-project teams can download from USGBC’s website….

After applicants have completed the Adobe PDF forms, they can attach supporting documentation—such as landscaping plans, details about construction materials and interior finishes, and other information—to the application as Adobe PDF files or in native file formats from programs such as AutoCAD®, Pro/E, and Microsoft Office. All the materials are uploaded to USGBC’s online workspace, LEED Online….

Because USGBC linked the submitted Adobe PDF forms with SAP, data is automatically captured in SAP as application forms are received, eliminating the need for USGBC staff to manually key application data into back-end systems. The enhanced process helps reduce costs and improve the accuracy of data, and it also makes it easier for USGBC to track and report green-building trends….

Chris Smith, USGBC’s Chief Operating Office said:

We estimate that the automated workflows supported by Adobe solutions will accelerate the process of submitting LEED application forms by as much as 50%

while, Joseph Diianni, director of technology for USGBC said:

Best of all, we believe the new solution will encourage even more organizations to seek LEED certification

So Adobe not only is the world’s first commercial enterprise to achieve a total of three Platinum certifications under the LEED program, but its software now makes it easier for others to be certified too?

Good job Adobe!

This post, written by Tom Raftery originally appeared on GreenMonk: the blog GreenMonk: the blog - Green from the roots up, Sustainable from the top down

Photo credit kqedquest

According to the US Green Building Council (USGBC) buildings account for 38% of CO2 emissions in the United States, buildings consume 70% of the electricity load in the U.S and CO2 emissions from buildings are projected to grow faster than any other sector over the next 25 years.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a Green building rating system which has been deveoped to provide a suite of standards for the design, construction and operation of high performance Green buildings.

According to the the LEED Wikipedia entry:

LEED certified buildings have healthier work and living environments, which contributes to higher productivity and improved employee health and comfort.

According to the USGBC January Green building by the numbers report (.doc warning):

By 2009, 82% of corporate America is expected to be greening at least 16% of their real estate portfolios; of these corporations, 18% will be greening more than 60% of their real estate portfolios

The green building products market is projected to be worth $30-$40 billion annually by 2010

With that in mind it was great to see the report that AMD’s Lone Star campus in Texas has achieved a gold LEED certification. Thanks to David Berlind for tipping me off on this.

According to the release this is the largest gold certified LEED commercial building in Texas and some of the sustainable design elements include:

• Energy Use: Powered 100% by Austin Energy’s GreenChoice® electricity, which comes from clean, renewable energy sources such as wind power
• Rainwater collection: Designed with a 1.2 million gallon capacity rainwater collection system, which is designed to provide water for the buildings’ cooling towers and irrigation
• Construction materials: Incorporated more than 20% of construction materials based on recycled content, and with more than 20% of locally sourced construction materials
• 100% Native Landscaping: AMD partnered with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center to salvage the native trees, shrubs and grasses within the footprint of the campus, and replant them following construction.

AMD joins other well known tech companies who have rolled large LEED building projects like Adobe (Platinum) and Symantec (Gold).

To paraphrase Fr Ted – “Up with this kind of thing!!!“

This post, written by Tom Raftery originally appeared on GreenMonk: the blog GreenMonk: the blog - Green from the roots up, Sustainable from the top down