Post Category Climate

Our first fictional use case concerns a Boston building owner who manages a four-story commercial building, consisting of apartments, offices, a bank, and a grocery store. This building owner is interested in retrofitting her building, particularly in HVAC and boiler technology upgrades. She would like to evaluate the reduction in energy use and emissions that […]

In this fictional use case, the owner of a supermarket in Fayetteville, Arkansas, is interested in reducing his building’s energy costs. In addition, he is also concerned about the impact of his building’s energy use on climate change. In the United States, food sales buildings have the greatest amount of lit floor space of all […]

In this real-life use case, Hopkins Academy, a public middle and senior high school in Hadley, MA, is considering upgrading its aging oil-burning heating system to a ground-source heat pump to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. UndauntedK12, a non-profit organization advising K-12 public schools in the energy transition, applied the Co-Benefits of […]

The Harvard Healthy Buildings program collaborated with the Harvard Chan Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE) on a study on the health impacts of energy transitions from coal-fired power plants to other energy sources during the last decade. Here we provide 3 key takeaways from our study. The results of this study show that the […]

Across the United States, buildings are responsible for a large portion of greenhouse gas emissions – nearly 30%. Many plans to meet our climate goal of net zero emissions involve switching those buildings that currently run on fossil fuel energy sources, such as oil and natural gas, to electricity generated by renewable energy sources. This […]

The CoBE team – with researchers from Harvard Healthy Buildings program, Oregon State University College of Engineering, and Boston University School of Public Health –  reports on a novel method for calculating health and climate impacts of building energy savings. Here are three key takeaways from our study. Buildings consume 40% of energy in the U.S., so changes in […]

In collaboration with the University of Hawai’i at Manoa (UH) and community members, researchers of the Harvard Healthy Buildings Program are collecting data to examine human health risks of wildfire-related pollutants in homes following the Maui wildfires last August. The study is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and aims to assess a comprehensive […]

August 8 marks the one-year anniversary of the Lahaina wildfires, which caused devastating loss of life, community, and homes. Researchers in Hawaii and across the U.S. have been working to understand the ongoing environmental and health impacts of the wildfires. The Harvard Healthy Buildings Program is one of those teams. In partnership with local community […]