ABSTRACT
The objectives of this chapter are to explore the impact that the contextual pressures (the framework of legislation, guidance and other influences) may have on building energy consumption and to discuss how feedback information could be used to facilitate better decisions in the design, construction and management of buildings to improve resultant building energy consumption.
To date, efforts to achieve significant reductions in building energy consumption through regulatory mechanisms have reduced the anticipated energy and carbon dioxide emissions of building designs rather than the subsequent actual energy consumption (Day, Jones and Ogumka 2007). There are a range of reasons for this and in an effort to understand and overcome this so called ‘performance gap’, feedback platforms that collect, collate and disseminate performance data have been established. This chapter explores how feedback is currently used in industry and what feedback mechanisms might do to enable greater information sharing.
