The First Facility Management Blog

Requirements to “lighten up” energy use and costs through fenestration, parking lot lighting, and other proposed measures are being recommended for Standard 90.1. ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-2007, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, provides minimum requirements for the energy efficient design of buildings except low-rise residential buildings. Currently, 15 proposed addenda to the standard are open for public review.

“As the industry continues to call for buildings and systems that use less energy, the Standard 90.1 committee is striving to find ways to reduce energy uses and costs,” Mick Schwedler, chair of the Standard 90.1 committee, said. “The proposed changes not only reduce energy use but move the standard closer to the workplan goal of a 2010 standard with 30 percent energy cost savings compared to the 2004 standards.”

Among the proposed addenda out for public comment is addendum cd, which would require active exterior control rather than just require the control capability; add bi-level control for general all night applications (such as parking lots to reduce lighting when not needed); and add control for façade and landscaping lighting not needed after midnight.

Eric Richman, chair of the standard’s lighting subcommittee, noted that studies from the California Lighting Technology Center at the University of California at Davis found that control strategies reduce lighting energy use by significant amounts during night time hours. A study by Polytechnic State University showed that parking lot lighting operates in a low mode 68% of the time.

Additional information from a study by Navigant Consulting shows that parking lots account for 22 Twh out of a total 57 Twh used for outdoor lighting annually nationwide. While this estimate includes all lit parking areas, the potential for energy savings in parking areas that are directly associated with specific building projects are significant and should be supported by the standard.

A second public review of proposed addendum, bn, would reduce solar loads by orienting the fenestration in more appropriate directions. Changed in response to comments during the first public review, this approach gives flexibility to building design teams to work with siting and fenestration and orientation as well as fenestration area to comply with the requirement.

Proposed addendum bb updates building envelope requirements for opaque elements, such as walls and rooms, and fenestration (windows and skylights). A number of changes were made in response to public comments during the first public review.

The proposed addenda to ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1 are available for comment only during their public review period. To read the addenda or to comment, visit this link.

Keeping violence out of the workplace is a top priority for employers everywhere. But as more states pass laws giving employees the right to bring guns onto company parking lots, many facility managers now feel caught in the proverbial crossfire, writes James P. Anelli, a Newark, NJ-based attorney in LeClairRyan’s Labor and Employment Group in a new article.

Anelli feels there is a growing and legally controversial trend among state legislatures to pass laws that actually prevent employers from keeping guns out of workplace parking lots. Indeed, he notes, states that have passed such legislation now include Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma, Alaska, Kentucky, Mississippi, Kansas, and Minnesota, and similar laws are under consideration in the statehouses of Alabama, Louisiana, Montana, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia.

The aim of these laws, typically introduced by pro-gun lawmakers and supported by the National Rifle Association, is to enable employees to exercise their constitutional right to possess and carry firearms. But the statutes create a difficult dilemma for company executives who are legally charged with maintaining workplace safety, Anelli notes.

Employers, for example, must follow strict workplace safety guidelines issued by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Yet, legal opinion is divided on whether these new state laws conflict with OSHA’s general safety requirements. In October 2007, for example, a federal judge issued an injunction against the enforcement of Oklahoma’s aforementioned legislation. The ruling agreed with the employer group arguments that the new laws created an obstacle to meeting OSHA’s requirement to maintain a safe workplace.

Given this legal ambiguity, Anelli says, facility professionals in states that have passed such laws might make a critical mistake — concluding that they have been relieved of their obligation to keep the workplace, including its parking lot, safe. “It is important, despite such laws, to work very closely with security professionals, attorneys, and local law enforcement officials in defusing situations involving potential violence and the possible use of firearms,” explains the veteran attorney.

Anelli spells out concrete steps executives can take to protect their companies from liability — and to protect their employees from workplace violence despite the pro-gun laws. Some types of businesses, for example, may have been legally exempt from the applicable laws, which vary widely from state to state, and can therefore continue enforcing parking lot gun bans. Others might be able to carve out “secured parking areas” that are gun-free but still in compliance with their states’ laws. None of the laws, the attorney emphasizes, protects employees from coming into the actual workplace with a gun. Employers are free to keep firearms out of the company building, and they should continue to watch closely for employee behavior suggestive of possible violence.

Concerned employers, should they choose to do so, might work with other businesses to fight this type of legislation. The first step is to monitor the shifting legal landscape for changes that will affect their own workplace safety responsibilities.

“It is inevitable that OSHA will eventually have to act on this issue, either directly or indirectly, when business groups obtain rulings enforcing OSHA’s general safety requirements and enjoining the enforcement of these laws,” Anelli says. “In the final analysis, while some employers’ groups have said that the days of the Wild West are returning, it seems more likely that these issues will soon be ‘played out’ in the courts.”