Green Design

More and more developers, tenants, and building owners are recognizing the low costs and impressive benefits of green design. Pareto Energy focuses on customizing the energy systems for any existing or newly-developed site, taking maximum advantage of the opportunities for on-site renewable energy and energy-saving technologies. The possibilities in most locations include:

• Passive elements, such as green roofs and solar shading
• Active solar thermal collection systems for heating and cooling
• Building-integrated photovoltaics (e.g. solar glass)
• Solar-driven desiccant cooling.

Some locations can also take advantage of other local energy resources, such as:

• Ground-source heat pumps and seasonal thermal energy storage
• Deep-water cooling
• Locally-harvested biomass (woodchips, agricultural waste, lawn and golf course clippings, etc)
• Biogas from landfills, wastewater treatment, and low-temperature waste-to-energy processing.

We also integrate our systems with a variety of high-performance and ultra-efficient building systems. The goal is beautiful, functional buildings with radically lower energy costs and environmental impacts. Because the cost-effectiveness of these elements can depend on very early design decisions (for example, building orientation or facade materials), it benefits everyone to bring Pareto into the design team as soon as possible.

Pareto works directly with architecture design teams, MEP firms, and others. We serve as technology-neutral and vendor-neutral advisors on energy-related design options. We often work with City agencies as well: because of the sustainability advantages of the Local Power approach, it can ease the permitting process and help get the community on our side. And we are directly involved in the LEED rating system, serving on the CHP (Combined Heat & Power) working group to ensure that our clients get all the LEED credits they deserve.

Finally, our Green Design solutions often resonate strongly with developers' underlying philosophy. Urban re-development sites can offer one-time opportunities to re-connect parts of an existing downtown. The physical design can bring everything back together – the street plan, pedestrians, open space, view corridors. From our perspective, what better way to achieve that kind of neighborhood-level integration than the physical connections of an energy district for heating and cooling? Our approach shares energy and infrastructure throughout the project site. Expanding the energy district, we can easily include surrounding buildings that want to gain the same benefits of reliable, clean, affordable energy. Similarly, cities often levy requirements on projects to use locally-based firms. What better way to promote that kind of economic self-reliance than keeping energy-related dollars at home, through on-site energy production?