Vivarium Design,Biocontainment

In the previous two columns, I have discussed energy savings measures in containment facilities related to sustainable design and operations. In this column, I will discuss other important issues of sustainable facilities and how they might relate to containment facility design.

As noted in the first column in this series, according to the U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) program, there are five major categories of facility related sustainable design goals:

1. Sustainable Sites: the selection and design of the site for a facility can have a major impact on the use of resources during the life of a facility.
2. Water Efficiency: in many parts of the U.S. and the world potable water is a limited resource. Facility design can minimize the waste of water.
3. Energy and Atmosphere: according to the Green Building Council citing the Department of Energy, buildings consume approximately 38% of the energy and 68%of the electricity produced in the United States annually.As approximately three quarters of this energy is produced by the combustion of fossil fuels, this energy use has a large impact on atmospheric emissions. Small changes in building energy performance can, in the aggregate, have a significant impact on the environment.
4. Materials and Resources: different building materials and the energy cost of their transport to a building site may have very different impact on facility sustainability. In addition, the use of recycled materials may eliminate a significant amount of waste going to landfills.
5. Indoor Environmental Quality: indoor air pollutants can be much higher than those found outdoors.This can have a dramatic impact on occupant health and productivity.

I will discuss three of the above categories related to sustainable facilities in this issue; water efficiency, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality.

Water Efficiency
The need for taking care not to waste water became very apparent to us in Atlanta last year when the drought brought us close to a crisis in the region. The water supplies we had taken for granted for so long, proved to be unreliable. The efficient use of water can be an important part of laboratory facility and containment design. In your planned facilities examine how you will use water and in your existing facilities look at your current use of water then consider the following three approaches during the design or operations of your facility.