The Difference of Just Being Aware

The weeks are really starting to speed up, and all my work is starting to blur. But in a good way! I had my first meeting with Dr. Alan Francis this week, which showed me how much I really don’t know, but I’ll learn it all soon enough! The very first topic we discussed was the definition of sustainability. He defined it as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future.” This definition comes from ‘Our Common Future’, or more commonly known as the Brundtland Report. It is a piece of work published in 1987, by an organization called the World Commission of Environment and Development, (WCED) that was convened by the United Nations. The report outlined the concept of sustainability across environmental, economic and social aspects. It is supposed to be the most generally accepted, broad definition of sustainability, but since being published there have been hundreds of rebuttals and comments against it. Many experts are starting to agree that sustainability is largely factored around the popular social ideas of the time, saying that what is sustainable today, might not be sustainable tomorrow, which is why it is so difficult to find an exact definition of the word. 

We discussed his house for a majority of the time, all the planning and designing that went into it, and the separate systems involved. A big part of how the house is as sustainable as it is, is that he uses a type of technology called ‘Dashboard’. Which uses hardware and software to constantly measure the amount of water and electricity used and when. The way he does this with the use of monitors hooked up all over his house  that directly synch to his phone so he can see exactly how much energy his house uses per day. He justified it by comparing it to a car. Saying that living in a house without a Dashboard system is like driving a car without a dashboard, so no speedometer or fuel gage, (hence the name Dashboard). We would just drive like normal, and get a gas bill at the end of each month telling us how much gas and oil we used. The problem with is this is that we don't know if theres anything wrong in the car.  With the Dashboard, we can be more aware of problems or dis-functioning equipment in our buildings and houses, like in cars.  Dr. Francis summed it up by saying that all it takes to be sustainable or have net-zero energy is just being aware of the energy you are using. 

Here'a the link to a Daily Sun article about Dr. Francis's house if you are interested!  

http://azdailysun.com/news/local/the-many-ways-to-build-green/article_79eb9bea-bda7-5cf8-96b2-3555fce0583e.html