International Green Construction Code and its Impact on AV

By Raymond Kent, CTS, LEED AP BD+C, DMC-D, EAVA, ECA

You may not know it even with all of the news and articles on the green building movement, but there is soon to be another building code that will impact what we do as AV and technology professionals. This past June, Randal A. Lemke, PhD. – Executive Director and CEO of InfoComm International - announced at the annual InfoComm trade show the creation of the STEP Foundation™ to oversee the running of the Sustainable Technology Environments Program™ (STEP™) (See Next Steps in Green AV and http://www.infocomm.org/cps/rde/xchg/infocomm/hs.xsl/17212.htm for more information). This important initiative created and sponsored by InfoComm will be a critical path to successfully navigating the International Green Construction Code™ (IGCC™)

If you have never heard of the IGCC™ here is the skinny. The IGCC™ document is currently in its second public review and was created because of recognition at all levels of Government and Building Safety Professionals that a mandatory baseline of codes addressing green construction was needed. This code will provide a framework for the integration of sustainability, safety, and performance. The foundation of this code was the 2012 International Codes using minimum prescriptive and performance based provisions working as an overlay to the other International Code Council Family of Codes and Standards that can be increased through a selection of jurisdictional requirements and project electives. This recognizes that the Code be a model that addresses the green market segment beyond those captured by rating systems such as Green Globe or LEED and is an enforceable entity that is usable and adoptable.

Currently ASHRAE, The US Green Building Council, and the Illuminating Engineering society all support the adoption of the International Green Construction Code. Because of this partnership, ASHRAE/USGBC/IES Standard 189.1 was created as a Jurisdictional Compliance Option of the IGCC™. States and local jurisdictions within the US may currently elect to adopt Standard 189.1 as a Jurisdiction Compliance Option enacting the Code as a guideline to their current building code standards. By adopting this, there is a real opportunity for audiovisual professionals to step into the process and be a real influence on the sustainability of a project.

So what does this mean for us in the AV industry? Several sections relate to technology and the way we do business that it cannot do anything but impact how systems are designed and integrated. It also means a deeper partnership with our design team partners – Architects, MEP Engineers, and the Client.

For starters section 502.3 Storage of lamps, batteries, and electronics requires that a space be provided for storage of used gear prior to being disposed of in the way that the Authority Having Jurisdiction requires. This will require planning and communication with the design team to determine the right type, size and other requirements of that storage are. It is also a great opportunity to work with the client on exactly how to discard and recycle their unwanted electronics in an environmentally responsible way. It is also a great opportunity to start a technology master plan discussion with your clients as this deals with End-of-Life issues for technology.

Chapter 6 – Energy Conservation, Efficiency, and Atmospheric Quality has the greatest impact on what we do. This section regulates the design, construction, commissioning, and operations of buildings and their sites for effective use of energy. InfoComm’s Energy Power Management Standard as well as STEP™ should play a key role in this as it is one of the first times a building code has directly dealt with the plug load side of the equation in any energy calculations.

Section 602 – Energy Performance, Peak Power, and Reduced CO2e Emissions provides a zero energy performance index (zEPI) based on occupancy types. Currently the zEPI point of entry is 51 of a possible 100 however jurisdictions can elect to have a higher standard. The prescriptive and performance-based compliance details follow in sections 604-612 of the Code.

For example Section 604 – Energy Metering, Monitoring, and Reporting mandate that any building consuming energy shall comply with this Code section. It provides the requirements that the buildings energy use, production, and any reclamation of energy be measured, monitored, and reported. This includes the design of power distributions systems that can not only isolate load types but require the installation of data enabled metering systems that provide their information to a public display. This information must be made available to the building owners, the tenant, and the public. The data shall include energy use, energy demand, and emissions associated with the energy use as a whole. Who better to provide the display and the infrastructure to support it than the AV industry.

Plug loads in Section 604.3.4 – Plug Loads (read that as computers, AV equipment, copiers, cell phone chargers, etc.) can be measured and reported via a sub-meter or other equivalent approved device. There are manufacturers within the AV industry that have the capability to provide this required feedback right now and it will be part of our AV solution. There is an opportunity here to be a value added component to the design team right from the start.

To me one of the more striking provision of this code section is 604.3.5 Process Loads. This category takes into account and provides separate metering and reporting for any single load associated with activities within the building provided they exceed 5% of the total energy use of the building. This includes data centers and can also include large AV head ends that are energy intensive such as museum, performing arts, command and control, or broadcast applications. The metering must be connected to a data acquisition and management system capable of storing 3 years worth of data and must be available to be displayed in real time. The display (604.7 Energy Display) is called out as a permanent, readily accessible and visible display adjacent to the main building entrance or on a publically available website. It has to provide the current energy demand for the whole building by fuel type, the average peak demand for the previous day and the same day from the previous year, and the total energy usage for the last 18 months.

Section 609 – Building Electrical Power and Lighting Systems part of the IGCC™ details the controls required for energy management. 609.6 Plug Load Controls is the section that most impacts our industry. Receptacles and electrical outlets are required to be controlled via an occupancy sensor or time switch. There are provisions requiring switched receptacles for audiovisual systems (609.6.4) that include displays, projectors and audio amplifiers in Group B and E classrooms, conference and meeting rooms, and multi-purpose rooms to be controlled by an occupancy sensor. This will require some form of room automation system. This could be from an AV manufacturer that specializes in controls or a Honeywell, Siemens, or Johnson Controls. The critical path for our industry is to be at the table early so systems are not designed that simply shut off power to the switch without taking into account damage that could happen to that plug load equipment if not properly power sequenced.

Particular requirements based on installed equipment and appliances are detailed in Section 610 – Specific Appliances and Equipment. There are a number of components in installed audiovisual systems that would fall into Section 610.3 – Portable Appliances and Equipment. These devices that are not permanently connected to the building energy supply system (i.e.: plug loads) and are not listed in table 610.1 of this section must comply with Section 610.3.1 - Energy Star Appliances and Equipment. This does not mean that everything must be an Energy Star appliance or equipment but must be Energy Star eligible. This could include monitors, projectors, and other devices that are seeking Energy Star certification. This also includes some Class D amplifiers, D to A converters, network server equipment such as switches and routers and other electronics that may be part of an audiovisual system. The requirement is to provide and maintain an on-site list of these installed products indicating the corresponding rated power whether or not it is Energy Star qualified or not.

Other impactful areas of this Code include section 807 – Acoustics. Sound transmission between buildings and tenant spaces must be controlled per this section. The system designer will have to now design sound systems that comply with these requirements. Outdoor to interior sound transmission ratings must meet certain requirements designed by the building architects and engineers but quite often will impact what we do particularly if the system being designed extends to exterior spaces. This must be coordinated with the design team as to the intent of the sound system and their acoustic impacts on this envelop to ensure proper design. The same holds true for interior sound transmission where the STC rating is a minimum of 50. Classrooms or multiple adjoining conference rooms or office spaces will be potentially affected by sound systems for these spaces and also must be coordinated.

While in my opinion, there is nothing in here that is beyond comprehension or just good common sense. It certainly will provide the necessary inclusion of AV and technology designers as part of the framework of the project. If you want to read the Public Review 2 of the Code check out this link: http://www.iccsafe.org/cs/IGCC/Pages/default.aspx..

It's Still Rock and Roll to Me

It all starts with a thing. it could be an object, such as a book or a piece of clothing. It could be a sound, such as a voice recording or a music track. Each has a story to tell. The depth at which that story is communicated to the masses differs depending on several factors, including the medium. Museums, theme parks, and even corporations struggle with storytelling, which can be imperative to their success.

In today's technology-driven world, these organizations have new tools at their disposal to help in their storytelling—video, audio, show control, virtual reality. These tools can take a museum patron, for instance, to places that bring a story to life. Today, someone can not only look at a dinosaur bone at a Smithsonian Museum, but also enter a world complete with the sounds and smells of the Jurassic period. It's the job of the design team, working with the storytellers, to communicate that vision.

Recently, I had the pleasure of being the lead AV, lighting, and show control designer on one of America's iconic museums—the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio—as it examined and refined how it told its own stories. Over the years, the massive I.M. Pei–designed structure, which opened almost 16 years ago, presented challenges in terms of how the museum staff could exhibit its collection of artifacts, particularly given its large glazed lobby. In addition, the museum staff discovered that wayfinding was a major concern. Many patrons, it turned out, hadn't realized that the building was both a hall of fame and a museum under the same roof. People could miss entire sections of artifacts in Ertegun Hall, for example, where the majority of the collection is displayed, due to poor wayfinding and lighting.

These problems were made worse by the building's outdated audiovisual, lighting, and presentation technology, most of which was original to the building. Terry Stewart, president and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and his staff decided it was time for an update. "It's fairly simple," Stewart said about the project. "We try to make sure that the music and the detritus around how music is created—whether they're instruments, costumes, or lyrics—are preserved and exhibited here. A great deal of what the renovation is about is reacting to what we've learned about the building during the last 16 years."

Architecture firm Westlake Reed Leskosky was added to the team based on its experience as a practice leader in performing and cultural arts. (And it helped that the firm is headquartered just blocks from the Rock Hall.) The team, led by managing principal Paul Westlake, FAIA, and project director Josh Haney, AIA, was guided by the Rock Hall's mission statement, which basically spells out that it sees itself not only as a source of entertainment, but also one of education. We had to keep this mission in mind when we evaluated how best to accomplish the Rock Hall's goals within its $5.5 million budget.

One of the biggest challenges when working in an existing structure, especially one designed by an iconic architect, is determining how the architecture relates to the storytelling. Westlake described the scenario as "architecture needing to provide the backdrop and pathways that lead a patron directly where you want them to go and hide where they should not go."

As designers, we had to walk a line between our contribution, especially in terms of AV technology, and the museum's contribution, in terms of the content and artifacts. Technology such as digital signage, video displays, audio, and lighting needed to work in concert with the architecture to tell a story. But it couldn't become the story. Here's how Stewart put it:

"As far back as when the museum was built, we felt we had a balance of technology and static exhibits. We think you need to strike that balance. Some folks are going in the direction of strictly interactive and technology-driven museums and we don't think that's correct. Rock and roll is an art form represented by great totems or relics, meaning guitars, clothing, and more. The spirit of the music is captured in those relics. At the same time, it's very hard to tell the entire story—and it is certainly hard to exhibit the art form itself, which is music—without the creative and ever-evolving technology of the day. We've lived so long in this day of interactivity, personal computers, cell phones, and everything else that we are driven to technology because it's what people expect."

Ultimately, the technology scope of the Rock Hall project was pretty straightforward. We were to provide a cohesive, unified system that was bulletproof and easy to maintain. In the process, we had to deal with poor acoustics, old or insufficient infrastructure, outdated content in obsolete formats, and issues about how the museum technology staff was going to operate and maintain the new systems. Not to mention, we had to factor in the museum's desire to leave a green footprint.

The system's backbone is based on Alcorn McBride's V16 Pro Show Controllers, linked over a new fiber-optic network. The controllers trigger several Alcorn McBride Digital Binloop HD DVM/HD-Pro video players and Digital Binloop audio players. This setup gives the museum the flexibility to take individual exhibits off-line without impacting that daily operation of the facility or drastically reducing the visitor experience.

The system also ties into the museum's new theatrical-based exhibit lighting system, which is controlled via Alcorn McBride Light Cue Pros running DMX 512 to Altman Smart Track fixtures, retrofitted with Cree LED lamps and Philips Color Kinetics eW Cove Linear LED fixtures for case lights. Traditional incandescent track fixtures were used on a selective basis where the light quality of an LED lamp was not sufficient for a specific artifact. This solution gives the museum control of lighting at the fixture level. It also reduces the potential damage to artifacts by virtually eliminating infrared and heat. And because the lamps have a 50,000-hour life span, it reduced maintenance as well. Yes, the cost to upgrade to LED was almost double that of more-traditional lighting designs, but the energy savings and the benefit to the artifacts proved substantial.

Throughout, displays and projection systems were upgraded to 1080p. In some cases their location and integration were rethought in order to better tell the story without being intrusive. And the new audio was planned carefully to minimize the acoustical impact of the reconfigured flow of the museum.

Before the renovation, audio bleed was a major issue. We addressed it with a combination of custom-built Brown Innovations focusing array loudspeakers and K-Array KKVB-50 mini line arrays strategically placed to keep patterns tight, give better directionality, and minimize bleed. For example, there's a line of exhibit casework called City Scenes in which each section of case represents a different city in the country and its musical influences. Prior to the renovation this area was a cacophony of unintelligible sound that overlapped to distraction, and the video displays were lost within poorly lit and overcrowded casework. By using the KKVB-50 line arrays, centering the video displays, and reworking the lighting, we created a series of distinct exhibits that tell a linear story and provide a much better experience.

You see, when you integrate technology into exhibits—whether in museums or a corporate lobby—it becomes part of the story, rather than an object on which the story is told. Technology for technology's sake can come across as an afterthought. About the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Westlake said, "The architectural changes and technology helped to shape distinct rooms and experiences with their own individual characteristics."

If you haven't been to the Rock Hall in a while, come back and reexperience it. If you've never been, you should. It has a great story to tell.

Next Steps in Green AV

InfoComm International's answer to the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program is imminent. One insider is optimistic about what it means for AV design and coordination.
By:Raymond Kent

Unless you've been living under a rock deep in the woods on top of a mountain, you know that buildings use a lot of energy. You know that for several years, architects and engineers have been beaten over the head with LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) or some other green rating system. Admittedly, most of the energy that buildings consume is used by HVAC and lighting systems–but not all of it.

If you're an AV and technology systems designer, you know that you can be a fly in the ointment. Your gear requires juice to operate and can sometimes fry an egg with its heat output, potentially increasing HVAC and power demands and thereby offsetting any desired energy savings from green building designs.

But it's not as if architects can simply cut technology out of the equation in the name of green. Long gone are the days when architects designed structures that were just structures. Nowadays, technology goes everywhere, and it's the end user who's driving its pervasiveness. As buildings become smarter and technology more prevalent, architects and engineers are faced with the fact that computers, audiovisual equipment, security and life-safety systems, and other devices on the plug-load side are a driving factor in several key building programming areas. Having a sustainable technology plan is no longer a luxury, but a necessity.

First, there are physical considerations. Technology requires space, square footage, a place to be. Along with other building programming requirements, such as offices, conference rooms, kitchens, and lobbies, technology spaces chew up their own precious corner of a building envelope. If the architect provides square footage for an equipment room, that room may also need humidity control, cooling, and power. Add a data center or control room for AV equipment, for example, and you could quickly see an uptick in energy demand.

Second, AV must factor into the building's overall carbon-footprint strategy. How energy efficient are the projector and the sound system in the conference room? How do you manage the energy demands of a large deployment of mediated spaces, as on a college or corporate campus? What is the cradle-to-grave impact of the project's technology components?

Third, designers must address ease-of-ownership. The end user has a responsibility to diligently turn off technology when it's not in use. This can be accomplished with a full-blown room-automation system, intelligent building technology, or by simply hitting off buttons (lots of them). What no one wants is a building owner who allows lights, computers, and AV systems to be left on 24/7, only to be disappointed when the building's energy efficiency isn't up to design goals.

So now the architect and engineer have been tasked with and spent countless hours designing a new net-zero LEED Platinum facility only to realize that many rooms will be very technology-centric (i.e., potentially energy inefficient). They have little choice but to look to the technology designers on the team to help reduce energy demands. This should be a value-added service of AV and technology designers and integrators.

These specialists should turn to the Sustainable Technology Environments Program (STEP) to deliver the service. In 2009, the InfoComm International board of directors authorized the creation of a Green AV Task Force whose mission was to create a body of knowledge and best practices for sustainable audiovisual design. Part of the mission included working to obtain Innovation Credits for AV systems within the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED framework, which has become part of the everyday vernacular in 21st-century architecture. When the task force started its work, it was hard to define a green AV system, so InfoComm's board of directors decided to scale back the pursuit of Innovation Credits and develop its own rating system (STEP) through a collaborative effort of 12 task force members, several of whom, including myself, are LEED APs.

So now where do we stand? STEP is scheduled to be released this year as a rating system for electronics-based technology projects rooted in sustainable design, integration, and operation (see "Green Stepping," July/August 2010). The task force is rapidly approaching completion of the initial draft of the credits and reference guide to be released for public comment in the very near future.

The ultimate success of the STEP initiative will be the recognition from the owner and architect side that early inclusion of technology designers is a must–especially when the project sets lofty goals for green building and energy efficiency. As a LEED AP who's worked the AV and technology angle for major international architecture firms, I've participated in many LEED design charrettes that didn't include a technology discussion simply because there wasn't a LEED credit specific to technology. And when I brought the topic up, I was often met with blank expressions. It is no wonder: LEED barely addresses nonbuilding technology.

STEP will, and it also will provide the opening that AV and technology professionals need to jump-start discussion early–when sustainability goals are set–in order to inform the rest of the design team about better choices. STEP will appreciate the entire life cycle of the systems that it seeks to prescribe, from planning and budgeting, to design and construction, to owner operations.

We're designing STEP to include everyone, even manufacturers, so that the AV and technology industries can develop more sustainable solutions and change blank stares to looks of recognition through tangible, actionable direction. It's our hope that STEP will also create for the industry a body of knowledge around formal best practices, as well as provide benchmark data that's generated as projects are completed. For owners, these elements of STEP will translate into real return on investment information and ongoing operations strategies that will ultimately affect their bottom lines.

Raymond Kent, CTS, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP BD+C, is an award-winning technology and entertainment designer who works with leading architecture and performing arts companies.

A Day Made of Glass... Made possible by Corning.

This is pretty awesome stuff. How much will become a reality is yet to be seen.

Mediatecture: Enter the Holodeck - Design, Immersive Av - Pro AV Online

Enter the Holodeck
As AV technology integrates seamlessly with new and renovated buildings, we increasingly encounter AV being used as architecture and architecture as AV.
By:Raymond KentRelated ArticlesSave / Share

Raymond Kent

We live in a wired world, saturated 24/7 with news, videos, music, social media, and more, right in the palms of our hands. People and companies want us to know who they are and what they have to offer. We’re bombarded with advertising, messages, and random thoughts in all formatssome direct, others subliminal. Why fight it?

One of the biggest problems with this phenomenon (among many) is that we’re less likely to relate to the world around us on an interactive, personal level when we have our noses in our iPods, iPads, iPhones, or iAnythings. We don’t experience anything other than what’s on the screen. But something called “mediatecture” is out to change that.

Many of us who grew up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation are familiar with the Holy Grail of mediatecture, which is loosely defined as the marriage of interactive media and architecture. The Holy Grail is, of course, the holodeck. On the holodeck, at the prompt of a voice command, one is transported to another time, location, or dimension, all from inside a seemingly empty black box. This creation of science fiction reflects a very real goal of today’s architects, in partnership with AV technologists and corporate partners: to design a built environment that pulls in experiences from beyond the room itself. And we’re not just talking about an interactive, immersive museum or a theme park, but every facet of every physical building.

Having spent a large portion of my career in architecture, entertainment, and technology, I’ve witnessed my fellow architects spend months—if not yearsdesigning interesting spaces where people can live, work, and play. As an entertainment professional and technology designer, I spend my time creating new ways for us to do the same thing, but in a connected world.

Today, a local indie band can lay tracks for an album and film its own music video for relatively little while tweeting its every move directly to fans. A few keystrokes and mouse clicks and—bingo—the band is on YouTube and beginning to rack up Facebook fans. Now, what if that band could stream a live concert to the wall of your house even when they’re halfway around the world? Then imagine what it would be like if you and your friends, watching the concert in your living room, could interact with other living rooms around the globe, as well as the musicians, in real time. In a corporate example, imagine a “window” at your office that looks out on a manufacturing floor, only that manufacturing floor is 3,000 miles away and that window is a 24/7 telepresence feed.

Technology giants such as Google, Cisco Systems, Tandberg, Apple, Verizon, Crestron, Extron, and others are hard at work to make transporting video data in high definition a seamless reality. Static images are so last century, as we’ve seen through the explosion of digital signage, which offers an affordable way for companies to broadcast their messages with motion and sound. And like moths to the proverbial flame, our eyes seek out the light (or the video monitor, or the projection screen).

Now take that idea one more next step and use the building itself or its interior walls as the surface for displaying media. Companies like Disney, Cedar Fair Entertainment Co., and Seaworld Parks & Entertainment, as well as many museums around the world, have already been adopting this idea of mediatecture and it’s quickly moving mainstream. Think of the lengths companies go to in order to project their messages in New York’s Times Square or other public venues. Last June, after a Houston Astros baseball game, fans were treated to giant 3D ants crawling all over an adjacent building. Slowly a huge can of Black Flag appeared and killed ’em dead. It was dramatic, huge, in-your-face, and a compelling marriage of media and architecture.

Mediatecture is undoubtedly a global movement. In Europe, Aether Architecture is pushing the boundaries of the convergence of new media and physical spaces. The company specializes in interactive architecture systems where spatial design and technology meet to create a memorable experience. A group called Interactive Architecture (interactivearchitecture.org) hosts forward thinkers and planners at an annual conference where they share ideas and experiences in creating and implementing technologies to enable the built environment to dynamically interact with the people around and in it. Another great outlet is the Media Architecture Biennale, hosted by the Media Architecture Institute, an organization founded in 2009 to promote discourse and offer real-world experience in implementing mediatecture designs.

What does this mean for the AV industry? It means that, once again, it’s even more important that architects bring AV designers onboard at the beginning of a project. A good architect should recognize that they are no longer just working with bricks and sticks, but designing elastic, dynamic, breathing spaces in which information is accessible at the occupant’s fingertips. The space must recognize the client as much as the client recognizes the office environment.

As an architect and technologist, I can tell you that AV technology is no longer just window dressing. Corporations want and need to deliver active content and brand context down to the individual level. Their bottom line depends on it. The collaboration between AV designer and architect will help shape a space, the material choices made, content development, and the technology essentials needed to pull off the seamless integration of a new, interactive built environment.

The architect and the AV designer must come to the table with a free and open mind as to how to they’ll accomplish the end game. The AV designer, in particular, will help define what’s possible with current technology while at the same time challenging manufacturers to push the limits of their products in an effort to create a holodeck.

And, of course, the client must be willing to take a leap of faith and think beyond the hand that’s holding his iPhone.

Raymond Kent, CTS, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP BD+C, is an award-winning technology and entertainment designer who works with leading architecture and performing arts companies.

Mediatecture: Enter the Holodeck - Design, Immersive Av - Pro AV Online

Sustainable Revolutions

(This post was originally posted on Think It, Do It, Blog It as part of The MetLife/TCG A-ha! Program. We’re cross-posting on the Circle to better highlight the work of our grantees.)

By Anthony Runfola, Childsplay

It’s been just over a year since we had our first meeting about our Think It! Grant. Today is my last day in the office for 2010 and I’ve spent it looking over the notes from those meetings as well as from our three sustainability summits.

At Childsplay, we will begin our 2011/2012 season planning in earnest next month. With that comes the opportunity to start laying the groundwork for some of the organizational changes we have been talking about throughout this past year.

So, in the spirit of the season, I present to you my Sustainable New Year’s Resolutions for 2011!

Encourage our artistic director to hire teams of designers that work on at least two shows within the season to see if each production can share resources.
Many theatres have been doing this already to address financial concerns. But a great side effect is that you may be reusing certain units between shows.
Challenge our designers to think about sustainability when designing.
As we noted in our post from this past May, designers thought differently about what they would design when challenged to “make it sustainable.” Of course, we are going to have to be more specific than that when we try to do this for real.
Include production staff in design meetings from the very beginning.
Not surprisingly, communication emerged as an essential component to creating more environmentally conscious scenery. I will venture to have our TD work along with the director and designer beginning at the very first meeting.
Ensure all metals used in scenery get recycled.
This really is a no-brainer. It will cost a bit more to make this happen, but certainly the price is nothing next to the cost of continuing to dump metal into the ground.
Be proactive in trying to find a taker for our used scenery before strike.
To be fair, I’ve tried this before without much luck. But I will keep trying!
Do you have any resolutions for your organization? Let us know in the comments!

Sustainable Revolutions

How to measure your firm's biodiversity footprint | Guardian Sustainable Business | guardian.co.uk

Biodiversity is the new carbon in environmental circles, but can you really measure, manage or cost it as easily as you can carbon?


Share Comments (0) By David Burrows, Business Green, Guardian Sustainable Business Network guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 January 2011 12.37 GMT
How to measure your firm's biodiversity footprint Guardian Sustainable Business guardian.co.uk

It was October 2006 when Nicholas Stern published his review on the economics of climate change for the government. At the time, top climate change economist professor Michael Grubb hailed the report, suggesting that it "finally closes a chasm that has existed for 15 years between the precautionary concerns of scientists, and the cost-benefit views of many economists". Four years on and many are pinning their hopes on the TEEB report having the same impact on biodiversity.

Dubbed the new carbon, biodiversity just had its own international year of recognition with the UN, culminating in the Convention on Biodiversity in Nagoya, Japan. The summit placed the issues in the spotlight but there remains a feeling that an obsession with carbon emissions has distracted businesses and policy makers from equally important environmental challenges, such as the health of the world's ecosystems.

It's easy to see why awareness, acceptance and action on climate change have eased their way into the boardroom more readily than biodiversity. Global policy may be stalling, but businesses understand the concept of carbon measurement and footprinting; there's also evidence emerging that cutting carbon brings financial benefits. A recent UK government report found some companies were investing £50k in carbon measurements and reporting, but saving £200k as a result. Not a bad return.

Carbon is relatively easy to measure, of course. Thanks to Lord Stern's report, policy makers were also able to put a price on not dealing with the issue. Regulation is now snowballing, at least on a regional and national scale, and the pressure on businesses to cut emissions continues to increase.

However, attention is now turning to biodiversity. Research and reports have emerged showing the grave state of the world's biodiversity. WWF's Living Planet Report, covering 2,500 species in almost 8,000 locations, found that we are using the resources of 1.5 planets every year. "That's a bit like spending £15,000 a year when you earn £10,000," says WWF UK's head of business and industry, Dax Lovegrove. In the UK it's closer to £27,500 – if everyone consumed at our rate we'd need 2.75 planets. For Lovegrove, these figures demonstrate why "biodiversity has to be part of the environmental equation for businesses nowadays".

Alongside WWF's analysis, other reports have pushed the biodiversity agenda firmly into the business spotlight, providing estimated values for the services provided by the natural world. The goal, as explained by TEEB – The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity report – is to show just how dependent the economy is on the natural world.

Joshua Bishop, chief economist at the IUCN and business and enterprise coordinator for the study, says value is useful for translating a somewhat opaque environmental agenda [like biodiversity]. "It adds a dimension that people can relate to. After all, we live in a market economy and dollars and cents make it more accessible," he explains.

"Polar bears and penguins"
However, TEEB and WWF's Living Planet Report are global studies, with some national breakdowns. While biodiversity is being touted as a top environmental priority for UK Plc, many businesses are still confused about what it is they need to do. Some still see it as a bit "polar bears and penguins", says one consultant. When it comes to biodiversity protection there are none of the easy, bite-sized messages – such as "cutting carbon = cutting costs" – that finance directors and marketers so love.

Efforts to tackle biodiversity loss have one clear advantage over measures to address climate change: the local benefits of doing so are very clear. The business benefits, however, are less so. Unlike carbon, biodiversity does not have an intrinsic value and is hugely complicated to assess. Not every business will save four times as much as it spends on reporting carbon by cutting it, but the potential for savings – and the reputational benefits – are helping to make carbon reduction an increasingly attractive option.

Unilever recently carbon-footprinted 1,600 of its products in a bid to cut its overall footprint and inform consumer choice. Could it do the same for biodiversity? Could it calculate the biodiversity footprint of its products, or even its business, and report it? Could it calculate the savings from protecting biodiversity? The answer, to all three, is 'not really' – at least not as conclusively as it can for carbon.

But that does not mean businesses should forget about it, says Malcolm Preston, PricewaterhouseCoopers partner for sustainability and climate change. "Like the impact of the recession, there is simply no sector that will be immune to biodiversity and ecosystem loss," he observes. "Business needs to begin to draw the dots between natural resources, their supply chain, consumer demand and the future value of their business."

But he admits connecting those dots will not be easy. "If you are trading with India there is a book you can read about the tax implications. Biodiversity is very, very different. People want a solution in a box, but there isn't one," he says.

Assigning impacts
The complications begin with measurement. The main headache, says Dr David Vackar, a footprinting expert at Charles University in Prague, is how to allocate impacts on biodiversity to business. "Biodiversity loss is an outcome of aggregate human impacts, especially land conversion, land use changes, habitat fragmentation, unsustainable harvest, climate change and pollution, which are driven by increasing human population, increasing energy demand and consumption of meat and other goods," he explains. "To disentangle the impacts of particular sectors or even firms is challenging."

Currently, it's only possible to assign biodiversity impacts to business in a "limited way". Some are attempting, for example, to use land area appropriated by human activity or number of threatened species, but these can be assigned to businesses only to a limited extent. Indeed, Unilever senior vice president for sustainability and communications, Gavin Neath, admits that it is one of the most difficult areas with which the consumer goods giant has to deal. To get a grip on carbon, and water, is "fairly easy", he explains, but to do the same with biodiversity is "very difficult". "The general levels of understanding, and I include myself in that, are not as good as they should be," he admits.

For a company that sources 7.5 million tonnes' worth of raw products from around the world every year, the biodiversity impacts are vast and complex. Neath says there is no chance of the company neglecting biodiversity, but managing it is tricky. "When we look at large plantations, like our tea in Tanzania, then we tend to do really well, but that's the exception rather than the rule," he says. "Many of the solutions are very localised."

Unilever has just committed to sourcing all its agricultural raw materials from sustainable sources by 2020. To achieve that goal, "we'll need to get closer to our suppliers," says Neath.

Some companies are beginning to tread a similar path; they are realising they need to in order to prolong their own existence, as Paul Laird, corporate partnerships manager at the Earthwatch Institute, explains. "Companies like Cadbury and Starbucks are essentially reliant on one crop, grown in certain areas of the world where biodiversity and ecosystems are under threat," he observes. "With land at a premium, along with the investment they have made in those areas and farming communities, they're increasingly aware that they need to play the long game and ensure a sustainable supply beyond the next year or so in those areas."

The relationship between food business and biodiversity is often easier to comprehend: crops need soil, insects for pollination, water and so on. Indeed, research by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that risks related to biodiversity and loss of ecosystem services are already impacting businesses like farming, forestry and fishing. But there is also a warning for all the other sectors.

"Just because you don't have a first-hand touchpoint with nature doesn't mean you won't have a second or even third," says Malcolm Preston, Pw sustainability and climate change partner. "No sector remains untouched from the risks."

Lessons learned
There have been, to date, some positive lessons from integrating biodiversity into business, yet biodiversity concerns are generally not fully understood at an operational level. According to Pw's spring 2010 survey, just 18 of the world's largest 100 companies made any mention of biodiversity or ecosystems in their full annual report; six of these have measures in place to reduce their impacts, and only two identified it as a strategic issue.

"Corporate supply chain processes don't seem to have taken biodiversity into account to a great degree yet," admits Mark Line, executive chairman at sustainability consultancy Two Tomorrows. "However, many companies are looking at the issue strategically from a supply security point of view."

The past few months have seen the release of the UN's TEEB report, the biodiversity deal set out in Nagoya and a commitment by the World Bank to a five-year programme aimed at encouraging countries to value ecosystems in the same manner as GDP. Just before Christmas, a sister to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was also born. The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) will report on the state of global biodiversity but also help further promote the extent to which economies depend on healthy ecosystems.

This has all given the issue a shot in the arm. The latest instalment of the TEEB report, for instance, urged businesses to disclose how they are affected by environmental risks and changes to natural resources in their annual reports. More are expected to do so, even if developing a standardised means of measuring biodiversity impacts remains years away.

Red flags
While it might not yet be possible to measure biodiversity footprints to the levels achievable for carbon, it is possible to identify where the red flags might be. This wider perspective on footprinting could be the future, according to Best Foot Forward senior consultant Richard Sheane. Taking the idea of footprinting to scale is a big challenge for businesses, he says, so analysts are looking to streamline the process. "It's more simplified but it'll give an idea of the hotspots," he says.

Much of the business case for assessing biodiversity impacts lies in understanding the risks, including security of supply and reputational risk. Unlike carbon and water, where the impacts to the bottom line are often clear, biodiversity loss hits the bottom line in other ways – in many other ways, in fact. Take BP. The company is no doubt wishing it put biodiversity immediately after safety at the top of its corporate responsibility agenda; the fact it did not has increased costs, laid the company open to legal action, and potentially lost billions of dollars in future revenue.

As Tom Nevard, CEO at the farming scheme Conservation Grade, puts it: "If the wind had blown their oil slicks just slightly further west and it had damaged some of the Texas shore reserves, they'd be broke. So, paying attention to biodiversity these days for multinationals is not optional, it's a practical necessity."

Besides risk, CEOs are beginning to see opportunities: 59 per cent see biodiversity as more of an opportunity than a risk for their companies, according to a recent McKinsey survey. This positive outlook is in stark contrast to executives' views on climate change in late 2007, when only 29 per cent saw the issue as more of an opportunity than a threat.

The Nagoya summit gave leverage to the idea that businesses were coming to terms with biodiversity as a major issue – perhaps even faster than they had done with climate change. As BusinessGreen reported, arguably the most significant breakthough in Nagoya comes not from the new treaties, but the context in which they were negotiated. Observers said that progress in Nagoya was driven in large part by the realisation that ecosystems are essential to the global economy, and as such businesses played a key role in lobbying for more ambitious protection measures.

It sounds remarkably similar to Grubb's comments following the Stern report. In fact, many are hoping that Pavan Sukhdev, the Deutsche Bank economist leading TEEB, can do for biodiversity what Stern did for climate change, alongside Nagoya. The project has already put an economic value on the services provided by the natural world, such as water purification, pollination of crops and climate regulation: between $2 trillion and $5 trillion a year.

Putting a value on biodiversity is a complex process, and those involved in TEEB appear aware of its limitations. However, with the momentum gathering around the study as well as other initiatives, biodiversity is certainly set to remain in the spotlight. Though complicated to measure, to manage and to cost, there's a case building for business to take action.

"We worry about the more familiar issues such as climate change, water stress and pollution, but we tend to forget why," says Anthony Kleanthous, WWF UK senior policy adviser for sustainable business and economics. "We worry about them because they all threaten the ecosystems on which we depend for life's essentials, from food and medicines to timber and flood control.

"Measuring and managing our impacts on biodiversity may be harder than it is for greenhouse gases and water, but it is at least as important. The good news is that businesses are becoming increasingly aware of their responsibilities, and new collaborations between public, private and third sector organisations are working on solutions."

Indeed, 2010 may have been the International Year of Biodiversity, but it's set to remain in the spotlight for some time to come.