Impact of Furniture and Appliances on Net-Zero Energy Buildings

This report examines the environmental impact of furniture and appliances in the context of net-zero energy buildings. The analysis, based on the article 'On the necessity of improving the environmental impacts of furniture and appliances in net-zero energy buildings', highlights the significant contributions of furniture and appliances to overall building environmental impacts. The study reveals that furniture and appliances contribute substantially to greenhouse gas emissions and primary energy consumption, with embodied impacts often dominating operational impacts. The report emphasizes the varying effects of different appliances, such as laptops in offices and refrigerators in residential buildings, on building energy performance. It underscores the need for improved environmental considerations in the design and selection of furniture and appliances to achieve true net-zero energy goals. The report uses several references to support its findings.

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ENERGY OPTIMIZATION BUILDING
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ON THE NECESSITY OF IMPROVING THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF
FURNITURE AND APPLIANCES IN NET-ZERO ENERGY BUILDINGS
Summary of the article
This article is about the impacts of the furniture and appliance on the environment. The author
starts by introducing the commonly used furniture and appliances in the day to day actitivies1.
The author then moves on to evaluate various effects of the furniture and appliance on the
immediate environment, through that the author has been able to point out that actually the
utilization of the furniture and appliances in the day to day activities has a gr4eat im0pact on
the environment. That author of the article concluded that appliances and furniture contributed
for 30% emission of the greenhouse gases and that the appliances and the furniture were
responsible 15% consumption of the primary energy compared to the overall effects of the
building.
Evaluation/ relevance
This article is relevant in analyzing the effects on the environment of using furniture and
appliances in a day to day activities. The approach which the author has used to present ideas
makes it much easier to understand the entire concept of the effects which the utilization of
furniture and appliances has on the environment. From the article, I was able to learn that the
embodied effects normally dominates over the operational stage i.e. When the building is in
use3. The article has made it clear the contribution of each furniture and appliance to the over the
performance of the building, through that it was possible to learn that for the office building,
laptops and computers have the greatest effects while in the residential building the refrigerators
have the greatest effects on the overall building energy performance4.

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References

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[1] Attia S, Hamdy M, O'Brien W, Carlucci S. Assessing gaps and needs for integrating building
performance optimization tools in net-zero energy buildings design. Energy and Buildings. 2013
May 1;60:110-24.
[2] Hernandez P, Kenny P. From net energy to zero energy buildings: Defining life cycle zero
energy buildings (LC-ZEB). Energy and Buildings. 2010 Jun 1;42(6):815-21.
[3] Sartori I, Napolitano A, Voss K. Net zero energy buildings: A consistent definition
framework. Energy and buildings. 2012 May 1;48:220-32.
[4] Pless S, Torcellini P. Net-zero energy buildings: A classification system based on renewable
energy supply options. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States);
2010 Jun 1.