The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct05) requires that federal building energy-efficiency performance standards be revised. New federal buildings must be designed to achieve energy consumption levels at least 30 percent below the levels established in the currently applicable version of standards published by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standard 90.1 or the International Energy Conservation Code.

There is worldwide plea to reduce carbon emission. Several governments in East Asia recently have responded by setting higher indoor temperatures in summer. But the public need to be convinced that such practice would not sacrifice indoor environmental quality, especially thermal comfort of the occupants. To implement such a measure, suitable ventilation system(s) to work under theunconventional conditions should be identified. Stratum ventilation, a new mode, is proposed for the elevated indoor temperature.

The current rate of consumption across Europe is leading to environmental problems. We need toreduce our impact to nature - our ecological footprint - by two thirds to achieve a sustainable andglobally equitable level. There is a strong need for more efficient and sustainable buildings. At present it is difficult to define the performance of buildings in an objective way to efficiency and sustainability. Goal of this project is to examine and to understand differences between different green building assessment rating systems approaches when applied to high performance buildings.

Ventilation in schools is very important as it has a direct relation to health and performance of pupils.The status quo of school ventilation in the Netherlands is presented: lots of problems and insufficientsituations were found. Different aspects of the problems were studied to find new solutions.A new Integral Design approach was developed to design adequate solutions for ventilation of school buildings.

The legal background for the assessment of the energy performance of buildings and energycertificates in Germany will be changed in October 2009. Beside the tightening of the requirements byabout 30%, a significant change will be made at the calculation of residential buildings. Up to now thecalculation has to be performed by using the so-called simple approach (EN 15603) by applying theoutdated European standard EN 832 in combination with the European Standard EN 14335 withnational boundary conditions.

In order to respond to global warming and natural resources depletion challenges, industrials from the building sector need to propose an adequate offer. Energy simulation tools can support this process. Various studies and real cases show that a high performance level, e.g. primary energy consumption below 50 kWh.m-2 per year (including heating, cooling, domestic hot water, lighting and ventilation), can be reached by appropriate architecture combined with high insulation, free cooling and heat recovery on exhaust air.

It is well known that appropriate ventilation represents one of the prerequisites for achieving goodindoor comfort, and we try to ensure a continuous and sufficient intake of fresh air into a building. But,ventilation losses are also one of the most important components of a building thermal balance, andwe try to reduce them as much as possible. In theory, these two seemingly contradictive facts can betechnically adequately solved in various ways.

Differences might arise between the design and the real load of ventilation systems during operation.Consequently, the fresh air demand usually varies over a wide range. In normal usage, different types of gaseous contaminants enter the air that might be hazardous to health. The constant inhalation of contaminated indoor air might lead to discomfort or to harmful physiological effects.The difference between the design and the real load can be diminished by augmenting the ventilation system with appropriate components and controls.

The Annex 46, within the IEA ECBCS programme, is meant to influence the decision making processin the retrofit of public and governmental buildings that determines the use of energy-saving measures in building retrofits. This decision making process must improve, if it is to successfully cope with the challenges of increasing energy costs and climate change, and if it is to avoid "locking in" long-term commitment to energy inefficiencies by adopting sub-optimal renovations.

The influence of ventilation on the energy performance of a building is generally considered to be quite high. It rises clearly, when a building contains large-volume spaces. A famous example building for that is the Reichstag building in Berlin, housing the German parliament. The huge plenary hall in the buildings centre, which occupies only 4% of the total net floor area but 20% of its net volume, is equipped with a powerful air-conditioning system.