Applied New Science LLC

Environmental Performance Index

An performance index might contain numerous environmental indicators.  For example that devised by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy consists of 25 indicators covering several policy areas, including environmental health, biodiversity, resource management, and climate change.  The American Society of Interior Designers and U.S. Green Building Council’s REGREEN Residential Remodeling Guidelines 2008 provide perhaps the best overview of residential building retrofitting.  These guidelines cover 10 different types of remodeling projects and 198 green remodeling strategies.  Some strategies apply to all 10 project types and some to just one or two.  The strategies are organized by 6 major Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) performance categories and each strategy specifies a set of related strategies. 

The below Mathematica graph plot visualizes the relationships between the 198 green remodeling strategies and the 10 different types of remodeling projects.  The positions of the strategies are optimized to cluster related strategies together.  Rather than cluster by the LEED performance categories the strategies tend to cluster by 3 broad project categories: lower right, building physics; left, functional spaces; and upper right, site ecology.  Interestingly, these three project categories roughly mirror the Yale environmental index policy areas in their impact on the performance indicators.  The strategies clustering around building physics impact through energy use on the Climate Change policy area, those around functional spaces act mainly through their material use to impact environmental health and ecosystem vitality, those around site ecology directly impact biodeversity and habitat.

Mathematica graph plot of strategy library from REGREEN ASID USGBC Residential Remodeling Guidelines P10 P9 P8 P7 P6 P5 P4 P3 P2 P1 S190 S188 S191 S189 S150 S192 S142 S195 S141 S140 S139 S136 S133 S156 S132 S151 S148 S135 S134 S118 S162 S126 S108 S194 S164 S131 S98 S125 S91 S89 S90 S127 S87 S85 S82 S123 S122 S79 S73 S72 S104 S67 S76 S75 S65 S61 S193 S86 S58 S57 S68 S178 S117 S70 S69 S64 S60 S50 S115 S114 S55 S66 S176 S175 S107 S33 S39 S112 S111 S110 S184 S181 S129 S49 S59 S47 S169 S40 S18 S38 S34 S16 S35 S29 S15 S113 S155 S157 S146 S84 S8 S128 S121 S109 S198 S197 S196 S177 S153 S144 S105 S103 S44 S43 S42 S41 S37 S12 S11 S10 S6 S187 S186 S185 S182 S180 S174 S173 S172 S170 S163 S161 S160 S159 S158 S152 S147 S145 S137 S71 S179 S165 S138 S92 S56 S52 S116 S106 S102 S101 S100 S99 S97 S96 S95 S94 S93 S88 S83 S78 S77 S46 S36 S31 S30 S17 S7 S4 S171 S168 S74 S63 S54 S53 S51 S48 S45 S2 S183 S167 S166 S154 S149 S143 S130 S124 S120 S119 S62 S32 S28 S27 S26 S25 S24 S23 S22 S21 S20 S19 S14 S13 S9 S5 S3 S1 REGREEN Project Strategy Relations.  Mouse over a numbered disk for the project name or strategy outline.