How ASTM E06.81 Standards Promote a Meeting of the Minds

摘要

This paper focuses on how to make standards more usable and more valuable to key stakeholders over all life-cycle phases and in all sectors of the built environment. There is a need within the marketplace for well-established financial and economic evaluation tools both for traditional applications and for emerging trends-sustainability, Building Information Modeling, and other innovations-as they are mainstreamed into the built environment. The suite of standards from ASTM International's Subcommittee E06.81 on Building Economics fills that need. Specifically, these standards provide a full spectrum of value-enabling solutions to (1) accelerate the adoption of new building technologies and processes; (2) assist the evaluation of new energy efficiency and sustainability techniques; and (3) enhance the resource productivity of labor, materials, and energy. Taken together, these solutions can result in significant increases in efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the built environment. The standards also provide a framework that facilitates communication among key stakeholders, increasing the potential for identifying and implementing mutually beneficial solutions to complex problems. A series of case studies involving existing and new buildings and industrial facilities are used to illustrate how ASTM E06.81 standards can be applied. The case studies also serve to illustrate a sequence of steps that, if pursued, deliver greater value to key stakeholders. These steps involve (1) clarifying the capabilities of the E06.81 standards and simplifying presentation materials on how to apply ASTM E06.81 standards and (2) reaching and informing a wider audience by engaging stakeholders outside of the engineering community.