Ambient Lighting: Lighting in an area from any source that produces general illumination, as opposed to task lighting.
Blackwater
Blackwater is the wastewater generated by toilets, kitchen sinks, and dishwashers. Some may include showers as well.
Blown-in Batt: A method of installing loose insulation in wall cavities, using a powerful blower and a fabric containment screen.
Brightness: The subjective perception of relative luminance in a space or on a surface.
British Thermal Unit (Btu): The quantity of heat needed to raise the temperature of 1 pound of water by 1 degree Fahrenheit at or near 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit.
Building Commissioning: The startup phase of a new or remodeled building. This phase includes testing and fine-tuning of the HVAC and other systems to assure proper functioning and adherence to design criteria. Commissioning also includes preparation of the system operation manuals and instruction of the building maintenance personnel.
Building Envelope: The building envelope includes everything that separates the interior of a building from the outdoor environment, including the windows, walls, foundation, basement slab, ceiling, roof, and insulation. The best buildings take all elements of the envelope into account during pre-construction planning.
Building Pressurization: The air pressure within a building relative to the air pressure outside. Positive building pressurization is usually desirable to avoid infiltration of unconditioned and unfiltered air. Positive pressurization is maintained by providing adequate outdoor makeup air to the HVAC system to compensate for exhaust and leakage.
Carbon Dioxide: A naturally occurring gas, and also a by-product of burning fossil fuels and biomass, as well as land-use changes and other industrial processes. It is the principal anthropogenic greenhouse gas that affects the Earth's radiative balance. It is the reference gas against which other greenhouse gases are measured
Cradle-to-Grave Analysis: Analysis of the impact of a product from the beginning of its source gathering processes, through the end of its useful life, to disposal of all waste products. Cradle-to-cradle is a related term signifying the recycling or reuse of materials at the end of their first useful life.
Detention: In stormwater management, ponding of runoff in pools and basins for water-quality improvement and flood prevention.
Electro-Magnetic Fields: Electric fields exist whenever a positive or negative electrical charge is present. They exert forces on other charges within the field. Any electrical wire that is charged will produce an associated electric field. Magnetic fields arise from the motion of electric charges. In contrast to electric fields, a magnetic field is only produced once a device is switched on and current flows.
Embodied Energy: Embodied Energy is the total energy sequestered from a stock within the earth in order to produce a specific good or service including extraction, manufacture, and transportation to market.
Emissions: The release of a substance (usually a gas when referring to the subject of climate change) into the atmosphere.
Energy Efficiency: A value-based, philosophical concept. In this report, two different concepts of energy efficiency are discussed, a technical and a more broad, subjective concept. In the technical concept, increases in energy efficiency take place when either energy inputs are reduced for a given level of service or there are increased or enhanced services for a given amount of energy inputs. In the more subjective concept, energy efficiency is the relative thrift or extravagance with which energy inputs are used to provide goods or services.
Energy Source: Any substance that supplies heat or power, e.g., petroleum, natural gas, coal, renewable energy, and electricity, including the use of a fuel as a non-energy feedstock.
Fly Ash: The fine ash waste collected from the flue gases of coal combustion, smelting, or waste incineration.
Formaldehyde: A gas used widely in production of adhesives, plastics, preservatives, and fabric treatments and commonly emitted by indoor materials that are made with its compounds. It is highly irritating if inhaled and is now listed as a probable human carcinogen.
Fossil Fuel: Any naturally occurring organic fuel, such as petroleum, coal, and natural gas.
Geothermal heat pumps (sometimes referred to as GeoExchange, earth-coupled, ground-source, or water-source heat pumps) Geothermal heat pumps (GHPs) use the constant temperature of the earth as the exchange medium instead of the outside air temperature.
Global Warming: Global warming is an average increase in the temperature of the atmosphere near the Earth's surface and in the troposphere, which can contribute to changes in global climate patterns. Global warming can occur from a variety of causes, both natural and human induced. In common usage, "global warming" often refers to the warming that can occur as a result of increased emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities.
Graywater: Graywater (or Greywater) is defined as any wastewater, except in the toilet, produced from baths and showers, clothes washers, and lavatories in a home.
Greenhouse Gas (GHG): Any gas that absorbs infrared radiation in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases include, but are not limited to, water vapor, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), ozone (O3 ), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)
Indoor Air Quality (IAQ): According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the definition of good indoor air quality includes (1) introduction and distribution of adequate ventilation air; (2)control of airborne contaminants; and (3) maintenance of acceptable temperature and relative humidity.
Life-Cycle: The consecutive, interlinked stages of a product, beginning with raw materials acquisition and manufacture and continuing with its fabrication, manufacture, construction, and use, and concluding with any of a variety of recovery, recycling, or waste management options.
Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA): Life-Cycle-Analysis or Assessment (or LCA) is the study of the environmental impacts of a product or service over its entire life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials, through to the consumption and final disposal of the product. It is a concept and a method to evaluate the environmental effects of a product or activity holistically, by analyzing the entire life cycle of a particular product, process, or activity.
Native Vegetation: A plant whose presence and survival in a specific region is not due to human intervention. Certain experts argue that plants imported to a region by prehistoric peoples should be considered native.
Net-Zero Energy Home: A home that generates enough renewable energy on-site that is equivalent to its annual energy use.
Net-Zero Energy Emissions: A net-zero emissions home produces at least as much emission-free renewable energy as it uses from the emissions-producing energy sources.
Non-Point-Source Pollution: Runoff contamination from an overall site or land use and not discharged from a single pipe, such as sediment from construction sites, oils from parking lots, or fertilizers and pesticides washed from farm fields.
Orientation: The relation of a building and its associated fenestration and interior surfaces to compass direction and, therefore, to the location of the sun.
Photovoltaic: Generation of electricity from the energy of sunlight, using photocells.
Post-Consumer Recycled Content: Post Consumer Recycled Content refers to material that has been used by consumers, such as used newspaper, and has been diverted or separated from waste management systems for recycling.
Renewable: A renewable product can be grown or naturally replenished or cleansed at a rate that exceeds human depletion of the resource.
Renewable Energy: Renewable energy is an energy resource that is replaced rapidly by natural processes. Some examples of renewable energy resources are sunlight, wind, geothermal, micro scale hydropower, and wood.
Ventilation: The circulation of air through a building to deliver fresh air to occupants.
*Definitions are summarized from the Environmental Protection Agency website.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/glossary.html#Climate_change