UC professor turns building decarbonization into a game

"When we think about the urgent need to decarbonize our building stock, we're talking about a new skillset, a new way of thinking — and an active, engaging workshop style is well suited to prepare people for this," said Webb, associate professor of architectural engineering at UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science. 

Earlier this fall, Webb debuted the workshop at the 2024 Decarbonization Conference hosted by ASHRAE, a global society of heating, refrigerating, and air-conditioning engineers. The theme of the conference was decarbonizing existing tall buildings, and Webb wanted to use her time with attendees to its full advantage by getting them actively involved through a game. Her session was titled "Let's Decarbonize! A Hands-on Building Decarbonization Assessment Workshop," which she presented along with her colleague in industry, Barry Abramson.

Webb and Abramson designed and developed the workshop together. Webb has an interest in developing games for decarbonization as part of her recent NSF CAREER Award. Abramson is a practicing consulting engineer at the Atlanta-based engineering firm, Servidyne. The two met through ASHRAE Standard 211, the organization's standard for building energy audits. They both serve on the standard committee and are working on evolving it to include decarbonization assessments along with the elements of a typical energy audit. The pair decided that developing a gamified version of a decarbonization assessment would foster both understanding and concern for the timely issue of decarbonization. 

"Through the game, we wanted to expand the mindset of engineers tasked with decarbonizing buildings to incorporate more strategic thinking," Abramson said. 

The session was split into three phases: the introductory phase, the game itself, and a reflection phase. When attendees first arrived to the session, they were asked to do a self-assessment of their familiarity and experience with decarbonization. Later, Webb and Abramson used these designations as a method of placing attendees into groups. They wanted each group to have a representation of various experience levels to showcase the adaptability of the workshop. Attendees ranged from Webb's students to the upcoming president of ASHRAE. 

"I benefited from this workshop both technically and professionally," said Josie Cline, one of Webb's students. "The team component allowed me to network with several industry professionals, all with a diverse range of skills and experiences." 

In the game, groups were tasked with helping a building owner decarbonize their building. The goal was to reduce carbon emissions, while keeping costs low. The game was played as a succession of rounds, with each round representing a specific period between now and 2040. It included several twists, designed to replicate challenges the teams might face during a real project. 

"People really enjoyed the opportunity to have time and space to think and talk to their peers about this in a way that's not industry competitive," Webb said.

Featured image at top: UC College of Engineering and Applied Science Associate Professor Amanda Webb created a trademarked game to highlight ways to reduce a building's carbon footprint. Photo/iStockPhoto