Cost Savings, Increased Sustainability, and Improved Performance Drive Demand for Energy-Efficient Coatings

By Cynthia Challener

Home owners, commercial retailers, and managers of industrial plants have several things in common: they want to minimize their costs, reduce their environmental foot­print, and increase the performance of their key assets. One way to achieve all three goals at once is to boost energy efficiency. In the past, doing so required installing insulation. Today, however, numerous coating technologies can help reduce undesired heat transfer and significantly lower energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in a wide range of applications.

ENERGY SAVINGS AT COMMERCIAL AND INSTITUTIONAL FACILITIES

“Many businesses now realize that their future success is dependent upon their abil­ity to meet the major sustainability trends influencing their industries. They know that they need to become much more resource-efficient and will look to many different areas to improve their performance in this respect,” says Andre Veneman, corporate director of sustainability & HSE with AkzoNobel. At the same time, he notes, environmental regulations and building codes and standards are becoming stricter, and voluntary green building cer­tifications (LEED, BREEAM, GRIHA, DGNB, etc.) are helping to increase the acceptance, use, and devel­opment of new technologies designed to help meet these new green standards.

In the commercial and institutional space, reflective roof coatings are the most recog­nized form of energy-efficient coatings. White, cool-roof coatings applied to flat rooftops effec­tively decrease building heat gain and reduce a building’s carbon footprint, according to John Dockery, senior technology associate with Arkema Emulsion Systems. Notably, building energy efficiency standards, including the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC, latest version 2015); the ASH RAE 90.1 (latest version 2013) energy standard of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers; ENERGY STAR in the United States; and California’s Title 24; as well as the International Green Construction Code, include cool-roof credits or requirements.