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Tom Marseille, PE, Hon. AIA, LEED Fellow, Senior Vice President and Director of Built Ecology, WSP USA 

This article appears in the Q4 2017 edition of District Energy magazine.

The e-commerce giant will achieve net-zero energy at its Seattle headquarters through an innovative partnership with a downtown neighbor. 

Achieving net-zero energy on building projects is becoming an increasingly realistic goal given current and emerging building technologies, design approaches and more engaged and educated occupants. But even with a well-charted and proven road map, the majority of projects face inherent constraints that hinder the aggressive pursuit of net zero at scale. Fortunately, new district paradigms are emerging that are practical and achievable. The concept of heat sharing – harvesting neighboring energy resources that would otherwise be wasted – is one such opportunity, which can help enable the step change in efficiency needed for building projects to achieve high-performance outcomes.