Atlanta, Georgia: ASHRAE has announced that its second Developing Economies Conference will take place on November 10-11, 2017, in Delhi, India. The conference, a press communiqué from the society said, will address the challenges that developing countries face in infrastructure and urbanisation as well as air pollution, refrigerant phase-down and lack of trained manpower.

The conference theme is titled “Trends, Opportunities and Challenges for the Built Environment in Developing Economies”, revealed the communiqué. The conference, it highlighted, is focused on trends that are affecting the built environment in developing economies and the opportunities and challenges presented by these trends.

“Developing economy countries are in many ways leapfrogging technologies while simultaneously handicapped due to inadequate education and regulations,” said Ashish Rakheja, Conference Chair.  “At the same time, there is increasingly more new construction and demand on energy sources and a corresponding demand for excellent technical information to cope with these demands.”

Speaking about the conference, he said, “This conference seeks to provide consulting engineers, building professionals and policymakers with guidance that will help them successfully meet the challenges in their countries.”

The communiqué informed that a call for conference presenters is now open, and presentations are being sought on the following topics:

• Technologies that are game changers in building design
• Solutions to challenges, such as outdoor and indoor pollution, refrigerant phase-down, lack of trained manpower and expensive technologies
• Standards, measurement and rating standards being developed and adopted to bring a common language for built environment evaluation, such as ASHRAE’s Building EQ, local standards, etc.
• Regulatory changes and direction affecting the building industry, such as energy codes
• Evolving economic models and their impact on building planning and use

Providing further details, the communiqué said that the presentations and sessions will cover aspects of energy efficiency, comfort, indoor air quality (IAQ), wellness and environmental impact of buildings in developing economy countries as affected by the HVAC systems for the buildings. Abstracts (400 or less words in length) are due July 7, 2017. For more information or to submit a presentation proposal, visit www.ashrae.org/Developing2017.

The conference, the communiqué stated, is co-organised by ASHRAE, the ASHRAE India Chapter and ISHRAE.