The Sustainable Design Leaders group has had awesome, inspiring Summits for ten years now—and there is so much more we can do can to make it a thriving, essential year-round community. To do that we have to extend the trusted “safe space” of the Summits into our online conversations.

And other groups are just getting started on a... Read more

Engineered wood efficiently utilizes fast-growing, small-diameter trees.

When sourced from responsibly managed forests, engineered wood can store carbon that would otherwise enter the atmosphere, and can replace high-embodied-carbon concrete and steel in some structural applications.

Engineered wood products can also provide a... Read more

I don't have any direct affiliation with this role other than a former colleague asked if I would share the job posting for Director of Sustainability at Corgan with my network - that's you! She provided a little more context - they are obviously looking for someone with sustainability experience but are open to an up-and-comer who would be... Read more

Happy Earth Day! I'm sharing the results of our office Earth Day Mind Map, a collaborative event lead by our Green Team with office-wide participation. https://mm.tt/1471242441?t=4c76rJLKXz 

We are celebrating with a virtual happy hour later today and will use the Mind Map to generate conversation and sharing.

I would love to hear... Read more

Hi SDLs,

Do you have design experience or a unique perspective on trying to include ungendered multiuser restrooms in AEC projects? We want to hear from you.

To prepare for a co-creative workshop as a part of the Environmental Design Research Association's 53rd Annual Conference, "Health in All Places," B. Sanborn, Nicole DeNamur... Read more

https://www.architects.org/awards/sustainable-design-0

All,

My BSA Co-chair, Steven Burke, and I want to make you all aware of the BSA Sustainable Design Awards coming up soon. Please see the above link for qualifications and registration information. This is an award which is attempting to work towards the same stringency, rigor... Read more

All - 

I know many of your firms do landscape design, and I wanted to make sure you were aware of a new and pretty impressive conceptual calculator to estimate the carbon impacts (emissions and sinks) of landscape design.  Developed by Pamela Conrad of CMG Landscape with grant support, Atelier 10 and an app developer, the tool allows you... Read more

We've been doing some work gathering actual energy data on our recent projects. (In January we actually issued a report on 21 public buildings ). 

One of the biggest issues is getting access to the actual data - many clients don't want to share. 

Has anyone crafted proposal or contract language allowing/requiring design team... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of LEED 2009: The Missing Manual.

Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, participants will be able to:


1. Stay abreast of changes to LEED NC-2009.
2. Understand the more ambiguous aspects of LEED NC-2009.
3. Explain key interpretations of LEED NC-2009.
4.... Read more

THIS WEBINAR PURCHASE AND REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.

Buildings aren’t garbage. But you wouldn’t know it by examining the way the AEC industry works. 

We typically design buildings for a single, limited purpose. We build them partly out of plastics that can’t be readily recycled. We choose diverse materials... Read more

Hi folks,

We've arranged a room where we can gather for an hour and check in during the Thursday afternoon reception time at Living Future. If you'll be there, come join us!

Thursday, May 2 at 5:30, Skykomish Room (#604, 6th floor)

The group will be mostly Sustainable Design Leaders, as that's by far our largest group, but... Read more

Sustainability leadership has requested that you take this quiz to help assess sustainability literacy across the firm. Your own results will be presented to you at the end of the quiz but will not be shared with anyone else. Only aggregated, anonymized results will be available to others.

Please don’t do research to inform your answers... Read more

Hi Green Gurus!

Reaching out on behalf of the SDL "Expanding material re-use and including more people in the process" action group from the summer summit. (official name TBD - aka inclusive & circular economy, sustainable materials management, zero waste, deconstruction & reuse, etc.). In a nutshell ...unpacking where building... Read more

Good morning SDL,

I have a request for all of the supply chain labor folks out there… I would welcome hearing about your experience/stories/pointers you have based on your project work applying the DfF toolkit or other comparable supply chain labor efforts.

We have a socially minded client that is interested in Design for Freedom... Read more

Not a green design question but a green firm design question... Finalizing the renewal of our Just certification, we're taking a fresh look at all our benefits & policies. We have already reviewed industry-wide survey data (AIA and PSMJ) but are interested in how the firms we admire (i.e., *you*) are approaching benefits in the transformed... Read more