Textiles have some of the worst environmental records of any product found in our buildings. Textile production uses a number of hazardous chemicals and pollutes water; and its environmental impacts often affect our most vulnerable populations.

BuildingGreen favors textiles made using fibers and manufacturing processes that have low... Read more

Lisa Richmond

Happy Friday Everyone!

Hoping to add a bit of excitement to the end of your week: 

Here is the Sustainable Design Leaders 2020 Summer Summit Report. 

Enjoy!

RoseAnn for Nadav, Candace, and the BuildingGreen team

Welcome to the quiz portion of The Death and Rebirth of DC Power. 

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


Explain when and how to integrate DC power into buildings, and the benefits of doing so.

Understand the history and background of AC and DC power in the U.S.

... Read more

BITuser Meeting:  5/23/18

Participants:  Shane, Andrea, Angela

Notes:

Southface to provide "style tiles" before 6/15 
Greg to send to Andrea, couple dozen images for Best Practice pages
Southface will send, in week to 10 days, "full content" for BP03 - Energy Audit 
(BP03 "full content" will address... Read more

I wanted to alert you to this opportunity to help develop a new ASHRAE Standard. They are especially looking for people who have not served with ASHRAE previously (aka the usual suspects)

ASHRAE Standard 242P, Standard Method for Calculation of Building Operational Greenhouse Gas Emissions

1 Purpose: This standard provides a... Read more

Apologize in advance if this has been posted before but we are trying to get manufacturers of stage curtains to give documentation that proves that the product does not have halogenated fire retardants. Manufacturers say they don't have them or concentrations are limited to 100ppm but they don't seem to have documentation to provide for it.... Read more

All--

Metropolis magazine asked me to write a long piece about the current state of post-occupancy studies. I'm wrestling with whether to do it and how to approach it, but it would be helpful to hear your thoughts on the following--

--importance of the topic

--typical and atypical approaches and criteria

--examples... Read more

I'm hoping someone knows the anser to this question. For the LEED ND certification the minimum requirement is "The LEED project should contain at least two habitable buildings and be no larger than 1500 acres." Does habitable mean buildings with dwelling units?

Hello, what acceptable levels of air quality are you using to evaluate natural ventilation strategies for your projects?  In our Living Building we only open windows when PM10, PM2.5, etc. are within LBC and WELL limits.  In a seasonally smoggy urban environment, this limits how often we can utilize natural ventilation even if the outside... Read more

With the increasing need to support design with techncial expertise, I am curious to hear how others are meeting this challenge.  Do you build energy models in-house?  Do you have a team of experts whose sole responsibility is to support design teams with tasks such as energy modeling and LCA, or is that expertise distributed throughout the... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Building Re-Entry with Arc

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


1.  Explain the similarities and differences between LEED v4.1 O+M performance metrics and the Arc Re-Entry program.

2.  Understand how Arc Re-Entry contributes to an iterative re-... Read more

I opened IE11 (Internet Explorer 11) today, and saw a message indicating IE11 will be retired June 15th, 2022. While I have no personal attachment to IE11, it was the only internet browser I could consistantly get to open LEED Online credit templates on the actual website. 

Has anyone found another way to be able to fill out LEED credit... Read more

Hi Green Gurus (esp. Sustainable MEP leaders...)

I'm looking for suggestions of contacts for MEP consultants, especially in the Chicagoland region, ideally with sustainability highly integrated into the work, specialization in geothermal systems, and indoor agriculture. (doesn't necessarily have to be all-in-one)

For context, we... Read more

Hi Fellow GG: I just wanted to make sure everyone saw the great announcement from the White House yesterday about Code updates to address energy efficiency and resilience. It's great to see these kinds of initiatives that hopefully can continue for a few more years. So let's try to take advantage of them (said by someone who lives in Missouri... Read more

Hello Sustainability Leaders,

Great to see some of you at Greenbuild last week.  Thanks to all who responded to Nadav’s post-election blues post.  Lots of helpful insights and sentiments that left me very grateful to be part of this community.  On a related note, since the election I’ve been asked by people in our office and in life if... Read more

Water treatment systems often rely on harsh chemicals to treat bacteria, and on high water use from drawdown of water to reduce build-up of concentrates—a process called blowdown.

BuildingGreen-Approved Water Treatment

BuildingGreen approves systems that: