SDLers – For one of our projects we are working with local tribes to procure timber. We would also like to get FSC certification, but haven’t found significant overlap between these two criteria in the Pacific Northwest. There appear to be two certification entities in our area: Northwest Natural Resource Group and Trout Mountain Forestry.  I’m... Read more

Hi folks,

No details have been sorted out yet, but I wanted everyone to have a heads-up that the SCL Steering Group is proposing that we graduate to a full, stand-alone SCL Summit in 2020. (Until now we’ve been squeezing our Summit into the day before Greenbuild, which is good in some ways, but problematic in others—and limits our time... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Cladding: More Than Just a Pretty Façade

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


1. Explain how different commercial wall assemblies handle moisture.
2. Know what questions to ask to determine a cladding system's environmental impact.... Read more

I'm looking into using solar shingles as a roofing option for a historic building renovation. Has anyone used them before and have any recommendations? I understand they won't be as efficient as traditional panels, but I'd like to figure out if it would be a worthwhile compromise to discuss with the historic commission, if necessary. Thanks... Read more

Team,

https://www.buildingservicesengineersdeclare.com/

See link above, a group of UK building services (MEP) engineers (like us) signed on above, committed to do life cycle carbon (including embodied MEP) in their work.

Are we behind?  Should we match them?  leap frog ahead of them?

Best,

Luke Leung

from the Tortured by Randomness Department:

Y'all ... I was recently reminded (by Bill Reed) about a lovely quote ... and I'm keen to use it in a talk upcoming ... 

Here it is:
Place is a doorway into caring. Love of place unleashes the personal and political will needed to make profound change. It can also unite people... Read more

We have another great class of COTE Top Ten winners—congratulations to all of you with recognized projects. Join us on May 10 at 2:00 pm Eastern time for an inside peak at many of this year’s winners, along with insights from jurors. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.

To keep things open and honest we won’t be recording this session. This “safe... Read more

Erika Heet is the Editor-in-Chief of BuildingGreen. She is the former Editor-in-Chief of Interiors magazine. She has held senior editor positions at Dwell and Architectural Digest, and is the author of two books on modern architecture. She has served on the boards of Greenbuild and the Sustainable Furnishings Council, as well as on juries for... Read more

Hi SDL: today is the last day to cast your vote in the voting for Greenbuild by 5PM ET.  

please vote for the terrific program put together on PV23 "The Tools You Need to Design for Climate Emergency Action" with me, Betsy and Beth Heider that will bring together a collection of tools, including brand new ones from Saskia, using the Top... Read more

Hi All,

Someone just told me that 80% of his previously certified Energy Star Projects no longer earn certification with the update baselines.  Have any of you started digging into this yet?

-Meredith

We are in the process of working with our ops people to figure out billability targets for my team. Something that may be useful is the firm survey that BG conducts before each retreat (See attached image). These are great, but it varies depending on which firms attend the retreat. Its also hard to tell (in some cases) which green dot is... Read more

Asking for a colleague:

"Have you ever had a large number of fire retardant tarps used to temporarily enclose a building during construction? Do you know of any solutions for recycling/reusing them or another product that doesn't use toxic fire-retardants that meets the performance criteria?"

I think we've all seen poly or fabric... Read more

Hello lovely Green Gurus!

Just wanted to take a quick second to let you all know how much I've appreciated this amazing network over the last few years. I have taken a position at Amazon Worldwide Sustainability in their Sustainable Buildings group, and while I will be leveraging all of my skills and experience doing much the same thing... Read more

I understand the AIA 2030 team is hoping for as many firms (and projects) to submit some form of LCA data in the new DDx website this week, in order to learn how the industry is tracking embodied carbon.  We have four projects that dabbled with Tally last year, which we'd like to report this week.

Has anyone run into a hurdle where you... Read more

Hi Gurus,

As some of you may remember, my spouse, Moshe Cohen did a short negotiation mini-training at SDL some years ago - but there's many of you who weren't there - so this is for you!

He will be doing a training in two parts on Nov 17 and 24th from 9-12 EST. He's the BEST (even objectively!!) and honestly, if you want to... Read more