Friends, I'm helping with the 2023 COTE Top Ten Award and would love some input from this group on 2 things: 

1) Now that the AIA Design Excellence awards use the Framework for Design Excellence as their entry criteria, what do you see as the next gen for the Top Ten? If you could change 1-3 things, what would they be? If you submitted... Read more

I hope this post finds you all well. Some news to share.  I have recently made a decision to leave Thornton Tomasetti with an eye toward finding another opportunity to use my 30+ years of green building experience, education, and advocacy to have an even larger impact on climate change. I am going to move slowly to ensure my next chapter is the... Read more

Hello SCL- as we move closer towards the release of the Contractors Commitment we have realized that we need a donation of graphics/marketing help from one of our member firms.

We are looking for help with a BG SCL Contractors Commitment logo, landing page, document organization, and any graphics we might need to highlight the... Read more

Hello Sustainable Community Design Leaders!

I have an exciting announcement today, fall Peer Network events are now open for registration! You can see all the event details and register here!

Based on feedback we received from past events and the most recent surveys, we decided against doing one long week of events for this fall... Read more

Evaporative coolers use far less electricity than conventional refrigerant-cycle air conditioners and they operate without the use of refrigerants, both features that make them attractive for green buildings. However, their suitability is limited to drier climates, and most products use significant quantities of water.

BuildingGreen... Read more

I’m writing to see who would be interested in collaborating during the month of December on a position paper that would be given to the incoming Biden administration, outlining things that firms in our industries (i.e. architecture, engineering and construction) would be excited to see advanced as part of Biden’s Build-Back-Better (BBB) program... Read more

We are growing our Design Performance Group at NBBJ! We're looking for two special people right now: a senior sustainable material consultant and a senior energy analyst. Help us design the next generation of healthy, low impact buildings - this is a chance to impact across the scale of our global company and build a better future! Know anyone... Read more

I am the Moderator of the 2023 Strategic Council and the call for nominations for the 2024-2026 Strategic Council at-large representatives has just been released.  I would encourage any interested parties to apply for this position.

The Strategic Council’s purpose is to develop ideas to inform future needs and opportunities for the... Read more

The COTE Toolkit just launched on AIA.org's site, please go and check it out and share with your networks. The project spanned over the last year+ with over 40 authors, subject matter experts, and reviewers contributing to the process, (including many Green Gurus!)

With the goal of closing the information gap to designing high... Read more

Does anyone up here do or have familiarity with anyone who regularly does NEPA EIS? If you need a definition for the acronym, please see here: https://www.epa.gov/nepa/national-environmental-policy-act-review-process#EIS. I've been asked if I know anything about it, to which the answer is no, but I'd like to get smarter about it and I'm hoping... Read more

Hi everyone,

As part of our monthly SDLS call yesterday, we looked through the 2020 SD Leaders Winter Summit Report. To help paint an even fuller picture of what was covered at that summit, here are slides from many of the 5-minute presentations.

As a note: we have permission from these presenters to share their slides within the... Read more

This is a bit off the thread of sustainable design leadership, but how much design and/or leadership can you get done without an adequate amount of caffeination?

We are looking for recommendations and advice on improving the sustainability of our breakrooms, particularly on the subject of beverage (mostly coffee, but also a fair amount... Read more

All,

The current version of the program manual includes ID numbers for the best practices, as shown below. I know we want to keep a quick reference number or ID, but though it would be worth asking if we want to use the below, reorder them in some way, or use a different kind of ID. Opinions?

Thanks,
Jenny

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