THIS WEBINAR PURCHASE AND REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.

Wednesday, February 12th, 2020 2-3 pm Eastern (11 am-12 pm Pacific)

Whole-building life-cycle assessment (WBLCA) can help project teams reduce embodied carbon as well as many other environmental impacts of building materials. And it’s incentivized in LEED and... Read more

Hello, 

We are becoming involved with the design/construction of a new k-12 school that is intersted in entertaining geothermal. Does anyone have payback studies on geothermal?

Thanks!

Should the Best Practice names always be accompanied by their number? See the attached screenshots, all taken from the main forum page:

Best Practice labels next to individual forum posts Best Practice names in the forum filter dropdown Best Practices in the main navigation dropdown menu

This webcast was pre-approved for 1 AIA LU|HSW and 1 GBCI LEED-specific CE hour.

Please complete the survey questions to confirm your attendance and receive your CEUs.

By providing your credential numbers in your profile, you will enable us to automatically report these CEUs to these organizations. Please check your profile to be... Read more

Hi folks,

Here's a neat resource that just showed up. Pages 5-7 list exactly what kinds of activities could be covered by new federal funds, and what part of the legislation relates to each activity...

From USGBC:

With the passage of the American Rescue Plan Act, the Federal government has now approved $176 billion for K-12... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of EPDs Are the Future of the Building Industry, Whether You Like It or Not.

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


 

1. Explain how environmental product declarations (EPDs) are made, what they tell you, and how they're best used.
2. Describe... Read more

Team,

Many of you saw the BlackRock letter.

https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-ceo-letter

Should we hold our consultants and suppliers accountable for climate change?

Best,
LL

Most products sold as “ceramic tile” are fired at lower temperatures and are less durable.

For porcelain tile, BuildingGreen starts with the Green2 standard for sustainable tiling—ANSI A138.1 American National Standard Specifications for Sustainable Ceramic Tiles, Glass Tiles, and Tile Installation Materials. This is a multi-attribute... Read more

Fellow Sages,

I was at an interesting lecture last night. Phil Bernstein (formerly of Autodesk, now at Yale) was speaking (in Lawrence, Kansas, at the U of Kansas) about AI and design/AEC ... you may know that he authored the 2022 book, Machine Learning, about AI and the AEC field. 

Phil has a very interesting posture about AI... Read more

Is this EDI, or JEDI? (Justice, Equity...)

Notes (attached) and Guiding Questions:

Equity, Diversity, And Inclusion In Our Firms

What are the barriers and what’s working to cut through them?

The process is so super slow... how to to celebrate our small achievements?

How are we fostering inclusion and... Read more

Hello SCL,

Version 2.0 of the Contractor's Commitment has officially been ratified with 33 "yes" votes out of 52 members. Congratulations, and a big thank you to everyone who helped move this forward--especilly Amanda Atkinson, who really took this project by the horns. 

You can find the updated version here.

Next, I'll be... Read more

We are cautiously rekindling the age-old debate: how are we balancing modeling software for design /visualization and performance analysis during early phase of design.  

We are heavy SketchUp users for early design, and most of our staff have access to COVE tool for early performance analysis. Problem is, I’d rather use Revit to COVE... Read more

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/us-green-building-council-celebrates-2021-class-leed-fellows

I'm sure you will see many familar names on the list - not the least of which is our fellow SMEPL:  Sarah Gudeman.

Congratulations, Sarah - well done!

Hi all -- 

We have a national restaurant client who is looking to source furniture (both indoor and outdoor) made with a minimum of 40% salvaged/recycled material, and they're very interested in finding a vendor that's woman- and/or minority-owned or that would qualify as a "disadvantaged organization" (their terminology).  They would... Read more

Hey, team. Would it be possible to get premium access to LEED User while we're developing the best practices resources? (without subscribing to it- I don't LEED consult any longer)  Southface has basic membership, so I can't see what's available, etc. Thanks.

Does anyone have install experience with Duracryl yet? I'm looking at it for a large project in place of Marmoleum. We've had multiple instances of install failures with Marmoleum, which leads to lots of finger pointing.