Hi All,

I’m pulling together a Healthy Building Summit in Boston on August 14th.  Check it out here.  http://usgbcma.org/hbs18/

Nadav is moderating!  It would be great to have some of you great leaders in attendance.  We still have sponsorship opportunities. Let me know if you are interested.

-Meredith

Embodied carbon in products and existing buildings. What does LCA tell us about renovation vs. new construction and material choices?

Guiding Questions: 

Greetings to the Green Commons!

Those of you who attended Greenbuild may remember that during one of the keynotes, Ali Zaidi - White House National Climate Advisor, announced that the White House was developing a definition for "Zero Emissions Buildings" (here’s a [LINK] to a related Washington Post article). The draft language for the... Read more

Hi all - at the suggestion of Nadav and some of the Sustainable MEP Leaders, I'm reposting a thread I started a couple days ago in the SMEP forum.

In response to increasingly aggressive (and effective) targeting of building owners (particularly schools), a group of researchers have put their support behind a letter warning against the... Read more

This are opportunities for us to get involved as design and construction allies with the new administration and the US Department of Energy on more efficient building.

The first link below is for low-carbon projects that will provide the case studies and solutions that the industry can follow.  The second is identifying barriers and... Read more

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Hi All,

As you know from the SCL Summit last year, I have been organizing a task group to create a draft of our SCL Contractor Commitment. We have come up with a short Tiered commitment draft as well as some best practices and challenges that led us to the commitment. I encourage everyone to take a look at the draft and please send any... Read more

Hello all,

Thank you so much for your work on the Contractor Commitment. In preparation for the Summit, we've pulled all of the sections together into one cohesive document. We would like to invite everyone in the SCL network to review and comment on this latest draft so that we can compile comments before Wednesday and make the most of... Read more

I was recently asked about potentially specifying concrete with wood nanoparticles and concrete with biochar as a way to further lower the embodied carbon and to increase concrete strength.  These approaches are something I know nothing about, and wondering if anyone in this group has any experience and/or observations that might be relevant to... Read more

Metal roofs can also provide high solar reflectance, minimizing a building’s contribution to the urban heat island effect. 

BuildingGreen-approved

Materials and finishes recognized by Energy Star maintain solar reflectance levels after three years of use of 50% for low-slope and 15% for steep-slope. Some unpainted metals and many... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Better Window Decisions: Mastering the Performance and Cost Options.

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


1. Understand the energy metrics that inform how windows affect energy loads
2. Describe ways to avoid air leakage and condensation... Read more

Has anyone been involved with GBC Italia's Historic Building protocol? They are requesting pilot projects and I'm wondering if anyone has experience using or developing this framework. 

See attached checklist and form. Their website is pretty challenging to use. But so is USGBC...

Thanks!

Seems to be a trend! We're looking to fill a Sustainability Specialist position at Perkins Eastman: 

http://perkinseastman.hrmdirect.com/employment/job-opening.php?req=89745...

Please let me know if you have any potential candidates who might be a good fit! 

I'm sure may are familiar with Aqua in Chicago, and Joe Lstiburek's article on thermal bridging. (https://buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi062-thermal-bridges-redux) We have similar problem with a project that is a residential highrise building, concrete structure. Here is my questions. Will energy simulation be able to pick up the... Read more

Hey all,

Question for those of you who do in-house daylight analysis about modeling translucent glazing.

We use ClimateStudio for our modeling. It has plenty of material options for clear glazing but nothing for translucent glazing, and we are trying to understand the impacts of a translucent interlayer at some skylights. We can... Read more

Dear fellow SCL'ers,

Recently one of our members, Ryan Poole, sustainability leader at DPR, has been facing some personal challenges. His wife is 35 weeks pregnant and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. They have moved across country - from Colorado to South Carolina - to be closer to thier parents and their support system, but they can... Read more