BuildingGreen Report

Awareness and concern about embodied carbon—the upfront greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with producing building materials and constructing a project—has skyrocketed recently. Building professionals and owners alike want to assess and reduce the embodied carbon footprint of their projects in order to cut their near-term emissions (see... Read more

The modular construction approach—in which a building’s large-scale modularized components are prefabricated in an offsite manufacturing facility for rapid assembly onsite—is garnering an increasing amount of attention in the building industry. This is due in large part to the interrelated issues of the rising costs of traditional construction... Read more

What if you could write a check to magically cancel out your carbon footprint?*

Actually, you can: that’s the whole idea behind carbon offsets, which building owners can purchase in order to negate their greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon offsets can be used to make up for either embodied carbon (the emissions associated with construction... Read more

Agricultural fiber (agfiber) boards made from wheat straw seem like a great idea. They replace wood—a valuable commodity—with a waste product from agricultural production. In the late 1990s, these wheat straw-based panels found a brief market niche for use as a particleboard replacement in cabinetry, but manufacturing challenges, costs, and... Read more

U.S. residents are concerned about the future state of the environment, but they’re not doing much about it. They also don’t see green building as part of the solution.

These were some of the conclusions of a recent study commissioned by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and conducted by ClearPath Strategies. Part of the new “... Read more

The modular construction approach—in which a building’s large-scale modularized components are prefabricated in an offsite manufacturing facility for rapid assembly onsite—is garnering an increasing amount of attention in the building industry. This is due in large part to the interrelated issues of the rising costs of traditional construction... Read more

From Brooklyn to Buenos Aires and from Vancouver to Vermont, architects around the globe have committed to joining an international climate strike on the morning of September 20, 2019.

At the center of the move to #StandWithGreta (16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg) is the organization Architects Advocate, headed by Thomas Jacobs, AIA... Read more

Dear Editor,

I am writing to express some concerns regarding your recent article “The Two Passive Houses: A Comparison.” For disclosure, I am a current member of the Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS) Technical Committee and a PHIUS instructor for onsite QA/QC professionals. Despite being more directly familiar with and professionally... Read more

In a historic move, the United Kingdom in June 2019 passed a legally binding target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. According to research by the UK’s Committee on Climate Change (CCC), the new goal can be reached with a relatively low price tag.

“It is achievable with known technologies, alongside improvements in people’s lives,... Read more

It was a long time coming. After years of turmoil over whether Passive House should be more flexible, in 2011 the international Passive House Institute (PHI) issued a judgment about Passive House Institute U.S. (PHIUS): the American institute could no longer certify Passive House projects to the international standard or administer... Read more

Glass is everywhere in buildings—especially in large commercial buildings. It’s essential for views and daylighting but often a liability when it comes to thermal comfort and energy savings. Here are the metrics you need to know in order to understand their performance.

U-factor (also called U-value) is the rate at... Read more

Thermal bridging, where thermal energy finds pathways from the outdoors through the building envelope, is the Achilles’ heel of rainscreen systems. The reason: exterior cladding has to be mounted to the building, and this typically requires clips or screws that have to pass through the insulation. The clips not only create a thermal bridge to... Read more

The latest iteration of Fitwel, version 2.1, expands the focus of the certification to include new construction projects. Formerly, the standard applied only to existing buildings. Project teams pursuing this new pre-occupancy Design Certification must also follow up with post-occupancy Built Certification.

This change positions Fitwel... Read more

Renewable electricity generation has nearly doubled in the last 10 years. Ninety percent of that increase came from wind and solar generation (source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)). Costs have also declined rapidly. Oftentimes solar and wind generation is the cheapest option for new or replacement generation capacity (source:... Read more

It is hard to turn on the news without seeing warnings about rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere and how time is running out for action. Design teams trying to lower their building materials’ carbon footprint usually look at reducing the amount of known high emitters, such as steel and concrete. But heavy interior products... Read more

C40 Cities, an international network of 94 municipalities committed to realizing the goals of the Paris Agreement, has announced the 15 winners of its Reinventing Cities competition. The competition rewards urban building projects designed to net-zero-carbon standards that also demonstrate resilience, noteworthy architecture, and... Read more

The way we get our electricity is evolving, and buildings need to be ready to respond.

Renewable electricity generation has nearly doubled in the last 10 years. Ninety percent of that increase came from wind and solar generation. This capacity includes wind and solar generation and electric storage assets owned by utilities and those... Read more

Editor’s note: The first national conference on resilience in the built environment takes place November 7 and 8 in Cleveland. Join BuildingGreen, the International Living Future Institute, and the Resilient Design Institute there for Building Resilience 2019. Building Resilience 2019 will focus exclusively on how to create more resilient... Read more

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has adopted the AIA Resolution for Urgent and Sustained Climate Action. The historic resolution passed 4,860 to 312 at the 2019 AIA National Convention in Las Vegas.

“Be it resolved that, commencing in 2019 and continuing until zero-net carbon practice is the accepted standard of its members,... Read more

Switching California homes from natural gas to electricity for space heating, water heating, and clothes drying is a cost-effective way to drastically reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to a new study conducted by Energy and Environmental Economics (E3). Natural gas—accounting for both burning and leakage—is currently responsible... Read more