Author
For more than 30 years, Alex Wilson has been the most trusted voice on energy efficiency and environmentally responsible design and construction. Since launching Environmental Building News (EBN) in 1992, he’s built a reputation, resources, and staff to provide the foundation for BuildingGreen, a consulting and information company... Read more
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Hi SD Leaders: I'm hoping that you guys can be a great resource for a family member who teaches at Carnegie Mellon University, Professor Marvin Sirbu. Marvin teaches and does research in the Energy and Public Policy department and each year leads a class that takes on a challenging real-world problem to arrive at innovative solutions. This time... Read more
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Hello,
This is not my area of expertise but our contactor has suggested central heat pump hot water (CHPHW) is $1m more expensive than gas fired domestic hot water for a 150 unit multi-family residential building in Massachusetts. The Building Decarbonization Practice Guide is extremely helpful but, from their comments, it is all coming... Read more
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Michael led Opsis through several workshops as we began our journey to create a more equitable and socially just workplace. Michael had a great sense of humor and a really kind manner. I feel deep gratitude for having known him and for the lasting impact he has had on our lives. I know others in this group also worked with Michael and would... Read more
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Hello SCL,
We are getting back to our usual schedule of a pre-Greenbuild SCL Summit. We will be opening registration and announcing topics shortly. In the meantime, please pencil us into your calendar.
Date: September 25, 2023
Location: ZGF Architecture 600 14th St NW #800, Washington, DC 20005
Time: Soft start at... Read more
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We broke up into 5 discussion groups by market sector:
Commercial office Education Healthcare & Labs Multifamily Civic/institutional/sportsHere are the proposed "guiding questions":
How do other firms define 'design thinking'? Do they have a standard process used across projects and, if so, how they have made that take hold... Read moreForum topic
Hi folks,
We've arranged a room where we can gather for an hour and check in during the Thursday afternoon reception time at Living Future. If you'll be there, come join us!
Thursday, May 2 at 5:30, Skykomish Room (#604, 6th floor)
The group will be mostly Sustainable Design Leaders, as that's by far our largest group, but... Read more
Reports, Courses, Study Guides, Live Webinars
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting is an increasingly common expectation throughout financial sectors, and the real estate industry is no exception.
This live webinar with our friend Chris Pyke, Ph.D., a senior vice president... Read more
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Dear SD Leaders: I'm writing to make sure that you've seen a letter that has been circulating protesting the ‘pro-asbestos’ rule change the EPA is considering. The letter is soliciting firm signatures/owners (as opposed to individuals). I encourage you to sign and/or get your firm to sign ASAP.
Please forward as well to any firm from... Read more
Quiz
Welcome to the quiz portion of Dream Materials: What Do You Really Want to Build With?
Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, participants will be able to:
1. Differentiate the tools that encourage accountable design.
2. Identify materials that are hazardous and list certifications that optimize for... Read more
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Hi MEP Leaders,
We had a great conversation in our last monthly call about the function and purpose of this group, and what we can best do together. You can see detailed notes from that call here. And we'll soon be sending out a reminder about the October call (Tuesday, Oct 8, 2pm eastern).
One of the ideas from that conversation... Read more
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They do, seriously. They are fine people with tons of information, and without them, all of us Architects would be, well, out of luck.
So, we first want to say THANK YOU to all of our contractor friends who took part in our Contractor Coffee Talk on Tuesday. THAT WAS AWESOME!
We learned things like:
It is easier to divert... Read moreForum topic
Hi everyone,
It was so wonderful to meet some of you last month and experience the whirlwind of a summit! I hope you've enjoyed looking over the Summit Report and the flip chart notes, and they've helped bring some order to the vast amount of material we covered. Here's one more piece for you - slides from the 5-minute presentations.... Read more
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Hi everyone,
Thanks so much to those of you who presented at this years AIA Show & Tell, and thanks again to ZGF for hosting! Here are the slides for some of the presentations. Please do not share the slides outside of the networks unless they are marked "PUBLIC." Hope you enjoy!
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I am excited to announce that BuildingTransparency.org just launched downloadable specs and associated guidance that a couple of us have been working on for a few months. Here is the EC3 announement:
Today we are happy to announce that downloadable project specification language has been added to the plan and to the "Resources/Documents"... Read more