The ReUse Map created through the Material Flows Working Group is live and got some great traction at Greenbuild (Thank you Nadav and Barbara!).

To keep the map relevant and updated, we'll be looking at how to fund the maintenance of the map, the best ways to get the word out and looking at writing a white paper. If you want to be part... Read more

Hey SDL,

I'm curious if anybody out there has developed specification language requiring a certain level of airtightness (as assessed via one or a series of blower door tests) for a commercial project when it is not going for a Passive House certification and a blower door test is not required by code--basically, something in the... Read more

The live webinar occurred on April 12, 2023.

Live webinar attendance confirmation closed on May 5, 2023.

Questions or comments about your purchase? Please let us know via our company contact form.

Will any SDL folks be at AASHE in Pittsburgh next week? Would love to grab a coffee and catch up. 

Hi all - I’m wondering if any of you have heard of or use the National Green Building Standard, which appears to be primarily for residential and mixed use: https://www.homeinnovation.com/green.

The NGBS Green certification program is based on the ICC-700 National Green Building Standard and supposedly is the program of choice for many... Read more

Hi there colleagues!

Out of curiosity, do you plan on attending Greenbuild in person in San Diego in September? My staff asked me if we were going and my answer is partially contingent on the extent to which attending would mean getting to see some of our favorite people (read: all of you). Looking forward to taking the temperature of... Read more

Dear SD Leaders: The comment period closes January 31st on  NCA Volume II Climate Change Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States.

It's important to have the design communities perspective on these critical issues. I hope you can take a look and submit your comments before the deadline.

Details here: https://www.... Read more

Friends of EPIC –

Hey, everyone. As some of you might have heard, we’ve been working for a while with Autodesk to get c.scale (the data model behind EPIC) built into Forma – Autodesk’s AI-powered planning tool. Forma is packaged within Autodesk’s AEC collection and most firms using Revit should already have access. This integration is... Read more

We had these conversations grouped by size of firm. 

Guiding Questions:

Knowledge Management By Firm Size

How to give people the info they need, when they need it?

Is the COTE Top Ten a good framework?

This seems extremely daunting in a large firm. How do we manage content that is produced and shared... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Better Steel, Lower Impacts!

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


Understand the process of how steel is made.

Recount how the U.S. steel industry has been improving its environmental footprint, while improving product performance.

... Read more

I was wondering if any of you have experience with integrated PVs and/or solar glass. If so, can you could recommend manufactures for each? We are working on a multistory freestanding building in an urban site for a mid-Atlantic city. Because our site and roof area are limited we are looking to maximized the areas where we can generate power.... Read more

I'm sure if I hop in the way back machine I could look in the forums and find old threads on LEED GA and LEED AP study resources, but I also know that material comes in and out of date. Has anyone found a good, current solution for firmwide LEED study materials?

We used to have some GBES resources, but those are intended to be person-... Read more

For questions and/or to be added to the Summer Summit waiting list, please email Jerelyn Wilson directly.

2019 Summer SDL Summit
Islandwood, Bainbridge Island, WA
July 31st- August 2nd, 2019

If anyone else has gotten confused going between parts-per-million and percentages (parts per hundred!) for material reporting here's a little infographic that might help. Feel free to use or improve! 

Hello all!

I'm new to the group, and so excited to be here. Two part question here (as we think about processes and new year goals).

I am at a smallish firm (20 people) in Boston helping to reform our processes to enable even those that are not steeped in sustainability at a daily level to be comfortable looking for opporutunities... Read more

Hi there SD Leaders,

We're running an LCA on one of our projects that's about to start construction that has had serious embodied carbon goals and I got a result that really surprised me. I haven't been able to find any obvious/glaring issues with the work, but these results are strange enough that I'm not feeling confident. I'm hoping... Read more