Dear Colleagues,

The EPA has released a very impressive proposal for ENERGY STAR specs for residential water heaters that will strongly encourage electrification and decarbonization of these appliances. 

ENERGY STAR is a voluntary program for high performance appliances and this is a huge opportunity to begin the decarb transition... Read more

Auto-quiz used for CEUs for attendees of the 2023 SCL Wintger Summit.

Hi SDL: today is the last day to cast your vote in the voting for Greenbuild by 5PM ET.  

please vote for the terrific program put together on PV23 "The Tools You Need to Design for Climate Emergency Action" with me, Betsy and Beth Heider that will bring together a collection of tools, including brand new ones from Saskia, using the Top... Read more

Following up on the Decarbonizing Existing Building: Envelope + MEP Solutions Integrative Design Jam, a cohort of us determined a "Decision Making Tree Toolkit" that begins to classify decisions into and "if/then" framework using region, market, climate, scale of intervention, and other factors would be useful in helping us collectively move... Read more

If you work on projects in Massachusetts, you are probably working under the updated MA Stretch Energy Code. While this code is doing great things pushing for electrification and very efficient buildings, it can still be tricky to implement or adjust your processes to the calculations even for seasoned pros. AIA MA in conjunction with BE+ has... Read more

I am the Moderator of the 2023 Strategic Council and the call for nominations for the 2024-2026 Strategic Council at-large representatives has just been released.  I would encourage any interested parties to apply for this position.

The Strategic Council’s purpose is to develop ideas to inform future needs and opportunities for the... Read more

Hi folks,

Any of you who have completed WBLCA for projects - we are working on a new initiative with the City of Cambridge (building on our prior work NZ Climate Action Plan) but this time focused exclusively on embodied carbon.

We have not yet begun the work - but they have an opportunity to make a move on this on Tuesday and... Read more

Hi: Please check out the fantastic editorial from Ned Cramer at Architect on "The Future of Architecture Education is the Future of Civilization". The deadline to comment on the latest draft of the NAAB accreditation criteria is November 22 and, as in the past draft, it falls far short of prioritizing climate action and sustainability. VERY... Read more

Hi SD Leaders,

As you may be aware, this past April a group of manufacturers calling themselves the Living Product 50 responded to the letters that many of us sent about five years ago advocating for transparency in their product ingredients.  A copy of that letter can be reviewed about midway through the page at this link:  https://... Read more

Recycled plastic paneling is an appropriate use for some of the various post-consumer plastic materials entering the waste stream—in particular, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) from milk and detergent bottles.

BuildingGreen-Approved Panels

BuildingGreen approves plastic paneling products with high recycled content—in some cases... Read more

Hey All,

I just received this from AIA MA. How fantastic would it to have a bunch of Green Gurus on the ICC Development Team! Is anyone on here already on it?

From AIA MA:
The International Code Council (ICC) is now accepting applications to serve on the Code Development Committees to develop the 2024 editions of the... Read more

Who all is implement 360-degree reviews as part of their employee review process?  Lake|Flato is thinking of implementing this and would like to talk to a few other firms who have experience they would be willing to share.  Please contact me if you'd be up for a short email discussion or phone call to discuss.  hholdridge@lakeflato.com

... Read more

Jenny/Dan:

What types of content do anticipate having in the Documentation Toolkit tab? Here's an example of what we have on LEEDuser:

https://leeduser.buildinggreen.com/credit/EBOM-2009/SSc5#tab-docs (login required)

The layout is a little complicated on LEEDuser, since we had to work with a lot of legacy content, but... Read more

We are growing our Design Performance Group at NBBJ! We're looking for two special people right now: a senior sustainable material consultant and a senior energy analyst. Help us design the next generation of healthy, low impact buildings - this is a chance to impact across the scale of our global company and build a better future! Know anyone... Read more