Following up on one of our conversations on the vision vacuum and sustainability beyond certifications, I would like to help facilitate an offline conversation with anyone working within their firm to use the AIA COTE measures as a guiding framework in their firms/projects. Attached are my slides on my first pass at thinking about this at Page... Read more

Have any of you relied on Green Badger for LEED documentation on projects?

I am familiar with the tool and know Tommy from my time in Atlanta, but have not used it on a construction project.

Have you found value? Thoughts?

Either way, they publish a pretty nifty "LEED v4 Construction Tool Kit" that may be useful for your... Read more

I hope this post finds you all well. Some news to share.  I have recently made a decision to leave Thornton Tomasetti with an eye toward finding another opportunity to use my 30+ years of green building experience, education, and advocacy to have an even larger impact on climate change. I am going to move slowly to ensure my next chapter is the... Read more

All,

Some of my colleagues and I have been working to promote interest in mass timber construction for K-12 builidngs.  As part of that effort we redesigned a large high school using mass timber in lieu steel, and conducted a whole building life cycel assessment to measure the reduction in embodied carbon.  We also conducted a program-... Read more

Hi SDLers: ESG Investing is mushrooming which is a very good thing. AIA National, for example, just switched over to 100% ESG investments. With it, there seems to be a growing number of "ESG-lite" options. I'm wondering if anyone among this informed group has recommendations on how to determine a quality investment approach. I'd appreciate any... Read more

I've been asked to author an article on urban heat mitigation, and I wanted to include a plug for the above pilot credit, which I think is a really powerful new addition to LEED. Beyond introducing the "intent" and "credit requirements", I was also hoping to do (2) things within the article:

1) provide some feedback from those who have... 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

Wall and corner guards increase durability, but these products are typically made of PVC.

BuildingGreen-Approved Guards

BuildingGreen approves products that avoid the use of PVC and are made with recycled content, FSC-certified wood, other biobased materials, or less-problematic plastics. 

Health and Environmental... Read more

Hey Everyone!

My firm in collaboration with our architect partner organize the REBUILD conference in Cincinnati on October 5th, so I wanted to make a post for those interested to sign up.

At the 2022 REBUILD Conference, we want to Be Positive + and bring sustainability leaders together to celebrate advancement, advocate for... Read more

Successfully managing the LEED documentation process requires specific knowledge, tools, and skills that are not covered in the LEED Reference Manual. This CEU course is based on the LEED Project Management course that GreenStep developed and teaches through UC–Berkeley Extension. It is designed for professionals who are somewhat familiar with... Read more

Hi everyone,

I’d like to invite you to join this Friday’s webinar hosted by the Embodied Carbon Network: Using Whole Building LCA to Reduce Embodied Carbon within LEED and Beyond, and to follow up with a tool that I presented at this summer’s Architecture SDL summit, which ZGF has now upgraded and made free to the industry at large.... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Building Electrification: A Vital Solution to Climate Change.

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


1.  Understand the relationship between building electrification and decarbonization to improve the efficiency and sustainability of buildings.

2... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of What Makes the Building Envelope Green? BuildingGreen’s Guide to Thermal & Moisture Protection Products.

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


1. Describe attributes of the greenest building envelope products.
2. Explain how to... Read more

Good morning all,

I'm new to the forum and I am really happy to be here. For the last year or so, I have been working to advance high performance design at Flad, grappling with so many of the issues discussed in this forum. Especially in the context of recent times, it feels really wonderful to join a group of people dedicated to helping... Read more

Hi all! During our Contractor’s Commitment call last week Amanda made a great point about sharing of waste data to gain some realistic, current metrics. Just like I assume many of you, we have both seen a decline in successful diversion these last few years and our companies’ overall percentages have taken a hit. In an effort to gain a full... Read more

It’s Summer Summit season! One of the “good problem to have” challenges we’ve had at recent SDL Summits has been too many great five-minute presentations. It’s hard to find time for them all. This year, since we’ll be online anyway, we can get a jump on that by starting the five-minute presentations early. Plus, we can share them across all the... Read more

Hi all!

I've heard several people talk about developing tools for assessing/codifying a client's values for a project as part of an integrated design process (ie. a set of questions, survey, etc.). Would anyone be willing to share?

(Z, are you listening? I specifically recall you mentioning a tool like this...)

Thanks!... Read more