Hello Sustainable MEP Leaders!

Here at BuildingGreen we are excited and looking forward to creating a valuable and engaging online summit with you all for 2020!

You can Register Here as well as review important information. The dates to mark on your calendars are June 9 - 11, 2020.

This is a crazy time, full of uncertainty... Read more

Check out this new executive order. It is broad and includes a lot of items, but of interest to this group, there are some things in here that we pointed towards in our letter back from the beginning of the year, including 24/7 carbon-free electrical energy, a net-zero emissions portfolio by 2045 and net zero emissions from procurement... Read more

Fellow Sages,

I was at an interesting lecture last night. Phil Bernstein (formerly of Autodesk, now at Yale) was speaking (in Lawrence, Kansas, at the U of Kansas) about AI and design/AEC ... you may know that he authored the 2022 book, Machine Learning, about AI and the AEC field. 

Phil has a very interesting posture about AI... Read more

Re: 310 CMR 78.00: Ban of Covered Products Containing Certain Flame Retardants. This law took effect as of April 01, 2021, and is enforced by Mass DEP. 

Quick Summary: Law bans 11 types of chemical flame retardants from... Read more

Hello SMEPers,

I’m hoping to crowd source some anecdotes for a guest lecture I’ll be giving at Yale’s architecture school. The topic is integrated design (especially between architects and engineers) and how it enables better sustainability outcomes.

John Boecker has this great story about how choosing a paint color with higher... Read more

Medium-density fiberboard (MDF), particleboard, and interior-grade plywood can emit formaldehyde, a known human carcinogen. Some materials  come from non-sustainable sources.

BuildingGreen-Approved Panels

Products meet California Air Resources Board (CARB) ultra-low emitting formaldehyde (ULEF) or no-added-... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Building Re-Entry with Arc

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


1.  Explain the similarities and differences between LEED v4.1 O+M performance metrics and the Arc Re-Entry program.

2.  Understand how Arc Re-Entry contributes to an iterative re-... Read more

The 2018 ENR Green Building Survey is due March 16th.  I'm sure you all know the metric they use to evaluate your ranking is solely the revenue from projects pursuing a green building certification in the previous calendar year.  Personally, I think this totally bogus.  How "green" a contractor is may correlate with how much revenue they have... Read more

Greetings SDLs - I am looking for recommendations for VLT meters that folks have had sucess with (reliability, accuracy, etc.). Are there any that art partiularly useful when in the field for existing buildings? 

Many thanks,

JD

I am still basking in the afterglow of this week's summit, and getting ready to share nuggets of wisdom with my colleagues at our all-staff next week. I was so immersed in the moment that documenting the outlines and choices presented for breakouts slipped my mind. Is there somewhere to access these slides to refresh my memory?

Thanks... Read more

All, today is the day I had committed to sending out the DRAFT request to equipment manufacturers of what is needed for full electrification.  I apologize that I didn't have time or focus to get my thoughts together till now (I had intended to share this with Chris and others prior to sending to the full group, but just didn't get my thoughts... Read more

Dear All,

I'm happy to announce the Call for Speakers for our next Gulf Coast Green conference, which will take place June 1, 2018 at Rice University in Houston.  The theme is Resilience: Beyond Recovery.  (Harvey, you know).  We absolutely love to have SDL members at Gulf Coast Green, and I know there are several of you who specialize... Read more

The sheer number of building product certifications and labels is overwhelming, and even those experienced with green labels can get exhausted trying to figure out which are relevant and which aren’t.

The confusion in the market over green labels can complicate efforts of both manufacturers and design professionals... Read more

Hello Green Gurus,

Here is an exciting event we're planning for the end of the month!

Innovative Projects Showcase - “The Power of Collaboration”

A selection of your fellow sustainability leaders will showcase a few recent projects that exemplify integrative process and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Each presentation... Read more

Hi folks,

We're currently scoping out a BuildingGreen report on how the global market for recycled/recyclable materials has changed over the years, and what that means for waste management practices in construction, and for the availability of recycled content materials. 

This ties into the goal from the SCL Summit about LEED... Read more