On Thursday, September 27 at 2PM Eastern Time you can join the first BuildingGreen Communities webinar where we will share key takeaways from the 11th annual Summer Sustainable Design Leaders Summit (@ the Garrison Institute in upstate New York). Our new webinar format using Zoom will allow for interactive questions and comments throughout. If... Read more

Practitioners interested in reducing the embodied carbon of buildings are likely now used to considering the impact of different materials, like mass timber or low-carbon concrete. Low-carbon construction, however, may be less familiar. 

Contractors are just... Read more

Someone made a tombstone to mark Internet Explorer’s end-of-support date

https://www.engadget.com/internet-explorer-tombstone-175433997.html

Hello Green Gurus!

The Climate Smart Wood Working Group would like to give a boost to this Ecotrust initiative to support the market proliferation of mass timber with science that attributes carbon impacts to wood building products. As many of you are aware, a couple years ago, the University of Washington partnered with Ecotrust to... Read more

Hi, all! We've got amazing editorial plans for our December and January coverage, including Brent's rollout of the Top 10 Green Buiding Products for 2024 and a much-needed update to Wood: What's Good? 

Here's the trouble: we have waaaay too many good ideas about what else to cover. And I super suck at mind reading. So Nadav thought maybe... Read more

Has anyone used the new 3M Smog-Eating Granules on a roof before? Malarkey and Soprema are offering this as an option for their roof shingles. Seems like a great technology for urban areas, but I'd be curious to see if anyone here has actually successfully specified and installed it.

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/roofing-granules-us/... Read more

Hi All!

Our company recently rolled out a corporate Green Team of volunteers across the company working to drive sustainability initiatives at their respective office locations. I wanted to reach out and ask who has a Green Team (or similar name) at their company and learn more about how different Green Teams are structured within the... Read more

Want to make sure those in Portland are aware of a couple of LF18 Ramp-Up Events happening on April 10th. 

Introduction to the Living Building Challenge (presented by Kathleen Smith)
https://living-future.org/events/introduction-to-the-living-building-challenge/

Incentivizing Living Buildings in Portland 
https://... Read more

Hello,

As with most people I feel some what helpless about what the next 4 years will bring. Heather Clark, Senior Director for Building Sector Climate Policy at The White House thinks that a big bill will be presented in the new year and one of the small items in there will be the axing of the Inflation Reduction Act. What she made... Read more

Please share your thoughts in preparation for our monthly call this Thursday (call info below). 

Given these items that are changing at AIA, are any of them motivating changes within your firm? If so, how? If not, why?

1. Awards criteria now includes COTE Measures of Design Excellence

2. Code of Ethics now includes rule on... Read more

Has anyone come across any (embodied) carbon emissions calculator for water?  Perhaps per region/state?  

Thanks in advance!

Hi Green Gurus!

I am trying to find a source for this chart/graph illustrating the relative cost of design and construction versus the long term operational and occupant costs. Any thoughts are appreciated.

yours,

jp

Using energy for cooling during peak hours places a large demand on utilities, is expensive, and can be less efficient than off-peak energy production.

BuildingGreen-Approved Thermal Energy Storage

BuildingGreen lists a variety of  thermal energy storage systems.

About

Off-peak cooling, or thermal energy storage (TES... Read more

Hello friends,

We are looking for recommendations for solar photovoltaic consultants to support one of our projects. We have used SEI in the past, but would like to develop a deeper bench and approach it from another angle. We aren’t too concerned about the consultant’s location, but are looking for someone that is on top of the current... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Designing for the Next Century's Weather

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


1. Understand how to adjust building designs to rising temperatures and humidity.
2. Recognize how climate-responsive buildings may not respond as expected in... Read more

Sustainability leadership has requested that you take this quiz to help assess sustainability literacy across the firm. Your own results will be presented to you at the end of the quiz but will not be shared with anyone else. Only aggregated, anonymized results will be available to others.

Please don’t do research to inform your answers... Read more

Pat U. Mellona