Hi all, 

You all know how much the Living Building Challenge and other ILFI programs have transformed the aspirations of our industry, right? This year ILFI has the privilege of being included in Washington's GiveBig campaign! For the next two days, you can help bring attention to the site, raise support and draw people to the page where... Read more

Hello Sustainable Design Leaders,

I am thrilled to be joining such an esteemed collective of driven thinkers and doers. I look forward to meeting some new faces and reconnecting with some familiar ones in an effort to advance sustainable design in the built environment.

Thanks,

Jonce

Biophilic design features are not just aesthetically pleasing; researchers have found that patients heal faster, workers are more productive, and children learn better when more elements of nature are present.

And yet there are still very few projects developed today that inspire a connection to life and the natural world. Some people... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Take Control of Your Materials: Four Empowering Lessons from Teams That Beat the Red List.

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


1. Customize a framework to prioritize goals and simplify complex material decisions.
2. Use a red-list... Read more

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

They say that Louisianans are often late to the party but enjoy catching up.  The state, which had been stuck on ASHRAE 90.1-2007 (commercial) and IECC 2009 (residential) and has just adopted legislation jumping to IECC 2021 / IRC 2021, and commits to automatic upgrades with each 3-year code cycle.  This means we join CA, OR, WA, MA, and VT--... Read more

The High Performance Buildings Database (HPB) provides case studies of projects ranging from homes and commercial interiors to large buildings and even whole campuses and neighborhoods. These may be certified green projects, or simply projects that have one or more notable environmental features. We review each published case study to focus on... Read more

Hi Everyone!

I'm Emily, GCI General Contractor's Sustainability Manager in San Francisco. Nice to meet you all.

I started with the company in 2013 and since then we've doubled in employees. I have been handling sustainability solo, until about 8 months ago, when we hired Alejandra Arce Gomez full-time to help manage the... Read more

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

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

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

Hi folks,

No details have been sorted out yet, but I wanted everyone to have a heads-up that the SCL Steering Group is proposing that we graduate to a full, stand-alone SCL Summit in 2020. (Until now we’ve been squeezing our Summit into the day before Greenbuild, which is good in some ways, but problematic in others—and limits our time... Read more

Dear SLD-ers,

We have a project team considering the use of copper cladding for a high profile project in Vancouver. The preference is to use pure copper that is pre-patinated and does not have additional coatings.

We are attending a CEU from the Copper Development Association to understand options and environmental impact, but we... Read more

Hi Small Firm Sustainable Design Leaders!

Our call today at 1pm Eastern will focus on the ways in which your firm is impacted differently than larger firms on the variety of topics and issues that are reflected in the 2020 SD Leaders Winter Summit REPORT. Take a look at this report and especially at slides 14-33. Bring your observations... Read more

Andrea first became familiar with BuildingGreen in 2010 when she and her husband moved to Vermont and built their own passive house from the ground up. BuildingGreen’s president Nadav Malin heard about the project and asked if the staff could take a tour, and the rest is history. She joined the BuildingGreen team part-time in 2011 to work on... Read more