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Susan Maxman is the first AIA president to make sustainable design a priority.
Q.Where would you say architects as a group stand on environmental issues?
A.Architects tend to be reactive rather than proactive. It is important that we take the lead on these environmental issues. The architecture schools in particular tend to be conservative. They just aren’t... Read more
News Brief
The American Institute of Architects convention in Boston this past June was the setting for a changing of the guard in the American architectural establishment. The Institute’s first woman president took the reins, the Committee on the Environment became its largest and fastest growing committee, and the first installments of the Environmental... Read more
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Carefully stake the building site and driveway, remove trees that are within the excavation area or too close, then erect a fence to keep heavy equipment off fragile soils and away from nearby trees.
Protecting trees and the local ecosystem when building on previously unbuilt land is a vitally important—yet often overlooked—part of environmentally responsible construction. Healthy trees and shrubs can reduce a home’s environmental impact and directly benefit homeowners in a number of ways:
•Enhancing comfort by shielding the house... Read more
Forum topic
Hi! Quinn Evans is looking for a great candidate for a new position that focuses on design performance analysis. We're looking for someone with 5+ years experience in the AE industry and knowledge of performance tools and software that inform design decisions related to energy, carbon, and daylight. The position can be based in any of our... Read more
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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
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Hello Sustainable Design Leaders,
Mark your calendars for an exciting webinar next Wednesday, May 27th, at 2:30pm ET and REGISTER HERE!
Missing the Forest: How forest practices impact the carbon embodied in mass timber projects is a follow-up to last month’s conversation on embodied carbon and mass timber. The presenters will be... Read more
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Hi All,
Sasaki is hiring a Director of Sustainability and Resiliency. See attached. Please forward along to folks who might be interested.
-Meredith
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Hi Gurus,
LMN is embarking on a 17-part series to explore a more comprehensive carbon metric via summaries of various topics with lots of link. This dovetails with many other efforts in the industry and will reference all the best stuff that we are aware of...such as MEP 2040, SE 2050, CLF stuff, Epic tool, CARE tool, Arch 2030... Read more
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Hi SCL,
I realize that there are already a couple of threads on this topic, but I didn't see anything from the past year. We have been trying (unsuccessfully) to work with large rental companies to request jobsite trailers that are at a minimum energy efficient, and ideally solar/battery ready and/or built to passive house or similar... Read more
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Hi folks,
I wanted to let people know about this webinar--I've heard it's good. If you do catch it please let us know what you think. Jason has offered to do a private version for our Peer Networks as well--I'd love to know how interested people would be in that opportunity.
November 14, 2019 from noon to 1 PM Pacific Time
... Read more
Reports, Courses, Study Guides, Live Webinars
THIS WEBINAR PURCHASE AND REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.
The live webinar occurred on Tuesday, June 20th 2:00pm Eastern (11am Pacific)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... Read more
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Hi all -
I have heard a good deal about SBTI in the last while and am wondering about this group’s firms’ engagement with them. We reported one year through CDP, and it was not very useful. It focused entirely on Scope 1 and 2 emissions, which are over 1000x times less than our semi-controllable Scope 3 (buildings’ embodied carbon and... Read more
Author
Ben Hewitt works behind the scenes to build and maintain BuildingGreen.com and LEEDuser. He brings with him over two decades of experience in his field. As an efficient problem-solver, his goal is to make the websites more user-friendly for his coworkers and designers and project teams using BuildingGreen’s resources.
Ben has proficiency... Read more
Basic page
Quiz
Welcome to the quiz portion of Can We Replace Foam Insulation?
Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course, participants will be able to:
1. List four ways in which foam is environmentally problematic and provide four examples of foam replacements.
2. Discuss the industry's relationship with foam... Read more
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I'm looking for products that have cradle to cradle documentation, as well as EPD's & HPD's and are red list free. What are your go to websites when you're researching products?
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We are excited to open registration for the Sustainable Construction Leaders Summit 2019! This year’s Summit will take place Tuesday, Nov. 19 in Atlanta in conjunction with Greenbuild. The Summit agenda will be shaped by the steering committee and collective feedback from the group. The day will culminate in a networking event with members of... Read more
