D.J. Greenspecher

Engineered wood efficiently utilizes fast-growing, small-diameter trees.

When sourced from responsibly managed forests, engineered wood can store carbon that would otherwise enter the atmosphere, and can replace high-embodied-carbon concrete and steel in some structural applications.

Engineered wood products can also provide a... Read more

I'm looking for successful examples of net-zero, Living Building, or similar office buildings that are NOT owned by highly-motivated organizations like RMI or the Bullitt Foundation (or one of your firms).

We are looking to team with a developer on a small-mid-size office building that will house our new office with us as a tenant (no... Read more

Hi SD Leaders: I'm writing to get your help identifying any experts or projects where all-electric HVAC solutions are being implemented in a large new build healthcare/patient care setting. The client has raised concerns about the reliability of an electric re-heat system and its ability to promptly respond to temperature controls. They also... Read more

Blast from the past when 179D first hit the scenes.

Are any of you still using this and if so, has it been easy, successful, worthwhile etc

and Happy New Year !

All,

I think there may be more than a few people interested in an article I co-authored titled Comparative whole building life cycle assessment of renovation and new construction. It is now available in the journal Building and Environment. Fortunately we have a link that gets you past the paywall that is good for 50 days. If you have... Read more

I'm just wondering if anyone is using GBCI's Better Materials site as their go-to source for transparency and healthy materials.  Having all the search engines on one platform is great in theory, and I keep hoping that it will be the one-stop site/resource that I can get all our designers to use.  Unless I'm missing something though, it still... Read more

For those who are visiting Chicago, Kira Gould has asked me to spread the word about a casual AIA COTE meet-up. Stop by, meet friends and have a beer.

If you will be in Chicago on November 15, please consider joining a casual meet-up of COTE leaders/members/friends (no fee to join; it's pay-your-own-way at the pub):  

AIA COTE... Read more

Hello SCL, I was asked by a friend at ILFI to share this invite specifically to the SCL group to join their Living Future 20 conference which is in a couple weeks and will be all online.  There is also an invite for a construction-only focused ILFI discussion May 14th in the message as well.  Hope everyone is doing alright out there.  Talk soon... Read more

For those who haven't heard yet, we've reached a critical milestone with the Contractor Commitment. 51% of the SCL network voted to approve the language of the current draft. That's the mark we needed to hit, so we can move forward with planning the launch! Thank you to all those who have worked tirelessly over the last two years developing... Read more

We apologize, but the heating fuel cost calculator is no longer on the BuildingGreen website.

Take a look at Efficiency Maine's heating fuel cost calculator instead.

Hello,

This is not my area of expertise but our contactor has suggested central heat pump hot water (CHPHW) is $1m more expensive than gas fired domestic hot water for a 150 unit multi-family residential building in Massachusetts. The Building Decarbonization Practice Guide is extremely helpful but, from their comments, it is all coming... Read more

THIS WEBINAR PURCHASE AND REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.

Why high-performance assemblies? And why now? Today we demand better thermal performance from our building assemblies than ever. But higher performance... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Occupant Engagement: Where Design Meets Performance.

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


1. Restate at least five methods being used to provide feedback to occupants so that they better understand how to interpret, and respond to, their... Read more

Hi Gurus!

This query just came from GSA via the Large Firm Roundtable. It seems that one way we can help is simply to route this to the best concrete and asphalt suppliers we know of, so they can respond.  

Can you pass on some information to the large firms sustainability roundtable? GSA, and the White House, just announced new... Read more

Everyone agreed during last Friday's meeting that we want to call the site BITuser. The question, however, is what domain name should be used.

Whatever domain name is chosen, it will redirect to the actual site URL -- https://bituser.buildinggreen.com (similar to how LEEDuser.com redirects to https://leeduser.buildinggreen.com).

... Read more

Green Gurus –

Clark Brockman brought to our attention an important and impactful opportunity to advance building decarbonization through the US Department of Energy’s proposed rulemaking around water heater efficiency, advancing adoption of heat pumps, while still providing exceptions (and efficiency targets) for electric or natural gas... Read more