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

Hello Everyone,

We wanted to share the highlights and take-aways from the large firm Sustainable Design Leaders (SDL) 2020 Winter Summit at The Lodge at Gulf State Park, AL. Additionally, this was the first year we had a pre-summit workshop for the winter summit. Our amazing workshop facilitator, Julie Huffaker from Deeper Funner Change... Read more

Hi folks,

Has your firm:

- hired a consultant to conduct firmwide bias training?

- revamped its hiring process using an antiracist lens?

- developed coaching circles / reading groups around racism/anti-racism? 

- instituted new support structures for staff development around inclusivity?

- some other... Read more

Hi. Happy Monday! Will BG create the BIT-user intro video found on the landing page? Do we partner on it, or should Southface plan to provide it? Thanks.

Hi Sages,

As you may have seen in my message, the Peer Networks Member List is not very helpful to us (yet), because a person can only show up in one network. Many of us are also in SDL or other networks; there are many more of us than show up when you filter that list for "Sages."

Until we can get that fixed, we'll share the... Read more

Curious on stories when IAQ testing for LEED or WELL didn't come back with "all clear, everything's good" results we all hope for. 

I have a project right now where we are tracking down suspicious sources and look forward to telling the full story when it's done being written. 

Thought maybe this would be a good safe space to talk... Read more

I am getting started on a research project to evaluate the feasibility, costs, and benefits of using phase change material (PCM) to passively regulate temperature in Minnesota buildings. If anyone has experience designing with PCM, installing PCM, or occupying buildings with PCM, can you share any lessons learned that would be relevant as... Read more

Hi All,

I'm working on a LEED for Schools project under 2009, and received some amorphous comments back about our Mold Prevention Plan. We used the LEEDuser template as a guide, while also referencing the EPA document the credit is based around, but the reviewers feel we haven't provided proper metrics. The EPA plan is something like... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of How to Make Integrated Project Delivery Work for Your Project.

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


1. State three problems that Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) promises to solve.
2. Dispel four misconceptions about IPD that have... Read more

SCL group,

I have aquaintances at a new startup called Dumptd that is launching a platform to make it easier to order waste solutions online while providing tracking and reporting options. They are looking for beta test projects. If you are interested, contact Clayton (below).

Thanks,

Scott

Dumptd is an early stage... Read more

EDITED LINK

Hello, below is a link to our newly uploaded research report, Embodied Carbon in Commercial Furniture. This new research report introduces a case study and some new baselines for measuring the carbon footprint of commercial furniture, to add to a growing body of work on this topic among our peers:
Embodied Carbon in... Read more

Hi gang,

Following up on the recent Air Quality Design Jam at the summit, I’d like to round up the folks interested in supporting an Air Quality Working Group.

Didn’t attend the summit? No worries – everyone is welcome! We had a good group the other week and several of us want to continue the conversation.

The design jam... Read more

I'm looking to draft some one-page briefs for my consulting engineers to outline what we would like to see in their specs regarding certain materials and systems. For example, letting the plumbing and civil engineers know that we prefer to eliminate PVC pipe and want them to specify alternatives like Polypropylene, cast iron, ABS, etc. The idea... Read more

This might be going down a rabbit hole, but in moving to California this year I noticed that "zero net energy" (ZNE) is the standard term, whereas "net zero energy" (NZE) was more common back east. The DOE's 2015 definition (below) uses "zero energy building" (ZEB), which to me implies a building uses no energy at all.

Regional... Read more

For those of you working in jurisdictions with both prescriptive and performance-based commercial energy code pathways, roughly what percentage of your projects are using the performance pathway? How do your project teams decide which pathway to follow?

In Minnesota we are seeing very few projects pursuing the performance pathway,... Read more

Curious if folks know of any resources on hempcrete, specific to durability.  We have a one-story carbon-neutral operational energy project where the design team and client have bought into the aesthetics and carbon-sequestering potential of hempcrete, and amazingly it is looking to be no more expensive than a more typical concrete wall... Read more