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

As promised at the SDL Summer Summet: Hennepin County Energy & Environment's new Project Manager’s Guide to Material Reuse in Commercial Buildings, with specification language, guidance for procurement, and case studies of successful reuse projects around the country. This resource is meant to help owners, architects, and contractors... Read more

Hey All,

Those of us in the electrification working group have been talking about the impending release of this new NREL tool, which provides hourly (TOU) GHG emissions forecasts for grid regions around the country. This will be a useful tool in evaluating the impacts of HVAC electrifcation, EV integration, load shifting, storage, etc. I... 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

As if you weren't worrying enough already, here's a little something that I ran across through monitoring activity on the American Society of Healthcare Engineers discussion boards:  https://www.id-hub.com/2018/10/17/hospital-plumbing-reservoir-resistance-interview-amy-mathers/, "Hospital Plumbing as a Reservoir for Resistance".  This is both a... Read more

Hi, folks! 

I was recently asked if BuildingGreen could connect prospective speakers to an event organizer in Chicago. Beyond the leaders in the BuildingGreen networks relayed, I wanted to share that the exercise led me to the Women and Climate speaker database: https://www.womenandclimate.co/speaker-database 

When filtering by... Read more

Caseworks can be made from unsustainable wood and other materials, and with adhesives and finishes that offgas formaldehyde and other hazardous compounds.

BuildingGreen-Approved Casework

Approved caseworks are:

Welcome to the quiz portion of Improving Resilience!

IMPORTANT: This quiz covers five related articles within this topic. 

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


This article just came up in my news feed. I thought you’d all like to read it. I will point out that C&D-specific MRFs have told me that they are really good at single-stream C & D waste, as long as the drywall is pulled out.  Any drywall in a single-stream C & D dumpster ends up in the landfill. Drywall just breaks apart and gets... 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

Does anyone have language from an RFP that had specific performance criteria included that they could share? Such as a specific EUI target, detailed language about net zero, passive house, etc.

Does anyone know of studies that measure for any correlation between the prevalence of collaborative people in leadership positions with financial (or other) success for firms/organizations?

There have been well-publicized studies on how companies with women in leadership positions, and companies with more diversity, do better. (... Read more

High-performance buildings integrate site-responsive orientation, climate-responsive form, hefty R-values, efficient mechanical systems, healthy... Read more

Hello,

We’re looking for Design Energy Code Equivalents for Chinese commercial energy codes. Do any of you have  any good sources? I’ve only found data comparing ASHRAE 90.1 2013 to the Chinese Code at that time. We understand the Chinese code require a 65-75% energy savings over the baseline but don’t have good information for defining... Read more

I know that there is a risk of starting a whole flurry of congrats through the forum, but this is a biggie, and deserves some recognition:

Congratulations Andrea and Melanie!! Huzzah!!

And a reminder--If you want to reach out to them privately, rather than through the forum, with your message, you can see anyone's email address by... Read more

Hi folks,

On today's call James Peterson will be introducing a conversation about how COVID might have changed our ways of working.

If there's time afterwards, we can take a look at this draft article from the USGBC research team. They're interested in our input on how we might want to analyze the info on electrification rates in... Read more