Hi folks,

I'm looking into lower-carbon pipe options for HVAC and plumbing. The MEP 2040 has slides from a Buro Happold study in 2020 showing PEX to be much lower in embodied carbon than copper, which is unsurprising. CPVC is also a lower-carbon option.

But PVC has its issues and neither PVC nor PEX are recyclable (especially if... Read more

Split systems are multi-component units that use an outdoor condenser along with separate indoor fan coils to move refrigerant—and provide heating and cooling—in buildings without the need for ducts.

BuildingGreen-Approved Systems

BuildingGreen approves mini-splits that are tested to AHRI standards and have minimum SEER and an... Read more

Sustainability leadership has requested that you take this quiz to help assess sustainability literacy across the firm. Your own results will be presented to you at the end of the quiz but will not be shared with anyone else. Only aggregated, anonymized results will be available to others.

Please don’t do research to inform your answers... Read more

Dear Green Gurus: I'm so sorry to have missed seeing many of you at AIA last week. I heard the BG and COTE events were the highlights of the week! Congrats.

I'm sure by now you've heard of the dreadful Supreme Court decision about the EPA. I thought I'd share a helpful, if not sobering, perspective in an Op-Ed today in the Washington... Read more

Friends of EPIC –

Hey, everyone. As some of you might have heard, we’ve been working for a while with Autodesk to get c.scale (the data model behind EPIC) built into Forma – Autodesk’s AI-powered planning tool. Forma is packaged within Autodesk’s AEC collection and most firms using Revit should already have access. This integration is... Read more

Hi Everyone.  Hope you and your families are all healthy and safe.

We are starting to figure out how we are going to implement the Contractors Commitment at my company, and we're using the opportunity to simultaneously set corporate wide and jobsite metrics and goals for sustainability tracking.

Each year we issue a sustainability... 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

Hi all,

We have a newly constructed, core/shell project having some hot water issues in the core restrooms.

There is a 0.35 Toto lav installed throughout. The hot water heaters are adjacent on each floor, located in the janitor closets. We did the math, and there could be a gallon of water standing and cooling in the pipe between... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Community-Scale Sustainability: Accelerating Change for People and Planet

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


Explain how combining stakeholder efforts and resources can achieve greater resilience and sustainability for communities.

Discuss... Read more

Hi All,

Jacob Knowles from BR+A reached out with a request and I’m passing it on to you all.  Jacob’s contact info is at the bottom of this so you can respond to him directly or respond here and I’ll forward it on:

We are working on assembling examples of large wet lab buildings that employ strategies to greatly reduce fossil... Read more

Hello Green Gurus,

Here is the information for your October Peer Networks Webinar, Advocating for Electrification. We hope you will join us!

Register HERE.

Advocating for Electrification
October 26th, 2020
1pm - 2pm ET (10am - 11am PT)

Description
Hear from leaders in the AEC and policy community on... Read more

All,

For those who tuned into the Green Gurus presentation earlier this week, there was a question that came up during my presentation on NZE/NZC programs regarding whether ILFI allows the offsite renewable energy exception for LBC and Energy Petal projects (as opposed to NZE or NZC). I just double checked with them and it turns out they... Read more

We just had a planning call for the tour, and I’m more convinced than before that: a) we picked a great location for this year’s Winter Summit and b) you won’t want to miss this tour!

Alabama’s Gulf State Park got a big infusion of funds from the BP Oil Spill (that’s an interesting story in itself), and now has some amazing new... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of The Building Envelope: Primers from Environmental Building News.

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


1. Explain how thermal mass helps maintain indoor thermal comfort in buildings.
2. Describe the differences between closed-cell and... Read more

Hello friends,

Recently, as part of the AIA 2030 working group discussion – a topic came to light that was a conversation among (I believe) the SDL subset of our community, on a topic that is my personal obsession and daily focus – so I wanted to pipe up and share thoughts. BUT I want to respect the safe space, so if those of you in SDL... Read more

Hi gurus,

Do any of you have preferred portable devices for indoor air quality monitoring? I know it's hard to find apples to apples, but ideally temperature, CO2, VOC, PM2.5, PM5 would be on the list. Mid-level accuracy - better than consumer, not as $ as IAQ professional level. Thanks!

Hey, everyone! Reaching out to share about the currently-under-development IEA Annex 89: Ways to Implement Net-zero Whole Life Carbon Buildings. The current committee is really the who's who of building LCA in Europe, but it does seem like it suffers from a lack of North American representation. The one North American on the committee, in fact... Read more