https://www.architects.org/awards/sustainable-design-0

All,

My BSA Co-chair, Steven Burke, and I want to make you all aware of the BSA Sustainable Design Awards coming up soon. Please see the above link for qualifications and registration information. This is an award which is attempting to work towards the same stringency, rigor... Read more

Hi All!

One of our project teams is looking for some references for solar panel installation around Silver Spring, MD / DC area. Does anyone have recommendations or references for commercial installers of solar panel systems? Feel free to email me directly!

Thanks, 

Yarden

Hi Everyone!

Does anyone have a good resource for whole-building embodied carbon benchmarks broken down by building use and building category (structure, foundation, envelope, interior)?

I know of CLF’s 2017 Benchmark Study (great resource!) and the One-Click LCA study on European Buildings but are there any others?  I know many... Read more

Hello everyone,

Over the past couple of years the Climate Smart Wood Group has met monthly to discuss all things related to the use of timber in building design and construction.  From forestry practices, to supply chain and sourcing information, to design experiences and examples, the group has operated as an open forum for advancing... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of The Chemicals on Our Carpets and Textiles.

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


1. Understand when and where certain treatments may be superfluous or even pose unnecessary risks.
2. Recognize which applications might necessitate certain... Read more

The Sustainable Design Leaders group has had awesome, inspiring Summits for ten years now—and there is so much more we can do can to make it a thriving, essential year-round community. To do that we have to extend the trusted “safe space” of the Summits into our online conversations.

And other groups are just getting started on a... Read more

Hi folks,

We often hear from you with a suggestion of someone who would be great for the network, and a question about how to refer them. We've now made that easy, with three steps laid out in an Outreach Toolkit that's posted in the left margin of the Member Directory.

So, if you're thinking of someone to invite or come across... Read more

Ada Fran Maman

Hello All,

Through a regional School of Architecture, our firm has been connected with a very intriguing startup that has been engineering a new rooftop wind energy technology. They are developing a system to economically capture the increased wind flows at the edges of commercial building rooftops. They have engineered this system,... 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

The headlines are everywhere—from heat waves in Europe to wildfires in the Western U.S. to tidal flooding in Florida. In this age of climate change, just as there’s an urgent need to reduce carbon emissions and other greenhouse gasses, we also need to adapt and invest in resilience.

Increasingly, owners are asking for risk assessments to... Read more

Hi SD Leaders: I'm hoping that you guys can be a great resource for a family member who teaches at Carnegie Mellon University, Professor Marvin Sirbu. Marvin teaches and does research in the Energy and Public Policy department and each year leads a class that takes on a challenging real-world problem to arrive at innovative solutions. This time... Read more

Avoiding Toxic Chemicals in Commercial Building Projects

We’re excited to issue our special report, Spec This, Not That.

In updating the report in 2020, we engaged a respected toxicology and regulatory-compliance firm to review and assist in our revision of the entire publication. This edition reflects the latest science in... Read more

Hi SD Leaders! 

I'm Nadav, president at BuildingGreen and facilitator of the Sustainability peer networks. I'm really excited to finally have this network for champions from smaller firms up and running! 

I do a lot of workshop facilitation, design process support, and consulting and training related to sustainable products. I... Read more

In the Passive House session at the Winter Summit, I spoke about a Massachusetts DOER report that found that meeting the new energy code in MA (passive house or better in most cases) is cheaper for some building types than traditional construction. Some of you asked to see the report. It was a power point show. On page 34 of this slide deck... 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