Pint-flush and non-water urinals can save tens of thousands of gallons of potable water per year. A single non-water-using urinal can save more than 10,000 gallons of water per year compared with the U.S. EPA standard of 1.0 gallon per flush (gpf).

When older 3.0 gpf urinals are replaced, the savings can be as great as 50,000 gallons... Read more

Discarded tires are an environmental disaster, and finding a beneficial use for them is a high priority.

BuildingGreen does not approve any flooring product that is made with tire-derived rubber, though some products may be appropriate for exterior use.

I have been watching LEED Zero for a while, and have appreciated certain things, but one thing I think is an absolute disaster is their allowance of mainline RECs for claiming Zero Energy and Zero Carbon performance.  I just asked this question on the LEED Zero webinar, and the panelist basically said, "it's part of LEED Zero, therefore it is... Read more

HGA is looking to fill several positions, including: a senior leader for resilience services and research, senior and junior simulation experts, senior and junior sustainability leaders. Please pass this along to anyone interested in working in a collaborative, passionate, and seriously fun team setting. Locations all over the country too.... Read more

Hi everyone, 

Following November's SCL Summit, I put together a model Construction Waste Management Action Plan based on the ideas shared in our focus group. It is linked below in Google docs, so everyone should have access to live edit the plan. Please take a look and add comments if you can. It's a very rough outline, so we can... Read more

Is anyone else working on a project doing Living Building Challenge v4.0 Energy Petal? We're working through the Imperative 08 Net Positive Carbon Resiliency Strategy requirements that ask for the project to be habitable for a week in the event of an emergency. We're curious how others are defining "habitable" and what systems assumptions... Read more

Hi Fellow GG: I just wanted to make sure everyone saw the great announcement from the White House yesterday about Code updates to address energy efficiency and resilience. It's great to see these kinds of initiatives that hopefully can continue for a few more years. So let's try to take advantage of them (said by someone who lives in Missouri... Read more

We had a small group tour the Dell Seton Medical Center campus today, and a much larger group tour the new Austin Public Library. 

My favorite quote from the Medical Center tour, was about this project being the first private development on U of Texas property. "It took 58 separate legal agreements. We won a ULI award for making the... Read more

Curious to see if your firms have researched metals and established a preference for what you use for roof and wall panels?  I'm interested in ranking environmental performance for painted steel, galvanize steel, weathered steel, painted aluminum, zinc, etc.

Hi SDL!

Our CM recently offered up the possibility of substituting Pozzotive into our structural and paving concrete mix (www.pozzotive.com) on a large public building. Apparently it is on a level with the cost of standard cement.
We are eager to reduce the project's embodied carbon, and this seems almost too good to be true.

Welcome to the quiz portion of The Problem with Net-Zero Buildings (and the Case for Net-Zero Neighborhoods).

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


1. Describe several unintended consequences of focusing on net-zero-energy buildings.
2. List at least three advantages... Read more

Hi All ... I'm seeking suggestions for an ecologically minded landscape/site/civil consultant. Ideally with strong knowledge about Florida ecosystems. Thanks much for any sharing.

Rand Ekman

rekman@hksinc.com

I'm looking to compare using an electric tower crane vs a diesel generated tower crane.  I've got the average gallons/hour for the size of crane I'm looking at, but when I reached out to the crane manufacturers, they can only tell me what size electric supply I need to provide, not the kWh usage for the cranes.  I know that it varies depending... Read more

This month on our Sustainable MEP Leaders call we were asked what resources would be suggested for advancing integrative design.

Two books immediately came to mind for me:

How Building Learn, by Stewart Brand

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Buildings_Learn

It was many years ago but reading Stewart Brand’s How... Read more

Hi everyone, it was so great to meet some of you at the winter summit and finally connect names with faces!

We have a project that is targeting CalGreen Tier 2 and LEEDv4 Platinum.  Thought I'd reach out to see if anyone on this forum has found comparison guides between the two?  Looking for something similar to this CalGreen 2013 tier... Read more