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

Sharing the below message from Mike McMeekin, who some of you know, regarding his current initiative, the Engineering Change Lab USA Climate Change Noble Purpose Statement. (Also, here is a Link to today's LinkedIn Updates on this topic.)

Greetings, I am re-sending my email from last week primarily as a reminder regarding the sign-up... 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

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

We are growing our Design Performance Group at NBBJ! We're looking for two special people right now: a senior sustainable material consultant and a senior energy analyst. Help us design the next generation of healthy, low impact buildings - this is a chance to impact across the scale of our global company and build a better future! Know anyone... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Certified Wood Update: Comparing SFI to FSC on Key Forestry and Health Issues.

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


1. Explain the purpose of forest management standards and what they measure.
2. Differentiate between FSC and SFI... Read more

Jenny/Dan:

What types of content do anticipate having in the Documentation Toolkit tab? Here's an example of what we have on LEEDuser:

https://leeduser.buildinggreen.com/credit/EBOM-2009/SSc5#tab-docs (login required)

The layout is a little complicated on LEEDuser, since we had to work with a lot of legacy content, but... Read more

Following up on the Decarbonizing Existing Building: Envelope + MEP Solutions Integrative Design Jam, a cohort of us determined a "Decision Making Tree Toolkit" that begins to classify decisions into and "if/then" framework using region, market, climate, scale of intervention, and other factors would be useful in helping us collectively move... Read more

Hi folks,

Any of you who have completed WBLCA for projects - we are working on a new initiative with the City of Cambridge (building on our prior work NZ Climate Action Plan) but this time focused exclusively on embodied carbon.

We have not yet begun the work - but they have an opportunity to make a move on this on Tuesday and... Read more

I have a client that is very interested in automated shades for a mid-rise multi-family housing project. Do you have any examples of projects that have attempted this? I assume it would involve occupancy sensors and/or an over-rideable default setting dependant on sun position and temperature. I also have an MEP Engineer team that is having a... Read more

Hello SCL,

Quick reminder to sign up for our SCL Summit in May! True to usual form, we ask what’s important to YOU before we finalize an agenda. In the next couple of weeks, we will be sending out a draft agenda and asking for your feedback. Sign up now so your voice will be heard. Initial ideas so far have included:

The COTE Toolkit just launched on AIA.org's site, please go and check it out and share with your networks. The project spanned over the last year+ with over 40 authors, subject matter experts, and reviewers contributing to the process, (including many Green Gurus!)

With the goal of closing the information gap to designing high... Read more

Hey y'all,

Since it's now past September 8 when reporting was due, I'm thinking all those that were going to report as part of this round have now done so. I know AIA will assemble an industry-wide report, but I'm also very interested in the less polished conversation that allows all of us to trade experiences and just see how this went... Read more

On our Contractor Coffee talk a few weeks ago, Emi LaFountain (Turner Construction) brought up the idea that there was a lot of blue stain wood that are being landfilled instead of used, and suggested that maybe the designers among us could find a way to turn ugly into beautiful.

I had never heard of this issue, but I was on a call the... Read more