The opportunity for water savings from installing efficient toilets, and from toilet replacement, is significant. In addition to improvements to the traditional gravity system, pressure- and vacuum-assisted flushing systems are available that offer superior performance—albeit often with some increase in flushing noise.

Hi All,

Has anyone dug into ASHRAE 2016 as part of the new v4.1 requirements or as codes start to adopt it? I recently presented on this and thought I should check my math to make sure I'm understanding and communicating this correctly.

My understanding is that there is a new reference baseline, that is essentially the ASHRAE 2004... Read more

Hello Everyone!

Please mark your calendars and stay tuned for more information regarding an All Peer Networks 2020 Summit Season Closing August 10th, 3-5pm ET (Noon-2pm PT).

Register HERE to get it on your calendar! The staff at BuildingGreen are looking forward to planning a fun and engaging cross-network event focused on this... Read more

Hello Folks,
What is your experience with successes and failures in the design process? As a starting point I have listed my Top 5 for success, and my Top 5 for failure. We'd love to see your reactions and look forward to the discussion when we all meet next week at our monthly check-in.

Top 5 reasons for when integrative design... Read more

Hello Green Gurus,

I wanted to take a moment and introduce myself as I am new to the group. My name is Tim Pranaitis and I am the co-chair of the newly-reformed sustainability committee at Steffian Bradley Architects in Boston, MA. As a newer member of my firm, I have been tasked to re-start and grow our sustainability committee which... Read more

I was recently tasked by my CEO to uncover some qualitative (interviews) and quantitative (surveys) data within our organization related to the value remote working has had on our organization. He's specifically interested in questions such as how this experience has enhanced our value as teams, unity or disunity as a firm? Where has it ... Read more

Hello Sustainable Construction Leaders,

Save the date! The network's next quarterly call is scheduled for 1pm ET (10am PT), Tuesday November 16th. Topic TBD. Steering Group member Emi LaFountain from Turner will be leading the conversation.

Keep an eye on this thread for more details and Zoom information.

Jen

Happy New Year Sustainability Leaders!

In case you did not see the Peer Networks Happenings email for January yet, here is a quick reminder: Happening this week, you're invited to join BuildingGreen's Top 10 Green Building Products for 2022 live webinar Thurs. Jan. 6 2022, 2pm ET (11am PT).

Register Here to reserve your seat!... Read more

A brief non-technical rant about OneClick LCA - from someone who is not actually USING the tool, but lobbying for its access.  Wondering if you all have better intel, or if it is just me.

We are working on a number of projects for which te teams are using OneClick LCA - for some cases it has a better international data set than others. ... 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

Just saying "Hello"  and happy to be joining the SDL peer network.  I am leading the effort at Integrus Architecture (Seattle and Spokane) to integrate performance and design and am looking forward to learning how others are accomplishing the same. 

The AIA has just (finally!) amended the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct to include new "Obligations to the Public" and  "Obligations to the Environment", that requires architects to advise their clients of their obligations to the environment, obligates architects to promote sustainable design and development, and to implement energy... Read more

We have an MEP engineer that is calculating peak loads at about 6 times passive house levels on a large commercial building that is at or near passive house levels of insulation and air infiltration. We suspect one reason is that he is figuring a 50% efficiency level for the ERV. We are showing him ERV systems with 80-90% efficiency, but they... Read more

Buck Dodgers

If only a few of the Best Practices will have checklists, which will be included under the "Implementation Toolkit" tab, I'm thinking we can simplify them (compared with LEEDuser).

I've attached a screenshot of a LEEDuser checklist. But I don't think BITuser will need the four types of icons, and the legend will take up more space than... Read more