Hello all!

I'm new to the group, and so excited to be here. Two part question here (as we think about processes and new year goals).

I am at a smallish firm (20 people) in Boston helping to reform our processes to enable even those that are not steeped in sustainability at a daily level to be comfortable looking for opporutunities... Read more

Team,

Many of you saw this from BlackRock.

https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/investor-relations/larry-fink-ceo-letter

SOM, starting with London office, is drafting a letter to our MEP consultants, demanding and holding them accountable for climate change as a preference on consultants selection.

Best,
LL 

Welcome to the quiz portion of How to Build Green At No Added Cost

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


1. Know how to make a value proposition for green buildings.
2. Explain how shrinking a green building and investing in its envelope can reduce first costs of its... 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

How much will it cost to achieve LEED v4 certification?

“We’d love a green building, but can we afford it?”

“We’re required to be LEED Silver, but we’re not sure how to get there under the new rating system.”

“Sure, we’re interested in LEED, as long as it doesn’t cost extra.”

LEED v4 and cost uncertainty

With... Read more

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

Hey SDL,

I'm curious if anybody out there has developed specification language requiring a certain level of airtightness (as assessed via one or a series of blower door tests) for a commercial project when it is not going for a Passive House certification and a blower door test is not required by code--basically, something in the... Read more

The Minnesota CLF chapter’s Specification Subgroup (myself, Andy Marolt/Ryan Companies, Laura Eder/ESG, Java Nyamjav/MSR Design, with input from Annie Perkins/SFI) recently collaborated on a draft set of specification templates incorporating embodied carbon requirements into product performance and action submittals. This work builds on sample... Read more

You can download the guide here:
https://www.collaborativedesign.org/

And I would ask that any/all of you who find this interesting and useful to please share with your networks. We want it to get distributed far and wide!

- Clark

Hi all,

I'm trying to figure out how to use this CLF MEP calculator tool that is downloadable from the CLF website. Please see screenshot attached - does anybody know what they are asking for as an input?

"Custom quantities input: The user can enter custom quantities on this tab and produce numerical results. For data input fill '... 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

Greenbuild bound colleagues-

I unfortunately cannot join for the summit Tuesday but should be flying in early enough to potentially join the group for dinner. Are there any plans brewing that I might join?!

Let me know? Thanks.

Katie Rothenberg

Vice President, Sustainability & Innovatio 

HITT Contracting... Read more