Sustainability leadership has requested that you take this quiz to help assess sustainability literacy across the firm. Your own results will be presented to you at the end of the quiz but will not be shared with anyone else. Only aggregated, anonymized results will be available to others.

Please don’t do research to inform your answers... Read more

Has anyone found any options to recycle safety vests, or discovered an upcycling option for them?  We are about to replace all of our vests company-wide and will have thousands that we don't want in the waste stream and we don't want to be reused as safety vests.  Any thoughts or ideas would be great!

Thanks and I hope everyone is... Read more

Hello Everybody,

I would like to invite you all to an event being hosted by the AIA Seattle COTE.  This is the next event in a series entitled Pathways to Decarbonization.  Date and time: May 13, 12:00pm - 1:00pm 

Description:  Universities are learning laboratories to explore and implement solutions to our greatest challenges... Read more

Hi - some of you may have received an invite to the White House for a 3-hr session to continue the discussion on the Net Zero Emissions building that they released earlier this year. This discussion will be on embodied carbon. I have no idea who the invite went to. If I beg I may be able to go, but if there are plenty of other Architects that... Read more

Hi all,

We are taking a deep look at green accreditations within our firm. Gone are the days when we could say: "our staff is XX% LEED APs!" as a metric of firm progress. Here are a few questions we are asking ourselves, and I'm wondering how you approach this in your firms:

Dear Colleagues,

The EPA has released a very impressive proposal for ENERGY STAR specs for residential water heaters that will strongly encourage electrification and decarbonization of these appliances. 

ENERGY STAR is a voluntary program for high performance appliances and this is a huge opportunity to begin the decarb transition... Read more

Greetings from the CARE Tool Team,

We are thrilled to update you on the successful soft launch of the CARE Tool last week at Greenbuild! The online beta was unveiled at a reception hosted by EHDD, AIA COTE, and Architecture 2030 to 300+ people, where attendees got the chance to learn about and explore the tool in a demo room. We... Read more

Food waste is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions from landfills due to methane released during anaerobic decomposition.

BuildingGreen-Approved Composters

BuildingGreen approves in-vessel commercial composters, which require the smallest footprint and are most likely to be suitable for a densely populated area.

Why... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Counting Carbon: Understanding Carbon Footprints of Buildings.

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


1. Differentiate carbon counting approaches based on regulation or monetization from approaches aiming just to reduce carbon emissions.
2... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Resilient Design: 7 Lessons from Early Adopters

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


1. Recount the ten resilient design principles.
2. Recount each of the seven fundamental messages embraced by the model practitioners.
3. Describe... 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

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

Hi All,

Jacob Knowles from BR+A reached out with a request and I’m passing it on to you all.  Jacob’s contact info is at the bottom of this so you can respond to him directly or respond here and I’ll forward it on:

We are working on assembling examples of large wet lab buildings that employ strategies to greatly reduce fossil... Read more

Hi all, has anyone come across a comprehensive (and recent) study looking at how long buildings actually last (beyond Stewart Brand)? I know of plenty that look at the benefits of reuse, but none that look at existing building stock and how much has been reused vs. demolished. 

As we start looking at embodied carbon metrics, I can't help... Read more

Have any of you relied on Green Badger for LEED documentation on projects?

I am familiar with the tool and know Tommy from my time in Atlanta, but have not used it on a construction project.

Have you found value? Thoughts?

Either way, they publish a pretty nifty "LEED v4 Construction Tool Kit" that may be useful for your... Read more

Hi all, 

I'm excited to announce that LHB (my 250-person multidisciplinary firm located in Minnesota and Wisconsin) is hiring a full-time Regenerative Design Leader. I thought this might be helpful for those of you looking for example job descriptions for your own postings, or if you are looking to make a move (we do have an office in... Read more