Team SCL,

This was a tough week. My husband coined a phrase "20% laid off."

Unfortunately, 50% of our business is currently impacted by governmental orders stating that our work is non-essential. This is bitter-sweet. I certainly want people to be safe, but we've had to make some tough decisions and in the geographies that were... Read more

Hi everyone,

We’re excited to announce that registration for our Summer 2024 Sustainable Design Leaders Summit is now open! Join us from July 15th-17th at IslandWood on Bainbridge Island, a beloved location where we’ve hosted Summits multiple times before. Register early to save your seat, and feel free to reach out to me with any... Read more

Early laminate flooring had problems with premature surface wear, moisture damage, and hazardous formaldehyde emissions—and some products may still have these problems.

BuildingGreen-Approved Flooring

Laminate flooring products listed by BuildingGreen have high recycled content (greater than 70%) or FSC-certified content and:... Read more

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

BuildingGreen is the most trusted voice in sustainable design and architecture.

This ad-free, member-supported resource is here to guide designers in using high-performance strategies, and in selecting sustainable and healthy products.

If you haven't already, start by creating your unique user profile to get your log-in, and be... Read more

Hi all,

I just joined the SDL group and am grateful to have the opportunity to be a part of this awesome community! 

I have an exciting residential embodied carbon research opportunity to share…

Lake|Flato Architects is collaborating as an industry partner with the RE2 Lab and the Hamer Center for Community Design at Penn... Read more

Lake|Flato developed a project process road map as an internal project management tool over a decade ago, and we're looking into updating it.  It serves as a sort of "checklist" of major design, sustainability, and QA/QC milestones for each project phase.  I know we've talked about similar tools at other firms at past SDL summits, so wanted to... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Resilient Design—Smarter Building for a Turbulent Future.

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


1. List three motivators for resilient design and at least three actions that address each motivator.
2. Explain why climate change isn't our... Read more

Hi Green Friends - I hesitated to post on April Fools, but wanted to get the link out for folks to share with their netowrks    I'll be teaching a workshop at the Pacific Energy Center on May 11 on Electrification Retrofits of Exisitng Non-Residential Buildings.  I'll be bulidng on the great work our sub-committee led by Allison has been... Read more

For those of you who have attended the event above, I think you will agree this has been a high quality event.  But DFC is changing the forum this year. Instead of holding an annual event in September, this year they are holding 4 half day events around the country.  Attendance will be limited to 40 people and it is focused on sustainability... Read more

Hi friends, 

Before i forget, here is the checklist I mentioned yesterday that got such a positive response in our office - again it came about after i was asked (for the Nth time) to write a sustainability description for a concept proposal/ RFP that I was not a part of and frankly didn't have a lot going for it. So it's framed as "you... Read more

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.

Hello everyone!  There hasn’t been much activity on this forum in recent months, so we wanted to give an update about what’s been happening and things coming up. 

Firstly, we are very excited for the upcoming inaugural SCL Summit the day before Greenbuild.  We currently have about 20 people signed up for the Summit and we are expecting a... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Building Electrification: A Vital Solution to Climate Change.

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


1.  Understand the relationship between building electrification and decarbonization to improve the efficiency and sustainability of buildings.

2... Read more

I was recently asked if there is a way to quantify financially what one MT eCO2 might be worth in the context of a building owner reducing their own carbon emissions.  How do you put a dollar value on those reductions?  Does anyone have experience with that or can you point me to the correct resource to answer this question?

Wondering if we can have a dialog on HVAC load calculation software... we are currently still using Trane Trace 700, but with the future migration to Trace 3D+ coming are looking into other options. Never used HAP but I haven't heard great things, and we dabbled in IES VE for a while, but went back to Trace since at that time there was no... Read more