I wanted to share some thoughts from Brenda Stanfield about the Design for Freedom conference and the work that she is doing to fight the difficult problem of forced and child labor in construction materials.I feel like it is a step up from the LEED social justice pilot credits, which are a great start. Hopefully it helps you in your work. I am... Read more

Amanda is BuildingGreen's Peer Networks Manager, working behind the scenes to support the Peer Networks team and members. They are passionate about sustainable design and love helping people find tangible ways to help the planet.

Prior to joining BuildingGreen in 2023, Amanda was a campaigns coordinator at a food justice... Read more

Hello SDL friends,

It has been an amazing opportunity to collaborate with so many of you through this group or through my work with Tally, the USGBC, ILFI, and in my role as an environmental researcher at KieranTimberlake. This is not so much a goodbye as it is a "hope to see you soon." I am making a shift away from building design into... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Driving to Green Buildings: The Transportation Energy Intensity of Buildings​​!

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


Define “transportation energy intensity” as it relates to buildings and understand its impacts on the environment, human health, and... Read more

Hi Leaders,

If your experience was anything like mine, it was a stressful night. I'm feeling a hunger for talking with smart, passionate people about what this all means.

I'm not interested in making this into a political forum--we can all get plenty of that elsewhere. But if you'd like to hang out and just process how you're... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Measuring Energy Use in Buildings: Do Our Metrics Really Add Up?.

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


1. Explain the differences between site energy, source energy, and energy cost.
2. Summarize three ways in which source energy can... Read more

Dear fellow SCL'ers,

Recently one of our members, Ryan Poole, sustainability leader at DPR, has been facing some personal challenges. His wife is 35 weeks pregnant and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. They have moved across country - from Colorado to South Carolina - to be closer to thier parents and their support system, but they can... Read more

So I was testing assigning a BIT Expert to a Best Practice and I am having trouble getting the profile image to appear.  

When I upload a profile picture, it appears on the standard profile page from "My Account" but when I navigate to the BIT Best Practice 01, the image does not show and it takes me to another profile page that does... Read more

I am working on a new community development in St. Paul that is striving to achieve net-zero energy. We are able to get there mathematically by using the extra generation on light industrial rooftops to offset medium-density housing energy use (all buildings are anticipated to have different, private owners). However, this puts us over... Read more

Peter Yost (at https://building-wright.com/ )  is available to provide building science expertise, trainings, public speaking, building investigations, and more. Learn more

We are hiring! Please share with any potential talented and passionate candidates.

https://archinect.com/jobs/entry/150052970/sustainable-design-specialist

ps. And, yes we recently rebranded for our 40th anniversary for those who may be confused :) 

The AIA is NOT announcing the COTE Top Ten award winners this Wednesday.  Both the firm and student juries were held last month and winners were chosen.  But the AIA is focused on COVID-19 info only now, restricting other communications.  That is why the COTE newsletter has disappeared from your mailboxes.

Maybe i am the only one who... Read more

Hi, curious if anyone in the group has considered using Fitwel in an existing (built) school project (K-12). 

Would be interested in hearing your experiences and if this tool is a good fit for this type of project.

Who else is playing in this year’s #SustainabilityScavengerHunt by BE+!?

Meredith Elbaum and team at Built Environment Plus are launching the second annual hunt this Friday. Teams of up to four people compete over a couple of weeks to complete missions and bring awareness to environmental topics.

It was a lot of fun last year - we... Read more

THIS WEBINAR PURCHASE AND REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.

Live webinar approved for 1 AIA LU and 1 GBCI CE hour. Each person intending to earn CEU credits must purchase their own seat.

Why high-performance assemblies? And why now? Today we demand better thermal performance from our building assemblies than... Read more

Preservative treatments extend the service life of wood, but many such treatments are highly toxic, especially to aquatic life.

BuildingGreen-Approved Preserved Wood

Products approved by BuildingGreen use chemicals (commonly borates) that are relatively low in toxicity and have low VOC emissions.

Health and Environmental... Read more

Our firm was asked by a government client in Canada to update their specifications for concrete to capture low embodied carbon as a performance metric. From the SDL group's knowledge of concrete procurement:

Hey there, Tally users.  I'm looking for some answers to a few basic questions about using Tally: