Many wood panels are unsustainably sourced, and some have high formaldehyde emissions.

BuildingGreen-Approved Panels

Laminate panels approved by BuildingGreen:

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 Everyone- as a follow up to the 5 minute presentation I did during the recent Virtual Summit-Palooza, I am pleased to announce that the Sustainability Action Plan Guidance Document created by the AIA 2030 Working Group is finished and released.  Please share!

http://content.aia.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/... Read more

Hello- If you use Procore....

Are your jobs using a template to conduct and create "reports" of their IAQ inspections? Did you set it up in forms or inspections? Would you mind sharing an example template with me? I know Green Badger has a great app to do this, which we use. We would use inspections in Procore for jobs that are not using... Read more

Hi all,

The USGBC Pacific Region is launching a new award this year that recognizes projects that have aspires to promote health of occupants and surrounding communities.  In true USGBC style, this award has not been properly publicized, so they are still looking for submissions.  I believe the deadline will be extended to June 7.  I... 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

Welcome to the quiz portion of Climate Change: Building Industry, You’ve Got This!

Important: This quiz covers all related articles within this topic. Scroll to the bottom of the article page to find links to all the articles covered by this quiz.

Learning Objectives
Upon completing this course,... Read more

Hi all, 

I just wanted to post a quick message to introduce myself to the group. My name is Jeff Geisinger, and I'm an architect with Utile in Boston. We're a 50-ish person firm with a pretty broad project base, including affordable multifamily housing, institutional buildings, commercial interiors, and urban planning/public realm work... Read more

Hi there colleagues!

Out of curiosity, do you plan on attending Greenbuild in person in San Diego in September? My staff asked me if we were going and my answer is partially contingent on the extent to which attending would mean getting to see some of our favorite people (read: all of you). Looking forward to taking the temperature of... Read more

Dear Green Gurus: I'm so sorry to have missed seeing many of you at AIA last week. I heard the BG and COTE events were the highlights of the week! Congrats.

I'm sure by now you've heard of the dreadful Supreme Court decision about the EPA. I thought I'd share a helpful, if not sobering, perspective in an Op-Ed today in the Washington... Read more

Hi all,

We have a newly constructed, core/shell project having some hot water issues in the core restrooms.

There is a 0.35 Toto lav installed throughout. The hot water heaters are adjacent on each floor, located in the janitor closets. We did the math, and there could be a gallon of water standing and cooling in the pipe between... Read more

Happy Thursday, all!

I will be presenting with my colleague, Emily Hoffman, and our counterpart from Seattle, Duane Jonlin, on how firms can contribute more to aggressive energy and carbon targets, from the perspective of three people that see thousands of projects each year.  We see the best and the worst, and we're convinced that our... Read more

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

Hi, folks! 

I was recently asked if BuildingGreen could connect prospective speakers to an event organizer in Chicago. Beyond the leaders in the BuildingGreen networks relayed, I wanted to share that the exercise led me to the Women and Climate speaker database: https://www.womenandclimate.co/speaker-database 

When filtering by... Read more

Hi Everyone, 

Has anyone had success in finding organizations or programs that will recycle the hard hats? We are looking into options for recycling our expired hard hats that can no longer be used. Ideally, we would want to use a company with facilities across the country but we are open to any suggestions or ideas you all may have.... Read more

We had these conversations grouped by size of firm. 

Guiding Questions:

Knowledge Management By Firm Size

How to give people the info they need, when they need it?

Is the COTE Top Ten a good framework?

This seems extremely daunting in a large firm. How do we manage content that is produced and shared... Read more