Hello SDLs,

I'm fairly new to the group, joined in November and I must confess to being a total wallflower here, having gone almost 6 months now without introducing myself. I am an Architect with Dyer Brown Associates in Boston, MA where I head up our firm's sustainability efforts, as well as devote a fair amount of time to '... Read more

I am looking for examples of police stations and fire stations that are operating at an ENERGY STAR or better level.  Google searches have not provided much to go on - I found one net zero energy police station (Cincinnati Police District 3 West Side).  Curiously, Justice Facilities Review write ups do not include details about energy... Read more

Hi folks,

We had a fun impromptu conversation on our call last week. We got most involved in the challenge of getting developers interested in taking advantage of IRA Tax Credits. That can be quite a challenge given their business model.

We also heard about emerging data on tradeoffs between embodied and operating carbon, and how... Read more

Hello friends,

We are embarking on calculations to quantify avoided embodied carbon from converting an old school building into a multifamily project and I wanted to vet our methodology with you.

Our idea is to first establish a benchmark for a new replacement multifamily building based on published studies. We have found a few... Read more

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

Welcome to the quiz portion of LEED 2009: The Missing Manual.

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


1. Stay abreast of changes to LEED NC-2009.
2. Understand the more ambiguous aspects of LEED NC-2009.
3. Explain key interpretations of LEED NC-2009.
4.... Read more

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting is an increasingly common expectation throughout financial sectors, and the real estate industry is no exception. 

This live webinar with our friend Chris Pyke, Ph.D., a senior vice president... Read more

Dana Manafarm

I'm working on convincing my firm to hire a director of sustainability. I'm gaining some traction with the discussion thanks to the fantastic feedback and input from the summer summit "Role of the Sustainable Design Leader" breakout session. Thanks everyone! Does anyone have job descriptions for sustainable design leaders that they'd be willing... Read more

Hi all,

For your planning purposes for next year, here’s info on in-person events coming up in 2024:

As you may remember, our Summer 2024 SDL Summit will be July 15-17, 2024 at IslandWood on Bainbridge Island! Tickets will be $1800, which includes the cost of meals and lodging.

We are excited to announce we will also be... Read more

Dear SDL community,

I am supporting one of our health authorities in developing a business case for regenerating healthcare infrastructure as part of the indicative design for a new hospital and cancer centre. While I will be deepening this inquiry through the lens of a PhD over the next few (hopefully 4 or less!) years, I - and we - are... Read more

Hello Green Gurus,

I wanted to take a moment and introduce myself as I am new to the group. My name is Tim Pranaitis and I am the co-chair of the newly-reformed sustainability committee at Steffian Bradley Architects in Boston, MA. As a newer member of my firm, I have been tasked to re-start and grow our sustainability committee which... Read more

Hello SCL! We are excitedly planning for a return to in-person SCL Summits. In the past we've scheduled our Summit for the day before Greenbuild, but that day is Halloween and we understand the importance of spending that time with family. We are exploring a January 2023 option for this Summit instead, and are hoping to return to our usual... Read more

Hi Gurus,

As some of you may remember, my spouse, Moshe Cohen did a short negotiation mini-training at SDL some years ago - but there's many of you who weren't there - so this is for you!

He will be doing a training in two parts on Nov 17 and 24th from 9-12 EST. He's the BEST (even objectively!!) and honestly, if you want to... 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

Hi all - many of you have been involved in our project to crowdsource the best building performance graphics and make them searchable and freely available. After redesigning the website for functionality and bi-monthly (instead of annual) competitions, we are launching our first of these Challenges: Daylight + Glare. Upload a graphic or three,... Read more

Last summer I shared a request here for folks to take a survey we had open that aimed to understand how architects and engineers are (or aren't) using climate projections to inform design. This white paper, written in collaboration with HGA and the University of Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership, reports on the results of that research. ... Read more