Hi: SD Leaders.  It was so nice to see so many of you at Greenbuild in Chicago. By now I'm sure all have seen the announcement of the release of the Fourth National Climate Assessment Report vol 2. (https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/) It's well worth a deep read - so much important and extremely informative material. I want to draw your... Read more

Chillers are part of larger systems that provide cooling in large commercial buildings.

BuildingGreen-Approved Water Chillers

Because there isn't a single relevant efficiency standard for chillers, approved products use innovations such as magnetic bearings, variable frequency drives, or other technologies that significantly... Read more

Team,

What are the M vs. E vs. P(FP) ratios of fee distribution you use in your company for a commercial office building?  How about a residential/hotel?

Best,

Luke Leung

Greetings Sustainable Design Leaders,

As we begin closing out 2021, we wanted to give you a quick update that the next SDL Salary Survey will be coming to you in early January! The BuildingGreen team and SDL Steering Group have been busy this past month polishing up the questions for this anonymous survey.

A reminder of the... Read more

Hi Green Gurus,

We are convening our first Regional Coordinators quarterly call Thursday, July 21 2-3pm ET (11am-12pm PT). Anyone who might be interested in this role is welcome to join. We’ll give you more specifics, answer any questions, and create our list of representatives for each region. We’ll finish by looking ahead at what to... Read more

Dear SD Leader Community: I'm excited to announce the 2021 Steedman Research Fellowship that provides $75K for international travel for recent architectural grads (within 8 years.) I have the honor of serving as this year's jury chair with a fantastic jur. The topic is "Disruption" (seems most appropriate.)

More details here: https://... 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

Hi All,

We are trying to make a case for hiring a full time sustainability specialist in our firm, and one of the arguments we want to use is that the ratio of sustainability specialists vs the ratio of full time employees in our company is quite low. That being said, I want to have an understanding of where other firms stand with this... Read more

Hi Sustainable MEP Leaders!

As we discussed at the Summit, we are going to have monthly calls to check in and advance our various initiatives. Let's go with the 2nd Tuesday of the Month.

Please join if you can--we have a lot to follow up on! (See the report I posted earlier this week for details.)

Thanks, and have a great... Read more

Both Z Smith and Lois Vitt Sale have been notified that they have been elected to the College of Fellows of the AIA, class of 2018.

Please join me in congratulating Z and Lois, and post here if you know of others who can now carry the FAIA label.

Well done guys!

Hi all!

I've heard several people talk about developing tools for assessing/codifying a client's values for a project as part of an integrated design process (ie. a set of questions, survey, etc.). Would anyone be willing to share?

(Z, are you listening? I specifically recall you mentioning a tool like this...)

Thanks!... Read more

THIS WEBINAR PURCHASE AND REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.

Should housing be affordable? Or should it be sustainably designed, built, and operated?

When you put it like that, the question sounds absurd.

But the idea—usually unspoken—that sustainability wastes precious time and resources is painfully common in the... 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

Welcome to the quiz portion of Introduction to WELL Certification: On-Demand Webcast.

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


1.  Identify the Seven Concepts within WELL.

2.  Describe the differences between WELL and other frameworks such as LEED & Fitwel.

3.  List... Read more

Hi folks, 

AIA COTE National is looking for Techincal Reviewers for the 2025 awards. Interested, or know someone who might be?  Sign up here: https://form.jotform.com/231175886103153

Thanks!

The COTE Toolkit just launched on AIA.org's site, please go and check it out and share with your networks. The project spanned over the last year+ with over 40 authors, subject matter experts, and reviewers contributing to the process, (including many Green Gurus!)

With the goal of closing the information gap to designing high... Read more

Composting toilets convert human waste into nutrient-rich fertilizer for nonfood plants, rather than mixing the waste with potable water and flushing it down the drain. They can also save infrastructure costs and minimize the burden on wastewater systems.

They’re not for every project, but they do warrant consideration. Composting... Read more