Championing the
Changemakers

My firm didn't have representation at the winter summit, but I've just read the report (thank you, RoseAnn!), and was really glad to see there was conversation around mass timber. I'd love to talk with anyone who was involved in that roundtable to get a deeper download about the discussion. We've been doing a lot of mass timber buildings and... Read more

Hello,

This is not my area of expertise but our contactor has suggested central heat pump hot water (CHPHW) is $1m more expensive than gas fired domestic hot water for a 150 unit multi-family residential building in Massachusetts. The Building Decarbonization Practice Guide is extremely helpful but, from their comments, it is all coming... Read more

Hi Everyone!

Does anyone have a good resource for whole-building embodied carbon benchmarks broken down by building use and building category (structure, foundation, envelope, interior)?

I know of CLF’s 2017 Benchmark Study (great resource!) and the One-Click LCA study on European Buildings but are there any others?  I know many... Read more

Cabinets are often made from unsustainable wood bound with adhesives that offgas formaldehyde and finishes that have high emissions or contain PVC.

BuildingGreen-Approved Cabinetry

Approved residential cabinetry has:

Hello!

I am working with a state agency who is interested in exploring performance contracting (primarily energy focus, but not necessarily limited to...) and it's been a while since I had heard of others implementing this (GSA, some universities).

Do any of you out there know of current/recent owners executing performance... Read more

Hi MEP Leaders,

We had a great conversation in our last monthly call about the function and purpose of this group, and what we can best do together. You can see detailed notes from that call here. And we'll soon be sending out a reminder about the October call (Tuesday, Oct 8, 2pm eastern).

One of the ideas from that conversation... Read more

Hi all, 

I'm posting this on behalf of Wyck Knox of our office. He can be reached at knox@vmdo.com: 

"I’m on the editorial board of the Green Schools Catalyst Quarterly, the only peer reviewed journal dedicated to sustainable K-12 schools. (http://catalyst.greenschoolsnationalnetwork.org/gscatalyst)

One of my tasks in that... Read more

Hi Green Gurus!

Reaching out on behalf of the SDL "Expanding material re-use and including more people in the process" action group from the summer summit. (official name TBD - aka inclusive & circular economy, sustainable materials management, zero waste, deconstruction & reuse, etc.). In a nutshell ...unpacking where building... Read more

I am excited to announce that BuildingTransparency.org just launched downloadable specs and associated guidance that a couple of us have been working on for a few months.  Here is the EC3 announement:

As I prepare to search for summer interns, I'm wondering what colleges and universities have programs for sustainability in the built environment. Are there any that you all know of? I am trying to find alternatives to the traditional architecture programs that we track. Thanks

Green Gurus –

Clark Brockman brought to our attention an important and impactful opportunity to advance building decarbonization through the US Department of Energy’s proposed rulemaking around water heater efficiency, advancing adoption of heat pumps, while still providing exceptions (and efficiency targets) for electric or natural gas... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Doing Daylighting Right.

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


1. Explain occupants' needs and habits when it comes to daylighting.
2. Recognize at least three recent mistakes in daylighting design and their respective alternatives going... Read more

Facilitating Engagement and Collaboration in Virtual Meetings (or, Avoiding a Goat Rodeo with Many Awkward Silences*)

If you weren't already sitting in virtual meetings every day... We all are now. So how do we facilitate an online meeting in which everyone is focused, engaged, heard, collaborating and problem-solving in an efficient,... Read more

For those at Islandwood for the Summer Summit this week, we have this post-Summit meeting opportunity with James Connelly and Kathleen Smith from ILFI. This is one in a series of "Living Building Leaders" meetings, at which architects who support LBC get to collaborate with ILFI on how scale up LBC adoption.

Here's the agenda for this... Read more