Championing the
Changemakers

Hello SDL Folks,  with the 2023 Water Conservation Showcase (WCS) less than a month away we're really looking for help spreading the word.  We've got a great lineup (www.waterconservationshowcase.com) and would love any direct emails to your contact lists that you'd be willing to send!  Here is a link to the promotional partner toolkit with any... Read more

Happy New Year! 

I haven't seen this topic come up in the forum, but might have just missed it. 

I'm sure many of you have seen the recent article in Dezeen of Australia banning engineered stone due to links silicosis. Australia bans engineered stone due to silicosis risk (dezeen.com)

We are looking for appropriate... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Verifying Performance with Building Enclosure Commissioning.

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


1. Reason why the enclosure is fundamental to a sustainable building.
2. Explain why energy goals are less likely to be achieved without... Read more

Depending on seating type­­, these products can contain PVC, toxic flame retardants, hazardous adhesives and finishes, and other unsustainable materials.

BuildingGreen-Approved Seating

BuildingGreen’s seating meets ONE of the following sets of criteria:

For anyone attending this year's APA conference in person in San Diego, please consider joining us for our divison's annual reception and Awards for Excellence in Sustainability. We will be joined by members of the City Management & Planning, New Urbanism divisions, and the National Capital Area Chapter. Here's a link to register for the... Read more

To piggyback off Nathan's introduction where he mentions construction waste management, who is doing anything innovative or different in managing construction waste?  Construction waste has not historically been a passion of mine, but now working in sustainability and construction, I feel like it has to be by default.  

We have a... Read more

I understand the AIA 2030 team is hoping for as many firms (and projects) to submit some form of LCA data in the new DDx website this week, in order to learn how the industry is tracking embodied carbon.  We have four projects that dabbled with Tally last year, which we'd like to report this week.

Has anyone run into a hurdle where you... 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

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

For those who are visiting Chicago, Kira Gould has asked me to spread the word about a casual AIA COTE meet-up. Stop by, meet friends and have a beer.

If you will be in Chicago on November 15, please consider joining a casual meet-up of COTE leaders/members/friends (no fee to join; it's pay-your-own-way at the pub):  

AIA COTE... Read more

As you might well remember, one of the Working Groups that came out of the SummitPalooza earlier this year was for MEP Embodied Carbon & Refrigerants.  That Working Group began working with the Carbon Leadership Forum and is now excited to announce the rollout of the MEP 2040 Challenge: “All systems engineers shall advocate for and achieve... 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: I'm writing to see if I can get some recommendations/links to some great, free web tours of sustainable projects for use in an intro to sustainability class I'm teaching online this fall. Typically we tour some local buildings but that isn't an option this year. I'm hoping to find a few different ones for students to choose from. They... Read more

Is anyone planning on attending the WELL Conference in Scottsdale in March?  I'm trying to figure out if it's worth attending or not?

I think it now qualifies as a tradition! We've arranged a room where we can gather for an hour and check in during the Thursday afternoon reception time at Living Future. If you'll be there, come join us!

Thursday, May 2 at 5:30, Skykomish Room (#604, 6th floor)

We'll be mostly Sustainable Design Leaders, as that's by far our... Read more

This came up a number of times at the SDL Tempe Summit so I thought I would share. If you have not already I highly recommend this recent research paper from the UW-IDL on the tradeoffs of operational and embodied carbon in envelope design in different climates. As a Passive House nerd it made me question the super-insulated envelope at least... Read more

Hello Hive Mind, 

We are exploring the sustainability attributes (or lack there of) of Pre-Engineered Metal Building Systems (PEMBS). These ubiquitous design-build structures often fly under the radar of green building design; they make up billions of square feet of construction globally and are steadily increasing due to speed of... Read more