Championing the
Changemakers

Hello Green Gurus,

Back at the retreat in March 2021 (does anyone remember back that far?), we formed an Air Quality Working Group with members from SDL, SMEPL, and SCL. Drawing on our collective experience, standards, research, and other resources, we began navigating the murkiness of indoor air quality considerations. We came up with a... Read more

Hello Green Gurus!

ILFI’s annual Living Future Conference is coming up, so we thought we might host a (virtual) Show & Tell session of 5-minute versions of peer network members’ presentations like we often do in conjunction with Greenbuild. First we want to see if this is of interest to you all. Please take 30 seconds to let us know... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of When Passive House Goes Big!

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


Evaluate the main barriers to achieving the Passive House Standard on a large, urban project.

Identify design strategies for successfully and cost-effectively achieving the... Read more

Our fledgling group had an organizing call last Tuesday, March 17th. Of course, it was a great conversation - the group is full of amazing people! The focus of our conversation was the goals and actions that should drive this group forward. I have a few ideas. Please share your own in this thread!

I start from the belief that we see our... Read more

Hey all,

At the retreat, many of you spoke to me about wanting to learn more about our Foundations Resilience event in Houston in November. As it happens, our website just went live and I thought that I would share it with the whole group. Registration (for those interested) will be up and running very soon, but this should give you a... Read more

I am dual posting a topic from the SDL forum in the Green Commons. Sorry to those who see this twice but I'm trying to cover more ground.

The first post from Mike Manzi ... 

SDLers,

Great to see many of you at Greenbuild! It was nice to have the opportunity to remind everyone how our collective energy continues to make a... Read more

Hi - I'm wondering if you have recommendations for a web/mobile app for occupants to self-assess comfort at regular intervals. I've downloaded comfy, but it wants to actually DO something about thermal discomfort by alerting discomfort and connecting, I believe, to the BMS. We just want to collect information at this point. And since I'm a... Read more

Hello Green Gurus! We are diving deep into our carbon metrics this year and are finalizing some of our emissions factors for our Scope 1 and 2 emissions and in a few more months Scope 3. I'm hoping this brain trust has some recent knowledge to share on this topic. What we've found is there's a fairly big variance in what we've seen in published... Read more

Here's a file upload.

Hi folks, 

A few of us at SERA recently connected with a couple of women in the tech industry who are looking to solve sustainability issues with new software. They're in the "problem definition" phase and are eager to hear from SDL members about the big issues around operational and embodied carbon that we're tackling. See below and... Read more

How much will it cost to achieve LEED v4 certification?

“We’d love a green building, but can we afford it?”

“We’re required to be LEED Silver, but we’re not sure how to get there under the new rating system.”

“Sure, we’re interested in LEED, as long as it doesn’t cost extra.”

LEED v4 and cost uncertainty

With... Read more

Hi all,

Due to the eclipse, Nadav and I will be out on our usual call day, April 9th, and we anticipate others may as well. We will be moving the call to Tuesday April 16th at the usual time (2-3pm ET). For this meeting, we'll be holding a whiteboard session about MEP2040, the development of plans to achieve it, and tactics to getting... 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

Hi everyone,

We're hoping to do some building monitoring as part of Building Use Evaluations on our built work, starting with projects in East Africa, to ensure they are performing as intended and to keep supporting our partners. Ultimately we want to be able to log light, noise, temperature, humidity and CO2 concentration. This does not... Read more

Just in time for Saturday Night!!

Get out the popcorn and put away Netflix!
For those who were unfortunate enough to miss this LIVE - you still get to watch the awesome talents of our community! 

You sadly miss out on the camaraderie, connection and wonderfullness of hanging out with everyone (not recorded!) but you do get... Read more

Welcome to the quiz portion of Can Concrete Save Us? Locking Up Carbon in Building Materials

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


1. Explain current strategies of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS).
2. Detail how concrete offers another possible pathway to... Read more

Can furniture be hazardous? You bet it can…

From flame retardants in foam cushions to unnecessary stain and dirt repellents on upholstery materials, everyday... Read more

Team,

See this paper regarding outside air vs. filtration.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360132313002515

MERV-13 is a good way to get most benefits without a huge cost.

Best,
Luke Leung