Championing the
Changemakers

Hi all,

I'm wondering if you all have had a meetup at NESEA's Building Energy Boston conference before? Is anyone interested in meeting up this year? I'm open to ideas! If you give me your email address I can attempt to organize an informal meet up on one of the conference days.

For those of you not in the NE part of the country,... Read more

Green Gurus -

I’m honored to be co-chairing, along with Caryn Brause FAIA, the ACSA/AIA Intersections Research conference at UMass Amherst October 2023.   The theme, "Material Economies," was developed with an eye for inclusivity for academics and practitioners alike, addressing critical emerging issues around architectural material... Read more

THIS WEBINAR PURCHASE AND REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.

The webinar occurred on Wednesday, February 23rd at 2:00 eastern.

USGBC and IWBI are beginning to see eye to eye across a range of focus areas. Knowing how to leverage each in a mutually beneficial way is the key to driving... Read more

Hi everyone -
Some of you already have heard some or all of this news, but I thought I'd share today's press release with the whole group.
The headline is: 
SERA is VERY excited to announce that David Johnson, formerly the managing partner of Bill McDonough's San Francisco office, is now heading up SERA's bay area office.... Read more

Plans are coming together for this Summit! Here's what we know (at least tentatively) so far:

Location:
Chicago, SmithGroup office

Timing: 
July 9-10, 2019

1:00 p.m. start time on 9th, 3:00 p.m. end on 10th

Happy Earth Day! I'm sharing the results of our office Earth Day Mind Map, a collaborative event lead by our Green Team with office-wide participation. https://mm.tt/1471242441?t=4c76rJLKXz 

We are celebrating with a virtual happy hour later today and will use the Mind Map to generate conversation and sharing.

I would love to hear... 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 Folks - sorry for the late notice, but I just heard about this two days ago and needed to get confirmation that I could share the request with htis group.

The opportunity is for business leaders in energy, efficiency, construction and design (i.e. all of us!) -

As you know, the flow of the historic federal infrastructure and... 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

Welcome to the quiz portion of Getting Flame Retardants Out of Foam Insulation.

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


1. Summarize why and how flame retardants are used in foam insulation.
2. Elucidate the case for taking the chemicals out of foam insulation.
3.... Read more

Hi all - I wanted to see if anyone will be in the Chicago area for the upcoming ASHRAE conference (21-23rd) and is interested in an informal meet-up? Or if you aren't going but are already in the Chicago area? Let me know and I'll see if we can organize meet-up!

Big news! It’s being announced today that the amazing Lindsay Baker will be ILFI’s new CEO—she’s starting the job next week.

Lindsay is talking about bringing a new focus on advocacy work to ILFI—she had been working on setting up a new organization for that purpose when ILFI recruited her. And she’ll have her hands full figuring out... Read more

Hello everyone,

We are far too often asked to include parking in our buildings (because why shouldn't the average family have 2.1 kids, .8 pets, and 3 cars) and it always grates on me that we are putting so many resources (natural and monetary) into something that is almost certainly single use and will need to be demolished in 30 years... Read more

In the Passive House session at the Winter Summit, I spoke about a Massachusetts DOER report that found that meeting the new energy code in MA (passive house or better in most cases) is cheaper for some building types than traditional construction. Some of you asked to see the report. It was a power point show. On page 34 of this slide deck... Read more

Hi everyone,

It was so wonderful to meet some of you last month and experience the whirlwind of a summit! I hope you've enjoyed looking over the Summit Report and the flip chart notes, and they've helped bring some order to the vast amount of material we covered. Here's one more piece for you - slides from the 5-minute presentations.... Read more