Championing the
Changemakers

Building tours: they’ve been a vital educational component of green building from day one. But now COVID-19 has made them unsafe. Thanks to the Sustainability Leader Peer Networks we help convene, we’ve compiled a list of online tours and other videos that you can view from the safety of home.

This is... Read more

Editor’s Note: Guest blogger Nicole DeNamur owns Sustainable Strategies, a consulting firm that helps companies manage sustainable innovation by applying a legal and risk-management lens to innovative projects. Prior to launching Sustainable Strategies, Nicole practiced construction and insurance coverage law in Seattle for more than a decade.... Read more

To our friends and colleagues in the green building world,

We are now, in the most challenging sense, living in interesting times. As of today very few of us in North America are suffering from the illness caused by COVID-19, but we’re all experiencing its secondary effects: efforts to contain it that are shutting down gatherings,... Read more

Have you been moving toward electrifying HVAC systems but struggling to find the equipment you need?

Many engineers are in this position—and the Sustainable MEP Leaders are trying to change that. The Sustainable MEP Leaders peer network brings together the most committed sustainability directors from leading MEP design firms throughout... Read more

The Greenbuild International Conference and Expo is the world’s largest conference and expo centered around sustainable design. Greenbuild is unparalleled in its robust educational and networking opportunities, but it can also be a bit overwhelming. Over the past couple of years, I’ve especially enjoyed a special evening of respite, inspiration... Read more

By Alissa Kingsley

User control may seem antithetical to high-performance buildings: imagine the amount of energy that might be wasted when building occupants are able to adjust the thermostat or open and close windows at will.

Occupants who have perceived control of temperature, however, tend to be more comfortable in their... Read more

Editor’s note: Guest blogger Anne Hicks Harney, of Long Green Specs, is our partner in providing product vetting services. Harney offers guidance on writing green specs and on finding products for LEED v4, WELL, and beyond.

All of us in the design professions need to do a better job of prioritizing... Read more

For twenty years or so, companies like Pilkington (Spacia) have been cranking out R-5ish (center-of-glass) vacuum-insulated glazing (VIG). The attraction of glazing units with a very thin profile, relatively low weight, and a high level of performance is strong, particularly for retrofit applications.

But it sure seems as though we have... Read more

Shortly after the release of Paula Melton’s Spotlight Report on Embodied Carbon, which has been getting amazing reviews and kudos, I sat in on an update by Ryan Zizzo, Chair of the Embodied Carbon Network’s Buildings Taskforce. I was so inspired by the breadth of activities suddenly going on in this space, that I decided to lay them out in a... Read more

The basement of our well-insulated and air-sealed 100+-year-old home is dry, but enough moisture (as vapor) makes its way through our concrete walls and slab that dehumidification is a must from about April through October. Dehumidification comes with a pretty big energy penalty, so I am proactive in managing this load: when I see that... Read more

A particularly well thought-out and thorough question from reader Aaron Birkland on the pH of phenolic foam and its possible corrosive nature prompted me to follow up my original blog post on Kingspan’s Kooltherm rigid insulation. Aaron has two main questions:

I was at my brother’s house in Lee, New Hampshire, recently and looked up to see that his photovoltaic (PV) panels looked a bit dull (see Image #2 in the slideshow). His PV array is easy to get to—the long north slope of his roof has a walkable 5:12 pitch—so we went up and took a closer look.

It turns out that the PV industry... Read more

Are you struggling to find products for your LEED or WELL project? We’ve been there, and we know how to help.

In this hour-long free webinar, BuildingGreen's Nadav Malin and our partner Anne Hicks Harney of Long Green Specs share their tips finding green, healthy products that meet the requirements for LEED and WELL.

If you want... Read more

[Editor's Note: This guest post comes to us courtesy of Peter Talmage, P.E., an energy and design consultant and an instructor in the Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency program at Greenfield Community College. Originally published April 4, 2013.]

I have heated my various homes with wood since 1975. It was always a love/hate... Read more

Originally published May 16, 2011. Updated by Paula Melton June 1, 2018.

A friend of mine used to be a long-haul truck driver. At one point he even became a trainer working with new drivers.

Over dinner recently, I asked what was one key lesson that he would want to impart to any new driver. While he was thinking about it,... Read more

Originally published February 28, 2012

I'm often asked the question, "How much insulation should I install in my house"? It's a great question. Let me offer some recommendations:

First of all...it depends. It depends to a significant extent on where you live. And it depends on whether we're talking about a new house or... Read more

Editor’s note: Guest blogger Anne Hicks Harney, of Long Green Specs, is our partner in providing product vetting services. Harney offers guidance on writing green specs and on finding products for LEED v4, WELL, and beyond. This is the first post in a series focusing on transparency documents for specific product categories.... Read more

All the way back in 1993, one of my first research projects at the NAHB Research Center—now Home Innovation Research Labs—was assessing the performance of radiant ceiling panels for the Department of Energy’s Advanced Housing Technology Program. (The final report was titled “An Evaluation of Thermal Comfort and Energy Consumption for the... Read more

No man is an island, and neither is a building.

And yet there is increasing movement for buildings to reach net-zero energy (NZE) or net-zero carbon (NZC). Architecture 2030 wants all buildings there by 2030. Many in the LEED community want this as a requirement for achieving LEED Platinum today. And California has stated it as a goal... Read more

Back in May 2017, I wrote a blog post about negative side waterproofing (NSW). But I was still feeling troubled. The standardized test for NSW from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“Standard Test Method for Water Permeability of Concrete”) is really complicated; the schematic seems impossible to decipher (see Image #1 in the slideshow... Read more