For those in the sustainability industry, getting net metering policies adopted has been hard fought—and looking back, generally hard won. Net metering (the practice in which utilities credit customers for the excess electricity generated by their solar panels that’s sent to the grid) is currently in place in 41 states and it... Read more

Seriously, what are we thinking? Lush golf courses, thirsty almond groves, and huge metropolises in the desert. More sprawling cities built on flood plains. And we wonder why water is dangerously scarce in some places and destructively abundant in others.

We are out of balance with natural water cycles, and we pay for it—billions of... Read more

How can the returns of sustainable building strategies with less quantifiable benefits, like resilience and wellness, be paired with more predictable returns of energy efficiency to... Read more

For the first time ever, the U.S. is about to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

On September 23, 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a federal rule that will reduce emissions of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)—potent greenhouse gases used as refrigerants and in foam insulation. Many common refrigerants and blowing... Read more

Amid growing reports of nooses found on construction sites, new stats back up anecdotal reports that discrimination based on race and gender pervades workplaces associated with the built environment.

According to a survey commissioned by the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), 72% percent... Read more

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) recently announced the imminent departure of Mahesh Ramanujam as president and CEO of the organization as well as Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) and Arc Skoru. We spoke with Ramanujam’s interim successor, Peter Templeton, about the future of the organizations, including the strategic review that... Read more

Get out your wetsuit and oxygen tank because you’re about to dive really deep into the integrative design process. Your guide: Marcus Sheffer, one of the foremost experts on the topic (he also happens to have helped write the LEED v4 Integrative Process credit language).

Your tour starts with the why—the credit intent—then gradually... Read more

Bees are one of the most vital members of our ecosystem, responsible for pollinating plants that make up a significant portion of our food supply and help control erosion, provide animal habitat, and increase oxygen while mitigating carbon dioxide. Though most honeybees are not native pollinators and their impacts on native species are... Read more

Announcing a tree planting goal is a go-to move for politicians trying to win some popularity points. Everybody loves trees—they improve air quality, reduce sound levels, decrease crime, and infiltrate stormwater. And yet, even though we all agree it is a public good, we’re approaching tree planting all wrong, says Dark Matter... Read more

It started out as a $2.6 trillion plan, but the infrastructure bill that recently passed in the U.S. Senate with bipartisan support shrank to $550 billion. A lot of that missing $2 trillion had been slated for sustainability initiatives.

But despite the complete loss of $387 billion in spending on... Read more

Conserving energy and water is great, but in any given building, how much does it cost and how much money does it save? A new set of tools available through Arc—the building performance tracking platform created by the for-profit arm of the U.S. Green Building Council—can answer these questions. Powered by Autocase economic... Read more

California recently became the de facto leader in electrification by delineating electric heat pumps as “standard” for most new homes and buildings in its 2022 code.

New single-family homes and some commercial buildings must use an electric heat pump either for space heating or for hot water heating.... Read more

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in early August released part one of its sixth assessment report—a comprehensive analysis of the climate impacts that we can expect under various emissions scenarios. The upshot of this 4,000-page tome? “The viability of our societies depends on leaders from government, business, and civil... Read more

Lance Hosey, FAIA, LEED Fellow, died unexpectedly at his home on Friday, August 28, 2021 in San Diego, California. As shock gives way to reflection at BuildingGreen and the larger sustainable design community, Lance’s career as an architect, a widely published author, a committed mentor for dozens of emerging architects, and a champion of... Read more

It may take hundreds or thousands of years to return to pre-industrial-age levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, but the loss of animal and plant species that is occurring today is, practically speaking, irreversible. It will take millions of years for evolution to fill the ecological niches being vacated by extinctions and restore healthy... Read more

The International Living Future Institute (ILFI) has announced that Lindsay Baker will be taking the reins of the organization starting on August 9, 2021. She succeeds interim CEO K C Gauldine, who took over in April 2020 after the departure of Amanda Sturgeon. Baker was selected because she brings “the power, vision, and experience to ignite... Read more

In 2008, it was a new and brilliant idea. Since building owners weren’t voluntarily making large-scale progress against climate change, jurisdictions would require them to find out how well their buildings performed, and then disclose that performance level to the public. These “benchmarking and transparency” laws first took hold in Washington... Read more

If a tree falls in the woods, and there’s no one around to describe how the forest has been managed, is the tree carbon neutral?

This riff on the classic philosophical thought experiment is a practical question that SCS Global Services is seeking to answer for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).... Read more

Heat pumps have become ubiquitous in our buildings because they are energy efficient and run on electricity rather than fossil fuels, an increasingly important consideration in areas where natural gas use is being restricted due to carbon emissions. The challenge is that the R-410a refrigerant typically used in heat pumps has... Read more

As I’ve stepped back from BuildingGreen in recent years, I’ve shifted more of my time and energy to restoring ecological balance to the Dummerston, Vermont, property where my wife, Jerelyn, and I live. This has meant doing battle with a wide variety of invasive plants—especially oriental bittersweet, Japanese barberry, bush honeysuckle, glossy... Read more