News

What is a sustainable material? A big, complicated question, admits Lona Rerick, associate principal at ZGF architects. But the Architecture & Design Materials Pledge recently adopted by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) starts to get at the answer, she said.

It’s time to stop playing... Read more

If you don’t spend your “day-to-day” in the healthy materials space, it’s hard to create strategy and align your company to meet your customers' (what seems to be) ever-changing asks and project goals. This webinar is geared toward the building product... Read more

Are you getting questions, advice, and dubious sales pitches from all comers about how to design and run an HVAC system to combat infectious disease? You’re not alone. Engineers, facility managers, architects, and other building professionals are all feeling immense pressure about COVID-19 right now—especially since the Centers for Disease... Read more

Implicit biases—the unconscious assumptions we make about people based on their gender, race, physical ability, and many other factors—don’t stay buried. They lead to adverse decisions and behavior that we don’t even recognize as sexist, racist, or ableist. Implicit bias is particularly dangerous in situations ripe for... Read more

When you ask people what they’re doing for the environment, many will point to recycling as one of their primary actions. Yet recycling isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, as NPR recently reported. What’s more, it’s not actually happening as consistently as we are led to believe. And that’s just as true for construction and... Read more

Did you notice your AIA design award submissions looked different this year? You were likely asked for information that you only used to provide when submitting for a COTE (Committee on the Environment) Top Ten Award—such as the project’s predicted net energy use intensity (EUI) or embodied carbon estimate. These questions are currently being... Read more

Fuel cells and hydrogen are necessary, inevitable power sources of the future. But technological challenges, high cost, required fuel infrastructure, and other issues have allowed photovoltaics, wind, and batteries to become the short-term interventions for our fossil fuel addiction.

Bloom Energy has been making fuel cells since 2009,... Read more

We at BuildingGreen have generally avoided taking political stands. I believe that regardless of our positions on fiscal policy or a range of social issues, we can—and must—come together to protect the ecological functions that support life as we know it on planet Earth.... Read more

How can we safeguard the health of occupants while preventing future health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic? The IMMUNE Building Standard, developed by Bucharest-based Genesis Property in collaboration with The National Institute for Infectious Disease in Romania, is a new approach to assessing and certifying human health and safety measures... Read more

Washing hands properly is one of the primary ways of controlling the spread SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19. Drying hands properly is also important, as wet hands are more likely to provide an avenue for spreading pathogens. Yet even this seemingly simple act has reignited a contentious issue: what is the best way to dry your... Read more

When Michigan State University started planning its new STEM building, the design team was considering a typical concrete or steel structure. That was before Richard Kobe, Ph.D., heard about the project. Kobe, who heads up the university’s Department of Forestry, advocated for a mass timber structure instead.

After a field trip to a... Read more

At least 11% of total carbon emissions worldwide come from building construction, most of which is embodied in the materials used to complete projects. A new initiative, All For Reuse, calls upon building professionals to embrace material reuse options to help mitigate our global climate crisis.

“We’ll unlock a whole economy that can... Read more

In July 2020, 239 scientists urged the medical community and public-health authorities to acknowledge the potential for airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and promote additional precautionary measures like increasing ventilation in indoor, enclosed environments. By implication, they suggested that HVAC systems... Read more

Mohammad Abbasi and Matt Dempsey contributed to this analysis.

For a while, the space was dominated by the WELL Building rating system, but the experience of many architects and consultants has been that WELL was either too... Read more

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

Words may inspire, but it’s action that creates change.

             –Simon Sinek

Building owners, architects, and others on the value chain have many opportunities to make headway into sustainable building, but there are also unique steps that manufacturers can take to help improve and promote products while also working... Read more

Returning to work: for many, it’s unthinkable without some kind of reassurance that leadership and the facilities team have taken all possible precautions. Lots of organizations are weighing in on what we should pay attention to, but how do we know if it’s working?

The free Re-entry program from Arc is a tracking and measurement program... Read more

A movement started in the United Kingdom called Architects Declare is now spreading globally and has picked up steam in the U.S. In addition to biodiversity and climate, the U.S. chapter has added justice to the list of issues it’s declaring as emergencies and hoping to address.

Architecture firms are... Read more

The first time I visited a prison, as I was walking out of the last of many claustrophobia-inducing checkpoints, I watched a monarch butterfly glide through the razor-wire fencing to the outside. It hit me hard that none of the incarcerated people inside would be slipping out so easily. The harsh design of the facility also... Read more

Computers, monitors, printers, and other office equipment typically continue to consume energy even after the office or school closes. Offices now on standby due to the pandemic are not immune from this waste. These plug and process loads (PPL) can account for more than 30% of a commercial building’s electricity consumption—and even more in... Read more