Saving Energy with Mass Save

By Allison Maynard, Communications Associate


Our chapter is comprised of many of the best leaders in the sustainability field and we are always excited to see what new strides they have made in their work. Their ingenuity and tireless commitment to sustainability are what make our chapter such a wonderful community of professionals. Mass Save tackles sustainability through energy saving programs. It is an initiative sponsored by Massachusetts’ gas and electric utilities and energy efficiency service providers. They work closely to provide a wide range of energy efficiency services to help residents and businesses manage energy use and related costs.

Mass Save believes everyone has a role to play in creating more energy efficient communities and that when we make smart energy choices, we can manage our energy costs, enhance the value and comfort of our homes and businesses, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Whether you’re a renter, homeowner, or business, they have lots of ways to help you save energy and money.

They also support education in the Boston area, and are providing Energy Code Training sessions for code officials, builders, subcontractors, and design professionals to learn more specifics about Massachusetts residential and commercial Energy Codes. The Code topics that will be included are Envelope and Building Science, HVAC and Indoor Air Quality, and Mechanical Provisions. If you are interested, you can register for these sessions here.

Introducing our new Advocacy Fellow:

By Grey Lee


I'm Maria Vietz, the new Advocacy Fellow at the USGBC MA Chapter. I'm excited to meet and collaborate with all of you over the next few months, to boost USGBC's advocacy capacity, increase Chapter involvement, and spread awareness of our target issues to stakeholders.

A bit about me: I'm originally from Scranton, PA (Yes, the hometown of “The Office.” No, I haven't met Steve Carell). This May, I graduated from Boston University's Pardee School with a Masters in International Affairs & Political Economy. At BU, I assisted in teaching a few environmental courses for undergrads, and worked with some of my classmates to host an intercollegiate graduate conference.

Before grad school, I went to the University of Pittsburgh to get my B.Phil. in International Relations, with a focus on Sustainable Development. While at Pitt, I had the amazing opportunity to comparatively study sustainability in Argentina, the Czech Republic, and China. Being exposed to environmental and energy policies across the globe solidified my interest in advancing sustainability, and contextualized a lot of US environmental issues.

I'm planning to use my degrees to address global development issues–of which environmental policy and energy use are, of course, vital components. From both my academic research and professional experience, I've found that one of the most effective–but underutilized–ways of advancing development is through more collaboration between the public and private sectors. 

The USGBC is especially remarkable to me because it functions so effectively right at that intersection of the public and private spheres. This framework seems highly translatable for making progress on other development goals, so I'm really looking forward to learning how the USGBC is able to make such great strides promoting green buildings. I hope my background in policy and our shared passion for sustainable development will make the next few months fun and productive.

Hoping to meet many of you next Thursday at the Showcase!

GRESB 2015 Results Presentation at EnerNOC

By Grey Lee

The power of data:

The Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) was created in 2009 by a team of economists and statisticians from the Netherlands. Co-founded by Nils Kok at the University of Maastricht, GRESB was developed as a way for asset managers to more complexly assess real estate assets to uncover greater territories of value for owners.

GRESB is a process – not a certification, not an analysis, but a process of assessment which enables the multi-faceted aspects of property to be tracked over time in greater detail than has ever been done before. Through the GRESB process, an asset is rated in a new way, and the management entity is evaluated in a new way, which creates new data about the underlying asset. With this data, and with the identification of component processes, asset managers can see into real estate and how non-financial aspects affect their financial performance.

 


Yesterday evening, EnerNOC hosted a discussion and networking event with Boston commercial real estate developers and investors, featuring a presentation and conversation centering around GRESB (Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark) data. GRESB is committed to assessing the sustainability performance of real-estate portfolios around the globe. This useful tool encourages better management, more action and improving outcomes.


COO Chris Pyke presented recent survey data, highlighting global trends and explaining their impact on investors, GRESB survey participants, and the green building market. The 707 Participants–whose institutional capital represents $2.3 trillion of property value–have made many great strides in sustainability since 2014. The in-depth survey focuses on 7 thematic targets. This survey impressively revealed an average improvement from GRESB participants in each category:

Management: 96% have a specific person with responsibility for implementing sustainability objectives
Disclosure & Assurance: 92% report having specific sustainability objectives
Tenant & Community Engagement: 60% now have best-practice lease clauses 
Health and Well-Being: 84% increase in new construction measures to support health and well-being
Climate Risk & Resilience: -3.04% reduction in GHG emissions
Water & Waste: -1.65% decrease in water use
Energy: -2.87% reduction in energy consumption



Of the 155 North American participants in this globally diversified survey, the highest-ranking REIT on the East Coast was Boston Properties, which was represented in the event Q&A by Amy Gindel, SVP of Finance & Planning, and Ben Myers, Sustainability Manager and USGBC Board member. Dan Winters, Head of N. America for GRESB, asked panelists to elaborate on the value of GRESB data for Boston Properties' sustainability goals. They emphasized the importance of a comprehensive plan initiated from the top-level management. Jon Hartnett, EnerNOC's Commercial Real Estate Team Lead, detailed how the EnerNOC – Boston Properties' partnership helped developers and engineers immediately realize the impact of their efforts.


In summary: GRESB data provides participants and investors with evidence-based, actionable targets to increase real estate asset values. Check out www.gresb.com for more information, and to download the full 2015 report.

Thank you to Dan Winters and Chris Pyke for coming up from Washington DC to present, and to Lisa Park and the team at EnerNOC for hosting this great event!




On the cutting edge: Suffolk Construction

By Allison Maynard, Communications Associate


The leaders in the sustainability field who comprise our chapter continue to excite and amaze us with the new strides they make in their work. Their ingenuity and tireless commitment to sustainability are what make our chapter such a wonderful community of professionals. Suffolk Construction is transforming the construction industry by building smart.

Over the last few years they have transformed themselves from a successful building construction management firm into an innovative, forward-thinking organization that has big ambitions—to change the construction industry as we know it. In fact, Suffolk’s vision is to transform the construction experience by building smart. To achieve this ambitious goal, they are committed to three corporate strategies: 1) Advance the power of innovation to provide answers; 2) Empower their people to create high-performing teams; and 3) Engage in the community to make a difference. At Suffolk they also understand that there are misconceptions about “being green”. Green is not just recycling, it’s not just climate change, and it’s not just LEED building. These are all components of sustainability, but they don’t tell the whole story. Ideally, sustainability is the convergence of consumer, business and environmental value.

We are also happy to have Suffolk as a Gold Sponsor for our Green Building Showcase and Awards next week!

Check out some of the sustainable projects they have created:

Adobe Systems, Inc. – Overlook Center, Waltham, MA


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INOVA Fair Oaks Hospital Medical Office Building IV, Fairfax, VA


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Palm Avenue, Sarasota, FL


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green Associate Exam Preparation Course

By Allison Maynard, Communications Associate


In just a few weeks our Chapter will be hosting a LEED Green Associate Training Course here in our Boston office. The Course is designed to review the majority of the information which will be covered in the LEED Green Associate Exam. It's a full day course which lasts from 8:30-5:30, which is ideal for commuters and busy professionals who wish to finish the training within one day.

The topics that will be covered include Location and Transportation / Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency / Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality, Innovation / Regional Priority / Certification Process, and a period of exam format review and sample exam questions. These topics will cover the scope of the information on the exam.

Our instructor for this session is Steven Burke, a Sustainability Coordinator at SMMA, an integrated multi-disciplinary design and engineering firm. He is responsible for acting as a resource for all those in his firm that need LEED assistance, thereby guiding the LEED process for SMMA’s MEP/FP, Commissioning, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Interiors, and Specifications disciplines. Steven has also delivered presentations covering the changes from LEED v3 to LEED v4 and conducted LEED v4 feasibility studies for his firm’s clients. We're looking forward to working with him as an instructor!

To register for the course, visit our event page.

 

 

In The Spotlight: Evan Solomonides and his Game Changing, Effective, & Less Expensive Bioplastic

By Jessie Miller

By Jessie Miller 9/22/15


I am a member of the Outreach Committee of the USGBC MA Chapter and we strive to highlight great people who are doing great work in the green building community and beyond. This month, I had the pleasure of meeting with Evan Solomonides. Evan is not your average brilliant freshman starting at Cornell this year (majoring in astrophysics and minoring in mathematics). He is also focused on sharing his innovative bioplastic with the world and taking the insulation industry by storm.

Evan is looking for a company to partner with and take his product to market. His thirty second elevator pitch is: “through this process which I developed, you can produce a plastic that can be processed into an insulation that is virtually as effective as the leading synthetic insulations but is cheaper, completely environmentally friendly, organic, non flammable, non toxic, environmentally safe in every way and for a greatly reduced cost.” The bioplastic concept originated during his junior year at Mass Academy of Math and Science in his STEM class project. With the class’ support, he zeroed in on his interest in material science: “the idea of taking raw materials and making an entirely new substance that has never existed before [is] so cool to me.” During this time, Evan read an article in Scientific American “about bio plastics [as well as] how horrible regular plastics are for the environment…how they are all toxic and petroleum based and they are horrifically inefficient to produce.” At the end of the day, he found his inspiration in bioplastics: “There is no reason there can’t be something better.”

After months of “messing around with compounds that could serve as bonding agents [and] plasticizers” he focused his efforts on using cheap, plentiful, and effective ingredients. After one night of leaving a pot filled with ingredients on the stove for too long, he realized that he had stumbled on a new type of bioplastic: “the thing that is special about it is that its so dirt cheap and thermally resistive” and eventually realized that he could “use it as an insulation.” He recognizes that bioplastics typically have a bad reputation since they are considered not as effective as typical insulative materials and are more expensive. Despite the bad rep, he asserts that his product  “is as effective [and] it’s less expensive.” Others agree with Evan. He has competed his product and recently won third and the BioGENEius Award at the Mass State Science Engineering Fair (MSSEF), as well as a Naval Science Research Award: “that went super well.” However, this win did not come without significant hurtles. Last year his efforts were brought to a standstill after a serious car accident that entered him into a coma for a month last year. He missed the MSSEF during his junior year and doctors suggested he not overstrain himself. However 

Evan was quickly back on his feet, continued to develop his product and made it into an award-winning, insulative bioplastic. Evan took his product once step further by engaging the outside world. He connected with a professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute whom Evan had interned with in the past and worked with him to find “the exact thermal conductivity” of the bioplastic. He also leveraged his connections at Mass Academy and who introduced him to contacts in the plastics industry and in turn, these contacts helped him to develop his project for the MSSEF. In addition to networking, he reached out to multiple law firms to help obtain a provisional patent for his product. 

At the end of the day, Evan wants to work with a company that can take his product to market: “I’ve put a lot of work into this thing and I want to see it used.” Evan also recognizes the effective and inexpensive benefits of his product could translate well in developing countries, like insulating hospitals in the developing world with local starches. 

Evan’s story is one of perseverance, resiliency, ambition and humility. He’s not afraid to work hard, make mistakes and change course to maximize his product’s potential impact in this world. Evan’s determination to take his product to market with the help of an interested company is both contagious and inspiring.

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Interest, questions, comments about Evan’s work, please email outreach@usgbcma.org

If you know of someone who should be featured like Evan, please email outreach@usgbcma.org

WELL Building Standard Webinar

By Allison Maynard, Communications Associate


Join us at SMMA's Cambridge office for an in-person webinar focused on introducing the WELL Building Standard. The WELL Building Standard® (WELL) is the world’s first building standard focused exclusively on human health and wellness. It marries best practices in design and construction with evidence-based medical and scientific research – harnessing the built environment as a vehicle to support human health and wellbeing. This webinar will provide an overview of the WELL Building Standard ideology, structure, and certification process. The medical basis for the concept categories is introduced along with design and construction strategies to create healthy buildings.

The objectives for the webinar are to:

  • Articulate the financial, societal, and environmental benefits of WELL certification
  • Identify the role of the International Well Building Institute and the WELL Building Standard
  • Recognize the structure of the WELL Building Standard
  • Explain the 7 concepts of the WELL Building standard, the strategies to achieve them, and the health impacts they address
  • Summarize the certification process of the WELL Building Standard

Register here!

 

 

On the cutting edge: National Grid

By Allison Maynard, Communications Associate


Our chapter is comprised of many of the best leaders in the sustainability field and we are always excited to see what new strides they have made in their work. Their ingenuity and tireless commitment to sustainability are what make our chapter such a wonderful community of professionals. National Grid is an international electricity and gas company and one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the world. They play a vital role in providing energy to millions of customers across the northeastern U.S. and Great Britain in an efficient, reliable, and safe manner. At National Grid, Doing the Right Thing underpins everything they do, and they have been recognised for the fifth year as one of the world's most ethical companies.

Doing the Right Thing is essentially their 'code of conduct' and it sets out how they do things at National Grid and offers guidelines for ethical compliance in important policy areas. It applies to all employees from the Board down and defines the values that underpin their everyday decisions. It provides guidance for dealing with different situations that they may face from time to time. They believe that ethical business behavior depends on all of us accepting our responsibility for upholding the highest standards of behaviour and decision-making.The World’s Most Ethical (WME) Companies designation recognises companies that truly go beyond making statements about doing business “ethically” and translate those words into action. WME honorees not only promote ethical business standards and practices internally, they exceed legal compliance minimums and shape future industry standards by introducing best practices today. 

Steve Holliday, CEO of National Grid since 2007 had some interesting perspectives on the future of the energy industry recently. “This industry is going through a tremendous transformation. We used to have a pretty good idea of what future needs would be. We would build assets that would last decades and that would be sure to cover those needs. That world has ended. Our strategy is now centered around agility and flexibility, based on our inability to predict or prescribe what our customers are going to want.” The assertion that we can no longer predict how energy usage will change, and moving from a one size fits all approach to a more consumer-focused unique approach, is certainly an interesting idea. Flexibility and agility would surely be key if this were true. Holliday cites certain worldwide trends that would suggest this change, including a movement towards distributed energy production and microgrids.

The rate of change of the energy industry has also caught many by surprise. Holliday states that “the amount of solar being added to the system is incredible. 1500 MW in the first three months of this year. That’s the capacity of two power stations. I made a comment to the Energy Minister four years ago that there was little probability we would have 20,000 MW of solar in the UK. Now three of our scenarios have more than 20,000 MW of solar by 2035.”

We look forward to seeing how these predictions will affect our Massachusetts energy industry. Check out the full article here.
 

Join us at the Green Breakfast: Transportation with Carrie Havey and Alyson Fletcher

By Celis Brisbin, Programs Manager

event_GB_transportation

Come join us for a discussion on Location and Transportation as it relates to the LEED system. We will be hearing a short presentation whch will be folloed by a group discussion. Breakfast will be provided. This is a great networking opportunity as well as a way to dig into subject matter through a discussion. 

REGISTER HERE

Time:

September 23rd, 2015 8:30 AM   through   9:30 AM

Location:

50 Milk St, 17th Floor
Hercules Conference Room

 

 

 

 

 

This session will discuss the elements that make up a comprehensive multimodal transit system and how to integrate sustainable transit into a LEED project. To begin, Carrie Havey will take an in-depth look at the LEED v4 Location and Transportation (LT) credits. She will start with an overview of this new credit category and then take a closer look at some of the credits and how to achieve them. Discussion will include: credit options, cost implications, and tips for documenting credits. In the second half of this session, Alyson Fletcher will discuss designing communities that balance the needs of those who walk, bike, take transit and drive. Concepts such as complete streets, sustainable parking policies and best practices, downtown and regional mobility, transit-oriented development, and transportation demand management will be discussed.

Carrie Havey, LEED AP BD+C Project Manager at The Green Engineer, Inc.

Carrie Havey is a Project Manager with The Green Engineer, Inc. and has over fourteen years of experience in the fields of planning, landscape architecture, and sustainable design. As a project manager, she works with development and design teams from the visioning stage through construction completion, managing the LEED certification process and providing sustainable design guidance. Carrie is on the USGBC Massachusetts Board of Directors, is a member of the Collaborative for High Performance Schools Operations and Metrics Subcommittee, and is a member of the USGBC Location and Transportation Technical Advisory Group.

Alyson Fletcher Associate at NelsonNygaard

With a background in landscape architecture and architecture, Alyson brings an interdisciplinary approach to transportation planning. She has specific expertise in multimodal, parking, and transportation demand projects as well as drafting designs for improved intersections and streetscape facilities. Before joining NelsonNygaard as a transportation planner, Alyson was an intern on the Neighborhood Bikeways Campaign at the Active Transportation Alliance in Chicago and a Public Landscape Design and Management Intern at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society in Philadelphia.

GRESB Networking Night Tomorrow

By Allison Maynard, Communications Associate


Tomorrow night join us, USGBC National, and EnerNOC to learn about the next level of green building market transformation. 

Our friends at EnerNOC are excited to take us on a tour with presenters from GRESB international headquarters. 

The 2015 survey results are out and we want to invite you to join us and our friends at GRESB to review the results together at EnerNOC’s upcoming networking night on September 22nd. Complimentary drinks and appetizers will be served!

Where: EnerNOC Headquarters – 1 Marina Park Drive, Boston, MA

Agenda:

5:15 pm – 6:00 pm   Networking, Drinks, and Appetizers

6:00 pm – 6:10 pm  Opening remarks, EnerNOC

6:10 pm – 6:40 pm  2015 GRESB Results and Q&A , Chris Pyke, COO, GRESB

6:40 pm – 7:00 pm  Conversation with Boston Properties

·         Dan Winters, Head of North America, GRESB

·         Amy Gindel, SVP Finance & Planning, Boston Properties

·         Ben Myers, Sustainability Manager, Boston Properties

·         Jon Hartnett, Commercial Real Estate Team Lead, EnerNOC

7:00 pm – 8:00 pm – Drinks, Reception, and Networking

 

To join, please register on their website!