And now for some good news…..

By Kevin Dufour, Chapter Member & LEED AP O+M, Environmental Scientist for Viridis Advisors

By Kevin Dufour, Chapter Member; LEED AP O+M

 

 

As an environmental scientist and sustainability consultant, I try to stay current with the latest research about our environment and particularly in climate change.  Often times the flow of information is relentless and sometimes downright depressing.  Constantly hearing such stories as how the California drought and Australian Heatwave have been definitively linked to to climate change or that birds ranges have been pushed further toward the poles and that many species may face future extinction can eventually get you down.  Why even the mangroves, that iconic symbol of the tropics, have been relentlessly marching away from the equator due to warmer winters.  It can be hard not to devolve into pessimism.  

A Reason for Hope.

However, I recently had an enjoyable and encouraging conversation about climate change.  The information was correct, current, and even nuanced.  My partner in conversation knew about ocean acidification, the natural drivers of climate change, attempts at mitigation and resiliency, feedback loops, and the basic principles of atmospheric science.  He was ten years old.  If he is that knowledgeable, then perhaps others in his generation are also so informed.  This is a cause for optimism indeed.  I thought that I should share some positive stories and that such would help those of us in the vanguard of the green movement carry forward.  Perhaps such items would help keep the wolves of despair at bay for a while longer.

 

Positive Efforts

 
There have been several news stories that have focused on the potentially positive efforts.  These include stories of technological innovation and political will.  I was particularly encouraged by the development of floating solar panels.  What a great idea!  This helps solve the issue of devoting so much productive land to solar power generation.  The panels can be deployed on reservoirs, industrial/agricultural lagoons, even at sea.  Obviously care must be taken to not disrupt the ecosystems with the shade these will create, but it can turn non-productive water areas into electrical generators.
 

Greener Ag.

 
The second area of innovation that i believe may hold much promise is in the area of agriculture.  Agriculture is often vilified due to its impact on erosion, chemical run-off, and the detrimental effects of monoculture cropping.  Major advances have been made that go a long way to minimizing those impacts.  A consortium of companies and governments has launched the climate smart agriculture initiative.  This seeks to use technological and agronomic practices to both work with a changing climate and to mitigate its impact as much as possible.  It will be vital to continue to produce food, in as a sustainable manner as possible, to feed the world, despite the increasing pressures climate change will present.  There are critics and such a program would need to monitored, but its about spreading best practices around the world, increasing yields, and reducing or eliminating environmental impacts.  All ideas must be on the table and this is a good start. 
 
The precision agriculture movement works hand-in-hand with climate-smart agriculture by leveraging technology to minimize impacts and maximize productivity.  At first glance this seems like science fiction, but it is real and it is being used today.  Precision agriculture involves the use of advanced sensors to detect drought stress and pest pressure on crops.  It uses guided applications of nutrients, pesticides, and water to alleviate those issues.  Rather than using a crop duster to bombard a field or broadcasting fertilizer where it may not be needed, the applications are targeted to the individual plant in need.  Water is only applied exactly where needed and in a manner to minimize evaporation.  The end result is greater productivity, less costs, and far less impacts than current practices.  As I mentioned before, this is being done now.  The higher yields and lower use of nutrients and chemicals reduces cost to such an extent that the return on investment can be as little as 2-3 years.  No matter how you slice it, that is good news.
 

China, Business, and Citizens stepping up.

Another area of positive movement is world wide acceptance of the challenges we face.  That has become evident in the burgeoning environmental awakening that is taking place in China.  Make no mistake about it, China is a mess and will continue to be a mess for a long time.  With that, they are making dramatic strides in a developing environmental protection system.  They have begun instituting trial cap and trade systems and plan to have banned all coal burning in Beijing by 2020 as well as placing limits on coal burning power plants.  The most transformational of all has been their establishment of a system that allows for public interest lawsuits as a means of driving environmental change.  Even if they are harvesting the “low hanging fruit”, China is making substantial gains and putting the US to shame.
 
While I have been disappointed by the United States' congressional lack of leadership on climate change, I have been heartened by the actions of its citizens.  A huge crowd gathered in NYC to march for climate action.  Just a couple of days earlier, Gov. Christie – who pulled New Jersey from the Regional Green House Gas Initiative – was in NYC to speak before a donor convention for the climate change while denying that the Koch brothers backed Americans for Prosperity super PAC. I guess its two steps forward and one step back.  Students have taken the lead in advocating for college endowments to divest themselves of carbon intensive investments.  This strategy is not just ethical investing from the days of combating apartheid, but it also makes simple economic sense.  If in order to meet the 2 degrees C climate benchmark, we must leave large amounts of oil, gas, and coal in the ground – do these proven reserves have any value?  Even the Rockefellers, of Standard Oil fame and fortune, have announced plans to divest up to 50 Billion from fossil fuels including tar sands. 
 
The Rockefeller Fund is not the only corporate citizen pushing for action on climate change.  Many corporate citizens have stepped to the plate.  You can argue whether or not it is ethics or profits that drive this new found idealism, but I care not because the end result is the same.  GoogleMicrosoft and even News Corp. have announced plans to withdraw all funding and support from the climate change denial bill mill of the American Legislative Exchange Council.  A sure sign that corporate citizens are viewing climate change as a risk to their bottom line is the alliance between Henry Paulson, Michael Bloomberg, and Tom Steyer.  This project, funded by heavy hitters from all sides of the political spectrum, illustrates how climate change can, if thoughtfully addressed, cross all political boundaries.  The Risky Business project “focuses on quantifying and publicizing the economic risks from the impacts of climate change.”  In my mind, it's the action that matters more than the motivation.  I don't care if climate change is addressed to preserve corporate profit and minimize risk or if it is being done to save the world, so long as action is taken.
 

Positive Results.

We are starting to see some positive outcomes from actions that have already been taken.  This past year, 2014, is the first year that we have not recorded a single exceedence of the Ozone standard (Smog) in Massachusetts.
In fact, air quality all over Massachusetts and the United States has been getting steadily better and better.  This is a clear testament to the impact that forward-thinking governmental policies can achieve when driven by an educated and motivated populace.  The image below and the fantastic animation at this link shows the reduction in air pollution over the last several years as imaged from a NASA satellite.
Finally, the antarctic ozone hole has been healing itself.  Ever since the Montreal Protocol banned chlorofluorocarbons and other stratospheric ozone depleting chemicals, the earths atmosphere has been steadily healing.  This again is illustrative of the fact that concerted collective action can effect great change.
 
Even the Economist has pointed out that the greatest advances in climate change have come from large governmental action including treaties, energy standards, efficiency, and even building codes.  Progress is happening and its happening in unlikely places and with unlikely partnerships.  And hey, even the Economist is covering climate change and that's a reason to be hopeful!

Kevin Dufour is an Environmental Scientist with Viridis Advisors. He collaborates with Tom Irwin on creating greener greenscapes. The opinions expressed by member bloggers are their own and not necessarily those of the USGBC Massachusetts Chapter.

 

 

Recognizing Sponsoring Partner: Simpson Gumpertz & Heger

By Grey Lee

About Simpson Gumpertz & Heger


Simpson Gumpertz & Heger (SGH) is a national engineering firm that designs, investigates, and rehabilitates structures and building enclosures.  Our award-winning work encompasses building, transportation, nuclear, water/wastewater, and science/defense projects throughout the United States and in more than 30 other countries. 

SGH Employees are star volunteers with the Chapter:

  • Mark Webster has supported our outreach and cultivation of nodes of green building market transformation throughout the state on our Regional and State-wide Advocacy Committee. “RASOC” has enabled groups to come together in western MA, Worcester County, and on Cape Cod.  Mark also is part of our Building Science working group.
  • David Bliss, another engineer at SGH, has been instrumental with our Advocacy Committee and created our Voters Guide this year to provide stakeholders insight into how to grill candidates on our issues – what and how will they support our mission of green buildings for all within a generation.  David is also supporting our website redesign with attention to our graphics and mapped representations of green buildings and green building activity.
Thank you to SGH for being a valued and hard-working supporting Sponsoring Partner with the USGBC MA Chapter!

In Memorium of a Green Building Champion: Mayor Tom Menino

By John Dalzell, USGBC National Board of Directors & Boston Redevelopment Authority

by John Dalzell, Boston Redevelopment Authority; USGBC National Board of Directors
 
Remembering Mayor Thomas M. Menino
 
Before LEED and USGBC became a globe movement, Mayor Menino set Boston on a path to lead the nation in green building.  From the 2007 first-in-the-nation green building zoning requiring large scale projects to meet LEED certification to promoting green affordable housing, greening municipal buildings as well as operations, Mayor Menino transformed practices and the local market place; from hosting the 2008 GreenBuild Conference, which brought 28,000 sustainability leaders to Boston, to partnering with the Center for Green Schools to place a sustainability Fellow within the Boston Public School system, the Mayor brought green building to every citizen and student.
 
Today, Boston is home to over 150 LEED Certified Projects spanning almost 40 million square feet of building space and including the first ever E+ (energy positive) LEED Platinum homes.  In the process, Mayor Menino taught us “it's not just about the buildings themselves – its about the people inside.”  Although Mayor Menino's leadership will be missed, his inspiration will carry us forward.
 
Below: at the LEED ceremony for Atlantic Wharf, Boston's first LEED Platinum Skyscraper
 
Photo source: NECN.com

“Living With Water” Design Competition Launch at ABX in Boston

By Grey Lee

Boston's Mayor Marty Walsh kicked off a new design competition today at ABX – the Boston Society of Architects' (BSA) annual convention at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. 

“Boston Living with Water” will draw on the collective talent of architects and planners globally to explore how rising sea level can be an opportunity rather than a threat to Boston.  Three types of scenarios are in the contest: mid-size multifamily building on the waterfront, a vacant lot area in the Seaport, and Morrissey Boulevard on the Dorchester waterfront which already floods regularly. 

More info on the contest is here.
 

 
 

Hundreds of people attended to hear the announcement, which also included remarks by Chief of Environment for the City Brian Swett describing a leadership summit on climate resilience to be hosted at UMass Boston in the spring.

The Mayor was joined by City Manager Rossi of Cambridge, Manager Ash of Chelsea and Executive Director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission Marc Draisen to announce a new regional effort to help prepare Boston and the metropolitan area for the impacts of climate change. 

Also in attendance (below) were the leaders of the BSA Eric Wilson (Executive Director) and Emily Grandstaff-Rice (current President of the BSA) among other state and local officials.
 

Chapter all-stars included Phoebe Beierle (Boston Public Schools), John Dalzell (Boston Redevelopment Authority), [Grey Lee], and Brian Swett (City of Boston).
 

 

From Devastation to Restoration – a tour of Mississippi's “Katrina Coast”

By Grey Lee

As Greenbuild draws to a close, the local Louisiana Chapter of USGBC hosted a few tours of their city and state so attendees could see more of the situation of green buildings in the area.  Folks could check out the Make It Right projects in the Lower Ninth Ward green buildings at Tulane, the Broadmoor neighborhood and other locations throughout New Orleans.

The Mississippi Chapter provided a big tour out into their gulf coast areas affected by Katrina and other weather events. I joined this tour to see a school, a fire house, a community center and some homes that have been re-built to FEMA 361 standards (seriously heavy-duty) and are helping the communities recover and become more resilient.

We got on the bus at 8am on Saturday to head east. First we took a little tour of the Pearl River to see some of the local fishing communities. And some alligators.
 

 Then into Hancock County, Mississippi to see the new LEED-certified elementary school.
 

 The kids are very happy to be in a LEED building, and learning about sustainability every day.

 Their cafeteria was built to be an emergency shelter in the event of a major hurricane or tornado situation.  The glass is half an inch thick and the roof can withstand a direct hit from an oil barrel full of concrete.
 

We went on to see the new firehouse at Bay St. Louis on the coast.  This was also built to FEMA 361 standards for rigor in the event of a major storm – wind and/or flooding event.  We did not get to try the firepole.
 

 
The apparatus bays (the garage) and the facility have features to improve the safety of the first responders and create a secure location to manage disaster intervention communications.  One interesting note was that about half the firefighters have the last name “Farve”.  Yes, we are near a famous quarterback's hometown and these are all his relatives.
 
 
Here I am next to Shannon Stage, my friend and colleague who is the executive director for the Lousiana Chapter of the USGBC.
 
 
The last stop of the day was also in Bay St. Louis where a drainage ditch (similar to below) near the old coastal train tracks (which are actually still in use) has been re-designed into a community asset – a beautiful pond.
 

Nowadays, the area has become a major local attraction – there are ducks & geese and plenty of benches to observe.  It was a great installation.  Notice the cypress trees right there in the water! 
 

 

It was a great day of touring some wonderful and hopeful places.  I hope I can visit again sometime and maybe spend some time on the beautiful Gulf Coast Beaches we saw!
 

Greenbuild General Report

By Grey Lee

Greenbuild 2014 in New Orleans was a very positive experience for our community.  Once again, we gathered as a professional force to address how the built environment can be improved for greater social benefit.  Hundreds of educational sessions explored the technical, financial, regulatory, and even philosophical aspects of green buildings and sustainability in communities.
 
New Orleans and surrounding communities in the Gulf Coast were prime examples of how green building know-how can help communities.  Especially important this year was the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Summit, which highlighted the work happening in New Orleans.  We heard from the Make It Right foundation – Brad Pitt's organization responding to post-Katrina community challenges with LEED Platinum homes.  Also, the Broadmoor community re-created itself after utter destruction with an “education axis” and from I-SEEED of Oakland, CA about using community knowledge to solve design challenges.
 
Dozens of Massachusetts Chapter colleagues were able to attend this year – a few made it to the group photo shot on Thursday. A great group of folks!
 
 
 
One of the engaging topics during the week was the “Chapters Evolution” discussion on Wednesday.  The USGBC Chapters Staff and the volunteer Chapters Steering Committee is looking at how to evolve the 75-Chapter network to become a stronger organization and more effective body of advocates for market transformation.  Over the past couple of years, many of the chapters have been losing members and declining in financial health, while a few large chapters based in large cities like New York, San Francisco and others have been growing into very effective entities in the network.
 
The Massachusetts Chapter has been growing significantly over the past few years and the Boston-based real estate market is a strong host for our high-performance green building industry.  It seems that USGBC wants to support a stronger grassroots network with a more focused and repeated advocacy voice and to improve efficiencies across the Chapters.  Our Board of Directors and I are monitoring the situation to understand what the USGBC is aiming at and how we can be a leader in whatever “evolution” of the Chapters network turns out to mean.  
 
 
Meanwhile, members of the Chapter continued to hustle from one session to the next.  Here we bumped into Kevin Bright, formerly part of the Chapter having worked at Harvard University and now Sustainability Coordinator at Colby College.  Board Chair member Jim Newman, myself, and Darien Crimmin (also a member), of Winn Development are also in the foreground. 
 
But who is that in the background?  Is that really…of all the 23,000 people who could have been walking by?  Amazingly, I think LEED Fellow and chapter member Leo Roy of VHB seems to have photobombed this pic.  Hey Leo!  Great to see you!
 
 
Some of the sessions were more esoteric – here we see Mike Schiller, ED of the Pittsburg Urban Green Alliance, hosting the “Storytelling” session where we heard from half a dozen folks to help us see how to present your history and your vocation as a story to engage with your listeners for longer lasting and stronger impressions.
 

On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Chapter held a get-together at “The Warehouse” pub on the way to the main Opening Celebration at the Superdome.  We were able to play a few rounds of “corn hole” before heading to the big show.
 

At the Superdome, we heard a great talk with Paul Hawken (pictured) and other notables.  It was a little slow, but being in the Superdome was entertaining in its own right.
 

Soon enough, the party got going and we heard from Trombone Shorty and then The Alabama Shakes (below) – it was some fine and strong music!
 

I bumped into New York Upstate Chapter Tracie Hall and USGBC Advocacy Coordinator Jeremy Sigmon (among others) while listening to the show.
 

On Thursday evening, I stopped at the major donors party and heard from David Gottfried (below) who spoke about engaging with our passion and staying balanced while we pursue our mission.  He is always a powerful communicator with a heartfelt message.
 

The Closing Plenary provided us with the opportunity to hear from David Brooks, who had a very important gift for us.  He explored the moral imperative of our work and how buildings can be moral instruments.  Each building and community we work on has a message to its users and its surroundings.  We have an important role to ensure that the moral power of the buildings is expressed for the benefit of the most people and especially to the people of the future.  I very much enjoyed his presentation, as did the large crowd.
 

All in all, Greenbuild continued to prove that it is a tremendous way to re-charge and rejuvenate for our work.  The plenaries, the educational sessions, the exhibition hall with the hundreds of presenters and mini-shows, and of course, all the product samples was an absolutely impressive feast for every green building professional. I think we can all look forward to going again – and in 2015, Washington DC will host the event.  I'm sure we can rally a really large crew from Massachusetts to head down there to pick up even more knowledge and stronger connections. See you then!
 

Massachusetts Ranked as the Most Energy Efficient State!

By Grey Lee

On October 21st, 2014, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) released their annual State Energy Efficiency Scorecard and ranked Massachusetts #1 for the 4th year in a row.

Way to go Massachusetts! Be sure to check out the press release and report.
 

Methodology
“The State Energy Efficiency Scorecard benchmarks states across six policy areas – utility policies and programs, transportation initiatives, building energy codes, combined heat and power development, state government-led initiatives, and state-level appliance standards. In total, states are scored on more than 30 individual metrics. Data is collected from publicly available sources and vetted by state energy offices and public utility commissions.”

 

Greenbuild: Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Summit

By Grey Lee

Today at Greenbuild, USGBC hosted the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Summit for 2014.  Above is Anisa Baldwin Metzger, the first Green Schools Fellow from the USGBC in New Orleans, who provided guidance to the Recovery School District to implement green schools in the rebuilding effort after Katrina.  She provided an introduction to the dire situation in New Orleans, which while being dramatic, is not unheard of in our country.  She showed how green schools show kids and communities that they matter, that they are important and that they have the potential to do great things.

The summit was an amazing gathering of incredible speakers and advocates for sustainability for the places that matter – our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our schools and where we recreate & socialize.  Kimberly Lewis, USGBC SVP for Community Advancement, outlined the day and gave us a pep talk on how the Chapters can connect on this important dimension of our work – enabling greater sustainability in our communities.
 

 

The best speaker from my perspective was Dr. Antwi Akom of I-SEEED, who has created the Streetwize app to help people crowdsource data about the places they live and frequent.  It is like a yelp for neighborhood features.  His presentation was on the power of Place – how place determines a lot of your chances in life and how community-driven tech powers smart cities of the future.
 

One of his major points is that he can tell, due to statistics, what's going to happen to a kid born and living in his neighborhood in Oakland, California.  The zip code of a young person is the defining indicator of health, wealth and success in life – if you're from certain place, you have certain chances in life – likewise for people from privileged places. 

Not just chances for social mobility, but also for receiving the benefit of government services.  And not just typical things like policing and fire protection, but also investment in civic infrastructure for learning, parks & recreation, and for environmental health.  If you are in certain zip codes, you are missing out.  This is all related to race and ethnicity; thus, we are living in an eco-apartheid situation.

 

He described the cumulative causation of climate injustice and the way the design community creates for the 1% – but we need to create and design our communities for the 100%!  Climate destabilization is one crisis – but the other crisis is of the human imagination, public participation, diversity of democratization and the collapse of our civic infrastructure!

He says it best here at a Greenbuild video.
 

 
We also heard from New Orleans City Council LaToya Cantrell, who was one of the community leaders of the neighborhood Broadmoor, which was one of the sections of the city hit hardest by Katrina.  Months after the disaster in 2006, New Orleans planners developed a map of the city to indicate where some neighborhoods would not “come back” – and would be reborn as urban parks.  Well, the people of Broadmoor didn't quite jibe with that and built a program of outreach and engagement to repopulate, repurpose, and rebuild their community with an “educational axis” and improved amenities.  They are still working hard to recover, but their library and school are important community assets and they are an example of community organizing at its best.  LaToya was truly inspirational!

 

 

Boston Latin School Highlights Air Pollution for Green Apple Day of Service

By Grey Lee

 

Last year, four students and a teacher attended the Beijing International Science Competition simply for observing purposes.  This year we would like to submit a science project and attend once again.  Our goal is to create a biodegradable mask that will support better health for Chinese citizens.  We want to create awareness concerning natural gas power plants and their contribution to air pollution.
 
Boston Latin School's Green Apple Day of Service kicked off by bringing air pollution awareness to our school community.  40 students and teachers from all grade levels participated by decorating biodegradable cotton bandanas that will be worn during school to promote the growing degradation of air quality in China.  While they were decorating the bandanas, we told them about our project creating biodegradable air pollution masks with seeds in them.  They were very impressed.

The cotton material was originally in a large sheet, which was cut into 15 squares.  We had a variety of scissors for people to use, with curves and zigzag shapes on the blade.  Everybody came in right after school to Mr. Smiths room.  They sat down or stood around the edge of the classroom as we explained what we were all about.  Once they started decorating the bandanas, we went around and decorated with them.  The decorated bandanas turned out very nicely, with designs ranging from drawings of smiley faces to drawings of nature and green apples.  The turnout was solid and people were enthusiastic, which we were very pleased with!

Overall, it was a great experience being able to teach these people about climate change awareness, specifically air pollution, that they may not have known much about otherwise.  It was fun being able to meet new people.  At the end of the day, we can all say that given the opportunity, we would definitely do something like this again next year!

 
BLS Students show off their bandanas
 

Wentworth Institute of Technology Taps into Local Water for Green Apple Day of Service

By Kaila Lee Gibbons

by Kaila Lee Gibbons

On a campus where facilities are rapidly evolving, it may be easy to overlook the new water bottle filling stations amidst the opening of a new residence hall and an updated nanotechnology lab.  With a generous grant from the USGBC MA Chapter and the support of the institution’s Sustainability Engagement Committee, the Green Team student club set out to highlight this fountain upgrade for our Green Apple Day of Service project.

The event, entitled Tapped, addressed the importance of local water resources and the reduction of plastic waste from bottled water.  A blind taste test comparing tap and bottled spring water was conducted to see if the Wentworth community could really tell the difference.  Joshua Das, an expert from the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority (MWRA), joined in to help educate students on tap water and the quality control it undergoes before reaching your faucet.

Tapped also featured a 1,200 pound plastic bale from Casella Resource Solutions to illustrate the amount of waste created by bottled water.  For every bale that reaches a recycling center, more than 2 of these monstrosities end up in a landfill, according statistics from the EPA. This spectacle drew attention to our event and helped spark conversations among the over 220 students, faculty, and staff who participated.

The results of the taste test determined that 53% preferred the taste of tap water, compared to 30% for bottled water!  Another 17% could not tell the difference.  Taste testers were rewarded with a reusable water bottle made of 100% recycled plastic and were directed to the new bottle filling stations.

For photos of Tapped and other Wentworth Green Team happenings, check us out on Facebook: