USGBC MA Sponsored MED|Ed Session T18: Living Building Challenge on your Campus

By USGBC MA


For the upcoming Fourth Annual MED|Ed Facilities Conference and Expo in Boston, the USGBC Massachusetts Chapter will be sponsoring a number of sessions during the event's two days. The first session is T18: Living Building Challenge on your Campus, as taught by Shawn Hesse, USGBC Chapter Board member and architect at emersion DESIGN.

More info:

The Living Building Challenge is the built environment's most rigorous performance standard. Participants will gain a basic understanding of the Living Building Challenge – a philosophy, advocacy tool and certification program that addresses development at all scales. To be certified, projects must meet a series of ambitious performance requirements, including Net Zero Energy, Waste and Water. Participants will learn to describe the key components of the program and discuss the rationale for restorative design principles.

Tuesday, April 4th, 8:00am

Learn more and register here.

Greenbuild 2017 Call for Tours Now Open

By USGBC


Green Building tours are one of Greenbuild's most popular and exciting features, providing the opportunity to explore green buildings ranging from government facilities to zoo exhibits. This year in Boston, Greenbuild tours will help attendees learn outside the convention center walls and will present the best of the area’s sustainable buildings and neighborhoods.

Tours are a critical means to expose conference attendees, as well as interested members of the general public, to the best examples of excellence in sustainability in our region, especially the most notable sites that demonstrate the greater metropolitan Boston area’s commitment to economic, social and environmental quality and innovation. Tours are also one of Greenbuild’s most popular and exciting features, providing the opportunity to explore green buildings in the greater Boston area. Off-site tours will be conducted in the days leading up to, and directly following, the conference (November 6, 10 & 11).

2017 Call for Tours
Green building tours are organized by Greenbuild's Host Committee, USGBC Massachusetts, who is currently seeking applications for 2017 tours. 

We are also seeing tour reviewers for these proposals. If interested in reviewing, please email tours@usgbcma.org for more information.

More information

 

Tour application (online form)

 

Here is a link to all the application questions, which you might want to review, prior to using the online form. It can be easier to consider all the questions and draft your response, and then proceed with the online form.

March 1st Morning Session – A LEED v4 Healthcare Saga

By Alexander Landa


This Session introduces integrative dynamics tools that green building stakeholders – owners, users, designers, builders – can use to strengthen collaborations and stimulate creativity.

Whether key stakeholders are focused on the design, delivery or operation of high-performance green buildings, a common theme is that there is need to navigate peer-to-peer relationships effectively and address situations with few single right answers.

Register here.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

  • Know how to set objectives, establish criteria and plan integrative processes to achieve effective project collaborations and advance LEEP IP aims.
  • Understand how common vocabulary helps to discover contrasting environmental, social and economic perspectives, identify stakeholder interests and support productive outcomes.
  • Activate self-awareness to recognize and manage personal emotional triggers that endanger or block integrative relationships.
  • Use collaboration-focused questions in the search for excellence in high-performance building design, delivery, and operations to produce healthy, enjoyable and inspiring green environments.


About the speaker: Peter Gorer is an architect, green building consultant, and mediator based in Somerville. He has undertaken complex building design and construction projects, both for public agencies and private design firms, and he has worked in the USA and internationally, in Asia and Europe. He understands green building professionals’ challenges through his own experiences. Peter regularly mediates cases in the Massachusetts Courts and he is a guest coach for MIT’s Conflict Management Training Program. He was a Co-chair of the Greenbuild 2011 International Forum Working Group, and Peter is a founding board member of the USGBC Massachusetts Chapter.

Want to Prepare for your LEED Green Associate Exam on a Saturday?

By Alexander Landa


We've been getting these requests for a while now – that you want to take a LEED Green Associate exam prep course on a weekend! We know it's difficult to break away on a Wednesday sometimes, so we hope that you'll join us on Saturday, March 4th and make further your career in sustainability. 

Register here.

The LEED exam prep course 

is a comprehensive course which will prepare attendees for the Green Associate and other specialty exams. The day-long curriculum is designed to cover the segments of the Green Associate Exam and to lightly cover the AP specialty exams. If you have specific questions regarding a specialty exam, feel free to bring these questions to class and have the instructor cover these identified areas.

Come join us for this session! We have only had positive feedback and success stories from previous classes.

About the Class

This is a fast-paced class for real estate professionals, architects, engineers, students and anyone else interested in green building practices and LEED. The majority of attendees have little previous knowledge of the LEED rating system, green building operations and green building construction. Upon completion of the class employees will be eligible to sit for the LEED Green Associate exam at a local testing center. Please note that the national office has lowered their student rate to 100 dollars, read more at usbgc.org. By passing the exam, employees will earn the LEED Green Associate credential. If interested in attending a LEED Green Associate Exam Prep class, please email celis@usgbcma.org, groups welcome.

 

Residential Green Building: 2/13/17

By Molly Cox and Mark Pignatelli

The Residential Green Building Committee met on February 13th, 2017. Although it was a smaller meeting, Kimberly reviewed some great upcoming USGBC events, and we had some exciting policy updates.  

Oren Richkin and Bill Womeldorf (members of the committee) have been doing some research around current legislative events including attending EEAC (Energy Efficiency Advisory Council), and they gave an overview of solar related news including the SREC (Solar Renewable Energy Certificate) program in MA. The DOER filed a change to the program in hopes of an extension and to keep incentives intact. The new SMART (Solar Massachusetts Renewable Energy Target) program is not expected to come online until January 2018 at the earliest (See HERE for the new tariff structure we can expect, which includes a declining block program). While we wait for SMART to kick off, the SREC II deadline has been extended to the beginning of January, 2018, but the compensation rate for the SREC will decrease from 80%, down to 70% of the SREC value. This extension gives solar customers assurance of compensation for new projects, and the SMART program will provide customers the confidence they need to predict ROI’s on any given project, and lock them in with rates from the beginning.

We have some exciting upcoming events! Join Craig Foley for Understanding the Legislative Process on March 14th. Register here. See you at the next RGBC meeting on March 13th!

Building Tech Forum 2017 Recap

By Alexander Landa


We can't believe that the Building Tech Forum has passed already – but it was worth all the work that went into it. Nothing makes us happier than seeing a packed room of technology and green building enthusiasts smiling, sharing drinks, exchanging business cards, and having a good time. 

These major events are the cumulation of the efforts of our entire community. Our staff, generous sponsors, energetic members and volunteers, and everyone else who wants a net-positive future for ourselves and generations to come make our dreams a reality, and for that, we can't thank you enough. 

As guests came in early in the evening, they enjoyed snacks and drinks while catching up with old and new friends in the innovative Fraunhofer building. After our Executive Director Grey Lee gave the opening remarks to kick off why we need to start planning for smart cities, Christian Hoepfner and Kurt Roth of Fraunhofer touched on what they're doing to make it all happen.

Afterward, we all made our way to Fraunhofer's open event space on the 5th floor where the real action was happening. Jaime Paris Boisvert from Siemens talked about their innovative development strategies, with Ryan Blackmon & Matt Barry representing Union Point and discussing their actual smart city just 12 miles south of Boston.

Our panel showcased how diverse the community behind smart cities really is – it's not just a concept of tech professionals or architects, rather it connects developers, academics, researchers, urban planners, and more all together to make it happen. Shoutout to Jascha Franklin-Hodge of the City of Boston, Jennie Stephens of Northeastern University, Gretchen Sweeney of the USGBC, Ryan Blackmon of Union Point, and Brycen Spencer of Siemens for educating us on all the hard work you're doing and why we need to start pushing for more smart cities!

After the panel, everyone continued networking and meeting old and new friends alike, sharing drinks, and deciding how we can make realistic strides to develop smarter infrastructure – and not just share pipe dreams of them. Special thanks also to Anne Williams of Fraunhofer for allowing us to host the event here! 

Thank you to everyone who came, and we look forward to seeing you at future events! More event pictures can be seen on our Flickr page.

 

Smart Crowd for Smart Cities

By Grey Lee


We had an excellent program last night for our Building Tech Forum. 


Fraunhofer was the perfect venue to help us connect as a community of practitioners dedicated to improving the built environment.


Here are a few photos; we'll post more of a re-cap next week. 


Thank you to all of our sponsors and exhibitors.


Many thanks to our panelists and the engaged crowd. Thank you for attending and making the 2017 Building Tech Forum a success.


 


Learn More About Building Tech Forum Display Sponsor, Engie

By Engie


The USGBC MA Chapter is thrilled to be working with some amazing organizations and companies for the Building Tech Forum on Feb 16th, 2017. For this event, we're working with some of our unique partners, and one such company is Engie, and they're going to be bringing in a fresh new perspective to our community! 

Here's more about them:

ENGIE Services is a facilities management solutions provider that prioritizes energy efficiency for private and public customers across North America. Our experts design, develop and manage smart, sustainable solutions for customers. World leading governments and organizations entrust ENGIE Services’ tailored solutions to operate and maintain their office towers, airports, hospitals, recreational and industrial facilities. Part of the ENGIE Group, ENGIE Services has both the structure and resources to carry out technically and financially complex and long-term projects such as P3s. This capacity enables us to guarantee results and manage asset lifecycles to meet specific performance criteria with a focus to rationalize energy use and reduce operational costs.

The ENGIE group develops its businesses (power, natural gas, energy services) around a model based on responsible growth to take on the major challenges of energy’s transition to a low-carbon economy: access to sustainable energy, climate-change mitigation and adaptation and the rational use of resources. ENGIE’s “City and Building of Tomorrow” program supports the development of ENGIE solutions for tomorrow’s cities, communities, and buildings. Its aim is to help local authorities to respond successfully to the environmental and energy challenges they face. The Group provides individuals, cities, and businesses with highly efficient and innovative

 

New Report Reveals Venues Across the Globe are Embracing LEED Green Building

By USGBC


Washington, D.C. (Feb. 16, 2017) – Today, the U.S. Green Building Council released its LEED in Motion: Venues report, which highlights the efforts of convention centers, sports venues, performing arts centers, community centers, and public assembly spaces to transform their environmental, social and economic footprint through LEED certification. The report showcases some of the most impressive green venues around the world.

“The scope and scale of the venues industry is enormous, and the leaders creating these spaces have an important role to play in reducing environmental impact,” said Mahesh Ramanujam, president & CEO of USGBC. “By incorporating green practices, venues around the world are positively impacting their triple bottom line – people, planet, profit – while inspiring and educating others to be proactive in the areas of social responsibility and sustainability.”

Venues are large contributors to the U.S. economy. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the number of conventions and events is expected to expand by 44 percent from 2010 to 2020 – far outpacing the average projected growth of other industries. Annually, the top 200 stadiums in the U.S. alone draw roughly 181 million visitors, and roughly 60 million people worldwide attend a consumer or industry trade show. Waste Management estimates that the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL generate a combined 35,000 metric tons of CO2 each year from their fans’ waste. The convention and trade show industry, one of the largest global contributors to waste, produces an estimated 60,000 tons of garbage each year.

Venues that incorporate LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), the world’s most widely used green building rating system, into their buildings enjoy increased cost-savings, decreased annual operating costs and a higher return on investment overall. According to the 2015 Green Building Economic Impact Study, from 2015-2018, it is estimated that LEED-certified buildings in the U.S. will have saved more than $2.1 billion in combined energy, water, maintenance and waste savings.

The report highlights the green strategies and savings of more than 30 LEED-certified venues across the globe, including Orlando Magic’s Amway Center, the first NBA arena to earn LEED Gold certification using the LEED Building Design + Construction: New Construction rating system, was able to save nearly a million a year, including close to $700,000 in annual energy costs alone because of LEED certification.

At one of the most renowned regional theaters in the country, The Old Globe’s 108,000 square foot complex in San Diego, green strategies were implemented so as not to disrupt the buildings’ aesthetics and primary focus on performance. Low-flow fixtures and aerators reduced overall water usage by 32 percent, LED retrofits and timer installations resulted in savings of more than 14,000 kilowatt hours per year, and an increase of recycling bins and staff education created the potential for more waste diversion.

Another prominent example is Shanghai 2010 Expo Center’s implementation of sustainable strategies such as a vegetable roof garden, rainwater recycling system, LED lighting, water source heat pumps, high-efficiency water-use fittings and irrigation, which resulted in the project achieving 82.5 percent annual total water savings and a 93 percent reduction in storm water runoff volume.

LEED is used in more than 164 countries and territories with international demand continuing to grow. According to the Dodge Data & Analytics World Green Building Trends 2016 SmartMarket Report, global green building continues to double every three years. In the next ten years, green building’s growth rate is expected to continue at both the domestic and international levels. USGBC’s recent Green Building Economic Impact Study analyzed the economic impact of green construction on the U.S. economy and found that LEED-certified buildings account for 40 percent of the green construction market’s contribution to the U.S. GDP in 2015. The report also projected that by 2018, green construction will account for more than 3.3 million jobs and generate $190.3 billion in labor earnings in the U.S.


LEED is a simple and effective program for navigating complex, sometimes competing, building and environmental issues affecting humans worldwide. Every day, more than 2.2 million square feet of space certifies to LEED. There are more than 36,300 LEED-certified commercial projects representing more than 5.4 billion square feet of certified space and an additional 53,180 projects, totaling 11.6 billion square feet of registered space.

LEED in Motion: Venues is the latest in a series of reports from USGBC designed to provide a holistic snapshot of the green building movement. The report equips green building advocates with the insight and perspective to understand the use of the globally recognized LEED rating system and to make a strong case for sustainable building activity.

Resources for Materials Transparency

By Steven Burke


In recent years, a new concept of what it means to define a building product as “sustainable” has taken hold. Focus has shifted to consider whole-life (i.e., “cradle to grave”) environmental impact, prioritizing the disclosure of ingredients that may be hazardous to human health. 

Novel standards, such as Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and Health Product Declarations (HPDs), have been instrumental in advancing this new definition of sustainability. Designers’ adoption of what has been labeled the “Materials Transparency Movement,” coupled with the integration of the aforementioned standards into green building rating systems, has prompted manufacturers to slowly, but steadily, move toward more health- and eco-friendly production.

In response, a diverse group of industry experts—designers, construction professionals, specifications writers, and consultants—convened to standardize the process, keeping it in line with the movement’s goal of transparency. Drawn together by their shared experience incorporating these standards into past projects, the group offers guidelines for fellow designers, developers, and building owners to develop projects that take into account the effects of materials on the environment and building occupants.

The group set out to accomplish three primary goals: Provide a unified language that can be used across disciplines, from design to construction; ensure that this language can be applied to specifications, regardless of whether the subcontractor is a materials expert; and publish materials in an easily shareable format.

These efforts resulted in various resources, all meant to encourage collaboration and conversation. They are all housed here – Check them out, share them, and let us know what you think.

Originally posted here.