Member Profile: SMMA's Steven Burke

By Caitlin Forbes

As SMMA’s Sustainability Manager, Steven is responsible for LEED administration on various projects, as well as facilitating project teams, clients, and consultants in delivering sustainable design practices, applications, and documentation. Steven balances his time between sustainable corporate and residential projects and advancing green schools, currently working on Waltham and Somerville High Schools as well as Shark Ninja’s Corporate Headquarters. Steven is coleading the team curating the panelists for our upcoming Healthy Materials Summit, and we're excited to be working with him.

After obtaining Master's of Science in Sustainability Management at Columbia University, Steven became immersed in the built environment, seeking to advance the comprehensive benefits of what he defines as sustainable design: capitalizing on aesthetics, energy and water performance, durability, return on investment, and space functionality. The notion that sustainability is simply buying some materials with recycled content is dated; instead, Steven focuses on the new model of “Net Positive” buildings that give back more than they take. 

A thought leader in sustainable design strategies, Steve has chaired discussions at the Building Energy Conference, Architecture Boston Expo, and Building Technology Forum. For his additional work with the USGBC, Steven led the Green Building Bike Tours, presented on LEED v4 for Schools at the NESEA conference – ultimately turning it into a National Webinar – and now acts as a USGBC Board Member and Treasurer.

Check out Steven’s thoughts on Why LEED Matters for Future Generations.