Gathering at TROY Boston: Learning, Networking, & Refreshments

By USGBC Communications

Tuesday, June 14, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
266 East Berkeley Street Boston, MA 02118

Register here!

It's time for the Chapter's Quarterly Gathering. All our Committees will be attending, and newcomers will have a chance to learn about the many facets of our mission and our work to change the built environment for the better.

This evening of learning will be hosted at TROY Boston, in the South End. TROY is a super eco-friendly apartment complex developed by Chapter Sponsoring Partner Gerding Edlen, a great developer based on the west coast. The complex has attained LEED Gold earlier this year and used 28% less energy than a typical multi-family building like it. We will get to check out many of the features and talk with project team members. We will get to see the rich amenities of this great building and its incredible apartment options.

Join us for this great event to gather our organization — re-connect and make new connections at the same time.

Free for Chapter Members and TROY Boston residents, $25 for the general public.

Click here to learn more and to register.

Refreshments will be provided.

Thank you to Gerding Edlen and TROY Boston for sponsoring this event.

Disrupting Commercial Real Estate!

By Grey Lee, Executive Director


Come one, come all!

If you are involved with real estate and concerned about how the industry is changing, you should come to this event on Thursday!

Technology is quickly changing the landscape of how the CRE industry operates. DisruptCRE exists to connect commercial real estate professionals with emerging technologies and trends. Through DisruptCRE, we are diving head first into the CREtech movement bringing you the latest and greatest in CREtech, educational panels, and a pitch session titled “Meet the Disruptors”.

Top real estate decision makers around the world convene at DisruptCRE to find out what’s here now, and what’s next in CRE tech.

 

Register now at DisruptCRE and us the discount code “USGBCMA” to save 20%

 

ATTENDEES INCLUDE:

  • Architects
  • Brokers
  • Construction Professionals
  • Developers
  • Engineers
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Finance Professionals
  • Investors
  • Local Associations
  • PR & Marketing Firms
  • Property Managers
  • Tech Disrupters
  • Venture Capitlists
  • And More…

Networking Nights are Back!

By Grey Lee

It's time to connect. Join your fellow Green Building professionals and enthusiasts for an informal evening of networking on June 18th. Don't miss this chance to re-launch our energizing series of monthly gatherings designed to bring you together with others who are as passionate about sustainability as you are.

Chapter Silver Partner Knoll has generously agreed to sponsor our networking sessions and host us at their showroom space in the Innovation District of Boston. This month, Andrea Coan will speak briefly at 6:00 to give us highlights of the LEED Platinum space. Appetizers and drinks will be provided.
 

The Knoll Offices and Showroom at 281 Summer Street, Boston, MA was awarded LEED Platinum certification in 2012

Doors open at 5:30 and stay open until 7:00. This is an informal gathering so please come and go as you please. No worries if you are late or have to leave early.

Register now through the Chapter web site. We look forward to seeing you there!

Annual Meeting of Fun

By Grey Lee

What a great Annual Meeting on Monday night! Thanks again to Rachel Zsembery, Dee Spiro, Katya Carman and Carlos Alonso-Niemeyer for putting together such a fabulous evening! Thanks to everyone who came early and stayed late to help make it all happen. Thank you to Andrea Love and Payette Associates for providing their Practice Room as a great hall to gather in.

[above: Kathy Arthur-Tyler of our Green Schools Committee (also of NStar, one of our sponsors!]
Thanks indeed to this wonderful community we have where even with snow and sleet and rain, (all at the same time) (and rush-hour!) we had a full capacity crowd.
Thank you to Brian Swett [below] for making such an awesome presentation about the ambitious goals of the City of Boston and for reaching out to us to help partner with them as they grow their efforts – we can help bring proven models of success to other communities here in Massachusetts
Congratulations to the new and renewed Board Members and thank you to all the great candidates.
And now the work continues. I know some of the committee volunteers made connections to new helpers. For me, the top priorities are Community, Capacity and Advocacy – which means getting more members, bringing in new sponsoring partners and focusing on specific policy projects. The advocacy is really the most important thing we can do as an organization. What are we doing? I believe we can choose one or two of the USGBC campaign issues.  In my conversations that some of you have heard, I think that those can be Greening the MLS and Energy Reporting going statewide. With our Green Schools strategic investment grant, that will be a focus in the coming months. And finally, pertinent to current events, we need to respond to the wild community development opportunities and building projects that are the future Casinos of Massachusetts.
[me with active volunteers: Andrea Love, Emily Greenstein, Dee Spiro, Phoebe Beierle, and Jim Newman]
I was really psyched to hear about the awesome work going on in the committees – Green Residential, Green Schools, RASOC, Education, Communications, Membership, Special Events and Emerging Professionals. I look forward to our future advocacy team. I am heartened by the West Branch and the Central Mass group with their successful and upcoming events. We’ve got a lot of great stuff going on!
Take a look at the website – there are new stories up there and I have been updating it (with our Communications Associate Zak) every week. Please stay tuned to our social media spaces facebook and our LinkedIn group – plenty of news and discussion there.

[Hi Phoebe!]
We are moving right along – new people in the ranks, old-timers coming back into the fold, and a lot of work to tackle. As we mentioned last night: Massachusetts is #4 in the country in terms of LEED certified space created (per capita) in 2012. Not that LEED is everything to us (it’s just our biggest horse in the market-transformation team), but 101 projects earned the status last year, taking us to just shy of 400 certified projects total up til the end of 2012. This really means a lot of us and our peers who aren’t quite yet members are working on a lot of green building projects.  We really are changing the carbon intensity of our communities, which is one giant step to making the world a better place. I’m proud to work for all of you and I look forward to cultivating this momentum for even more victories in the coming months and years!
Thanks again for being part of the USGBC MA Chapter! See you at the next event!

LEEDv4 – Better and Smaller!

By Grey Lee

Last night we hosted a great program on the intricacies and details of LEEDv4 – the latest version of LEED which will be operational in June 2013 (we expect). Currently, the process to approve the new version is still open to comments (until 12/10/12) from any relevant party – such as any member of the MA Green Building Council or LEED professional in general. Here's a link to more info, and the slides from the presentation, on our site: http://www.usgbcma.org/LEED
 

 
Chris Schaffner, from The Green Engineer (really, he is The Green Engineer), came and presented. Chris is a former board member of the Chapter and a LEED Fellow – one of a few dozen in the country recognized as outstanding leaders in our industry. He is also on the Technical Advisory Group for the new version of LEED and knows a lot of the ins and outs, having worked on streamlining the credits on this new version.
 

We went through a great slideshow describing how the various credits in each subsection of LEED have morphed into the new line-up. Some have disappeared, others are brand new. He described how the USGBC is trying to balance market adoption (make the system easy) with environmental impact (really make a difference for the planet), and how this version is a little more aggressive on sustainability.

The market has taken up LEED and now we can use it to drive real change in environmental impact. Of course, the entire industries that have grown up around LEED are a little bent out of shape with the change of the status quo – and resistance is significant. There are also the complicated logistics of getting the whole system finished in the next six months! That's going to be tricky, eh?

Chris asked us to please submit comments – especially if you think any of the new changes are good – so that the USGBC has the valuable feedback it needs to continue the evolution of LEED so that it can be the best tool we have to change the real estate industry. Here's a link to USGBC's comment site: https://new.usgbc.org/leed/v4

It was a great evening with about 30 chapter members in the audience. A few mentioned to me that they are interested in getting more involved! That is great!

 

 

[Above: Grey Lee, Andrea Love, Chris Schaffner, & Bob Kohn]

Kudos to Bob Kohn, Chair of the Education Committee, for organizing the program, and to Andrea Love (on our board) for providing the space and facility logistics at Payette (290 Congress St – a LEED Platinum Building!) Thanks to Chris Schaffner for providing his expertise and facilitation skill. I am sure we can look forward to more valuable programs in the future. Thanks again, everyone!
-Grey

In San Francisco for Greenbuild 2012

By Grey Lee

Many of us are here for Chapter Day, and several will be arriving over the course of the next few hours. Everyone is getting pumped up. Be sure to keep in touch over Twitter using hashtag #usgbcma with #greenbuild so we can share with each other and those back home.

Not sure what sessions to go to? Check out our post from last week showcasing MA members giving presentations. Go and support them.

See you at the convention!

Are you going to be around for ABX2012?

By Grey Lee

Next week is Boston's annual construction industry conference, ArchitectureBoston Expo (formerly BuildBoston) and it seems like there are going to be a whole slew of us USGBCMAers there. Even if you weren't planning on attending the full conference, there will be events of special interest to us. Question is, what are they and how do we find each other?

On Wednesday night in nearby Downtown Crossing is the Fall 2012 collaborative Young Professional Networking Event, which the EPMA are sponsors of. Go to http://ypnefall12.eventbrite.com/ for all the details.

On Thursday night there are two special events. One is Meet Massachusetts from 6pm-10pm, which the Chapter is a sponsor of. Even if you aren't going to the conference, you can still attend by calling 508.743.5864 and requesting to register for the Meet Massachusetts event for only $10. You can also get a free pass to the exhibit hall if you ask nicely! The other event, unfortunately at the same time (but we know you like to hop between parties), is the MA CHPS 10th Anniversary Celebration. Many of your colleagues will be honored for their efforts to make Massachusetts Public Schools the greenest they can be. Congratulate them enthusiastically.

During the conference we have several members presenting. If you still aren't sure what sessions to attend, see our post yesterday highlighting those people and the sessions they are running. Be sure to go up afterwards to introduce yourself as a fellow member.

Lastly, use the power of social media! If you have a Twitter account, use the hash tag #usgbcma to tell us what you are up to and follow your fellow member attendees. Look for (and instigate) impromptu meetups!