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Making older buildings more resilient to cope with a warming climate

Making older buildings more resilient to cope with a warming climate

Learn how Florida is embracing LEED to create more resilient buildings and communities.

This article was previously published in the Orlando Sentinel on Oct. 16, 2021, as an op-ed titled “Make older buildings more resilient to cope with warming climate.” Read the original version.

There’s a misconception of what green buildings look like. Yes, they can be new projects that use recycled materials and run on renewable energy.

But then what happens to the 30- or 40-year-old office buildings? And what about integrating these buildings to the wider community and taking a more macro-level approach to sustainability?

Protecting our communities from the effects of climate change requires multiple strategies—resiliency planning, making existing buildings more efficient and building new spaces to green standards.

In Florida, the effects of a changing climate are real—rising sea levels, stronger hurricanes and hotter days. Therefore, it is critical to factor in infrastructure in plans to protect communities from such damage.

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/making-older-buildings-more-resilient-cope-warming-climate

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Back to school: Sustainability education for all

Back to school: Sustainability education for all

As educators navigate their second school year adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic, it can be daunting to advocate for any additional curriculum to be taught in the classroom. However, the benefits of incorporating sustainability education in daily curriculum are more important than ever and justify the extra effort.

Daily news headlines chronicle the implications of our warming planet. Providing opportunities for students to reflect on the world around them and the impacts of their actions can be a powerful tool in encouraging the qualities of empathy, gratitude and responsibility in students.

We asked two K–12 school and educator 2021 Best of School (BOGS) awards recipients why sustainability education is so relevant to the classroom this year. Read on to understand how the past two years have informed their pursuit of sustainability literacy for all students.

Sal Gordon, head of teaching and learning at Green School Bali, Bali, Indonesia:

It’s simple. The more we, as humans, separate ourselves from nature, the sicker we become. When we return to living in harmony with our natural environment, our health improves. I hope COVID-19 is a wakeup call for us. To secure the health of future generations, we need to educate our children and ourselves about what living in harmony with nature actually looks like, on a local and global scale.

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/back-school-sustainability-education-all

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More than One Billion Square Feet of Green Building Space Recertified under LEED

More than One Billion Square Feet of Green Building Space Recertified under LEED

LEED milestones, 2021 Class of LEED Fellows and the Kate Hurst Leadership Award among announcements at this week’s Greenbuild conference

Washington, D.C. (Sept. 21, 2021) – Today, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced that it has surpassed one billion square feet of LEED commercial green building space recertified under LEED. LEED recertification is an important effort to measure energy, water, waste and transportation performance, as well as the human experience of LEED projects. Recertification enables owners to protect their sustainability investments over time.

This LEED milestone is being celebrated at the annual Greenbuild conference, which kicked off this week in San Diego. Over the last year, the green building industry has reached a number of milestones indicating that green building continues to be an important topic as it provides a foundation that supports people and businesses and helps us adapt during a crisis.

LEED milestones in 2021:

  • More than one billion square feet of recertified LEED space
  • Nearly 24 billion square feet LEED registered and certified
  • 110,000 projects participating in LEED
  • More than 610 million square feet of LEED certified residential space

LEED, the most widely used green building rating system in the world, is available for virtually all building and interior space types. LEED provides a framework for healthy, highly efficient and cost-saving green buildings. LEED certification is a globally recognized symbol of sustainability achievement and leadership.

This week USGBC will also celebrate the 2021 Class of LEED Fellows and the Kate Hurst USGBC Leadership Award, which has been awarded to Elizabeth Heider. The Kate Hurst Leadership Award recognizes inspirational females. Heider is an outstanding leader who has demonstrated a strong commitment to sustainability and improving the quality of life in her community. An intrepid researcher and tireless advocate, Heider emboldens the design, construction and business communities to create a more sustainable future. She served for six years on USGBC’s national Board of Directors and is a longtime USGBC partner and advocate who has a passion for helping and inspiring others and creating lasting change.

This year’s Greenbuild conference features the Women in Green luncheon and USGBC sessions that focus on LEED Zero, LEED v4.1, Arc, LEED for Cities, ESG and decarbonization.

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/more-one-billion-square-feet-green-building-space-recertified-under-leed

 

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Cities are taking bold steps to transition to 100% renewable energy

Cities are taking bold steps to transition to 100% renewable energy

This week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released an updated report that the BBC reported: “warns of increasingly extreme heatwaves, droughts and flooding, and a key temperature limit being broken in just over a decade.” The climate scientists are calling for a “code red for humanity” to make deep reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions in the hopes that immediate action can reverse rising temperatures and stabilize what would otherwise be a climate catastrophe.

Local governments have taken bold steps to transition municipal operations and community-wide energy consumption to clean, renewable power. They often begin with a commitment; in fact, the Sierra Club reports that more than 180 cities, 10 counties and eight states across the U.S. have adopted renewable energy goals by resolution, through climate action plans, or other policies.

On Wednesday, Aug. 18, we will host a forum featuring leaders from the World Resources Institute and three LEED-certified cities – Chicago, St. Petersburg, and Houston to hear how their transition to 100% renewable energy is going. We’ll address their unique regional and statewide policy environment, relationships with utilities, talk about barriers or challenges they’ve faced, and concentrate on replicable strategies and advice for places just getting started. There will be time for a Q&A discussion with our speakers so please bring your inquiries along. This should be a lively forum with strong takeaways and next steps.

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/cities-are-taking-bold-steps-transition-100-renewable-energy

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LEED and SITES: Restorative outdoor spaces

LEED and SITES: Restorative outdoor spaces

Three projects restore native landscapes while providing healthy spaces for people to enjoy during a pandemic.

Feature image: Green roof at the The Center for Sustainable Landscapes at the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Photo credit: Paul G. Wiegman.

The green building industry’s emphasis on human health and well-being has gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased attention is being paid to indoor air quality, access to natural light and the importance of outdoor green space. Prior to the pandemic, the following projects turned to LEED and SITES certification guidelines to restore natural habitats and optimize the human experience—and it is proving to be an especially valuable approach during these trying times.

Restored creek creates healthy urban corridor

The Dell Medical School and its teaching hospital, Dell Seton Medical Center, are part of a large medical district located in central Austin on the University of Texas campus. All Dell Medical School buildings are LEED Gold, and the 16.2-acre landscape also achieved SITES Gold certification.

The development project—encompassing 4.4 million square feet—included the construction of multiple facilities in a dense urban environment bisected by Waller Creek, a neglected stream that had been by battered by previous development. From the project’s start, the mile of creek that runs through campus was regarded as a benefit to be optimized.

“With this project, the university saw the value of the creek to the landscape,” says Heather Venhaus, principal of Regenerative Environmental Design and the lead SITES consultant. Instead of backing the new buildings up to the creek and turning them away from it, as had been the traditional approach with previous buildings, they set the new medical district buildings back from the creek to give it breathing room and directed the view toward the natural ecosystem. The idea was to call attention to the restorative value of nature. “You can’t go to these facilities and not experience nature,” says Venhaus.

“The creek was something that was either going to embraced into the health mission or something we just bridged and then ignored,” says University of Texas director of sustainability Jim Walker. “We embraced it…There were many conversations around how the creek could contribute to health outcomes.”

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/leed-and-sites-restorative-outdoor-spaces

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The future green workforce: Engaging directly in learning experiences

The future green workforce: Engaging directly in learning experiences

Learn what you can do to build the pipeline of future green builders.

Green building companies and their employees have immense opportunities to support the K–12 schools, teachers and students that produce future workers. By engaging students who want jobs that support a more sustainable future, companies can actively shape a local emerging workforce that is prepared for green building job openings.

Invest in future green building professionals

Creating work-based learning opportunities in your company and providing career mentoring are excellent strategies for supporting students who are pursuing a green building career path. Another way your company can support local schools while inspiring career connections is to donate your time, expertise or resources directly to classes.

For over a decade, Creekside High School career academy teacher Ali Pressel has been partnering with professionals from her local community. The teacher in St. Augustine, Florida, notes the impact it has on her own professional growth, as well as her students’ growth in her environmental science classes. “I feel like I would be lost without my partners in the classroom,” she says.

Pressel’s students have had the opportunity to learn from their “geomentor,” who flies drones around their school to demonstrate how geographic information system images can help analyze situations with the school building and grounds. A different group of industry partners participates in the school’s Project Green program, advising on technical and communication aspects of student projects. Yet another business partner helps students create portfolios to express themselves during career explorations.

In Salem Keizer Public Schools in Salem, Oregon, career technical education (CTE) director Jim Orth agrees that engagement by a business partner brings next-level learning for students. He recommends that partners bring to the classroom an activity they do on a normal basis in their job, something that students can engage directly with and that orients them to tasks involved in an occupation that could become theirs in the future. “The time industry donates to the classroom is more valuable than donations,” says Orth. “For companies, it’s onboarding. They can train the students the way they want them to be in the field.”

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Will we finally get meaningful tax incentives for energy-efficient buildings this year?

Will we finally get meaningful tax incentives for energy-efficient buildings this year?

Energy efficiency tax incentives for homes and buildings is a top policy priority at USGBC.

It’s no secret in the building community that federal tax incentives for energy efficient homes and buildings have been weak, inconsistent and outdated for quite some time. So much so that many had given up on them.

But that could be changing this year. With a more urgent approach to climate change, Democrats led by President Joe Biden appear committed to passing strong clean energy provisions as part of an infrastructure/climate package. Tax incentives encouraging the adoption of green technologies are among the top priorities, with support from both sides of the aisle.

Among the leading candidates for updates are three energy efficiency tax incentives for homes and buildings: the Sec. 179D incentive for commercial buildings, the Sec. 45L incentive for new home construction, and the Sec. 25C incentive for efficiency improvements to existing homes.

All three of the tax breaks currently have low incentive levels and outdated energy performance criteria, making them not terribly exciting to green buildings professionals. They also have repeatedly expired in recent years, only to be reinstated after extended periods of uncertainty.

Now, both Congress and the administration are actively exploring how to best improve them as part of the ongoing infrastructure negotiations, including with significantly higher incentives for high-performance structures such as zero energy ready. That work is a top policy priority at USGBC.

The Senate Finance Committee, for example, led by Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), has proposed the Clean Energy for America Act that would boost the Sec. 179D deduction to a new sliding scale system with deductions of $2.50 to $5 per square foot for new buildings based on how much they outperform the latest ASHRAE standard 90.1 for commercial buildings. At the high end, that’s more than double the current deduction of $1.80 per square foot. For retrofits, buildings demonstrating both a threshold score and a significant improvement over their before-construction energy intensity with ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager would be eligible for similar incentives.

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/will-we-finally-get-meaningful-tax-incentives-energy-efficient-buildings-year

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Selecting office furniture for LEED v4.1

Selecting office furniture for LEED v4.1

Every day, people work in and around spaces filled with furniture, but how many of us know how our furniture impacts us or the environment? Furniture products can be made with high-emitting materials that can off-gas chemicals and potentially affect employee productivity; or they could be manufactured with high-embodied carbon materials that contribute to climate change. Choosing sustainable furniture is important for all projects, especially those pursuing LEED, so it is crucial to consider the environmental and human health impacts of the items we select for our spaces.

LEED v4.1 provides excellent guidance for teams looking to specify more sustainable products for their spaces through the following Materials and Resources credits:

How do we identify products to help us achieve our goal of LEED v4.1 certification? See below for some helpful tips. The good news is that there are plenty of products available that can contribute to many or all of these credits.

Environmental Product Declarations, Option 1

Understanding the environmental impacts of the products we specify can help us manage and reduce environmental harm. To meet this credit, specify products where the impacts have been studied and reported through third party–verified, Type III, product-specific Environmental Products Declarations (EPDs).

These EPDs are based on Product Category Rules (PCRs), which are created by industries and set the framework for what is reported in the EPD, along with telling practitioners what to study in the life cycle assessment. These are the highest-value documents available in this category (worth 1.5 products instead of one product).

Many furniture manufacturers can offer EPDs for their products. PCRs have been created for workstations, seating, storage/casegoods, tables and architectural walls products, meaning that third party–verified, Type III product-specific EPDs meeting all LEED criteria are available for these product types.

Where do we find EPDs? Check furniture manufacturers’ websites (typically the sustainability page), EPD program operator sites (like SCS Global Services and UL Environment), and databases from groups like mindful Materials and Sustainable Minds. Project teams should verify that EPDs meet LEED criteria by cross-checking EPD requirements in the LEED rating system guidance.

 

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/selecting-office-furniture-leed-v41-usgbc-los-angeles

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How executive orders advance green building

How executive orders advance green building

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, executive orders were mostly known in their federal context. However, in the past year, executive orders have come under increased scrutiny at the state level. Debates over coronavirus restrictions have made many state legislatures question executive powers. This year, at least five state legislatures have introduced bills meant to restrict the power of the executive order.

For example, In Indiana, a bill passed allowing the legislature to have oversight over declared states of emergency and other fiscal matters. The Kentucky legislature passed four bills restricting the governor’s powers. These restrictions on governors’ powers and stigmas around executive orders draw attention away from the benefits they often provide.

In the first five months of 2021, USGBC’s advocacy and policy team reviewed over 2,000 executive orders. Many of these executive orders do not just limit restaurant capacities and issue mask mandates—they appoint judges, lower flags to half-mast, and most important, institute initiatives and requirements related to green building and climate change. However, future restrictions on executive powers could limit future orders along these lines.

Some recent examples of executive orders advancing green building and climate goals:

 

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/how-executive-orders-advance-green-building

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From investors to regulators, and architects to educators, each of us has a role to play in combating climate change

From investors to regulators, and architects to educators, each of us has a role to play in combating climate change

Every morning, I like to read the “What’s News” section on the front page of the Wall Street Journal to get the day’s main takeaways, and then at night I’ll read through the full stories.

I’m quite interested in economics, technology and finance. After all, money is humanity’s universal language, and its power to influence change is unquestionable. Which is why I’m feeling increasingly optimistic for what’s becoming a growing trend: investments related to climate change mitigation.

Many central banks — the most powerful financial institutions in the world — are writing climate change policy directly into their mandates. Climate-related risks like rising sea levels, increasing wildfires and bigger storms, can interrupt the supply chain, leading to shortages and inflation. As a result, regulators are reaching beyond their traditional focus because now, climate change can directly impact inflation.

What makes this especially interesting to me is the interplay of regulations with markets, driving change through increasing accessibility of technological solutions. For example, take how a combination of batteries and renewable energy is disrupting the natural gas industry. Although less than 1% of America’s electricity market is currently made up of battery storage (compared to 38% of electricity coming from natural gas), batteries charged with wind and solar energy are becoming more and more affordable alleviating the time of day limitations of these energy sources. With prices coming down this combination becomes economically competitive with natural gas. Enabled by federal and private sector research and development over the past decades, this transition was led by states with clean energy policies and expanded by corporate climate commitments to the point where these solutions stand on their own in the market. As the Wall Street Journal notes, “even in Texas, a state with a fiercely competitive power market and no emissions mandates, scarcely any gas plants are under construction, while solar farms and batteries are growing fast.”

This “natural” market growth in clean energy is exciting to see, but is just the beginning of what is needed. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is now confidently saying that if we don’t make investments in renewables, batteries and modernizing the electric grid, then the financial impact will be extraordinary — reaching tens of trillions of dollars in the decades ahead.

 

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/investors-regulators-and-architects-educators-each-us-has-role-play-combating-climate