Footprinting Our Projects & Operations

High-performance building standards and goals typically focus on operating energy. But how much energy does it take to build (or retrofit) that high performance building, or operate your company in the first place? We'll try to answer this question by examining the South Mountain Company carbon footprint project and a Byggmeister analysis of the embodied energy of several retrofits. Finally, we'll discuss what we can do about it — what we can change in our business operations and building practices to reduce the footprints of our work.

Creating a Culture of Energy Responsibility: How to Move Americans to Make the Right Moves

Americans say energy efficiency and renewables are important, and that they’re worried about their ability to pay for energy in the future, our dependence on foreign countries and depleting resources. But what are they doing about it?
Research shows Americans’ propensity to act on energy generation and efficiency options is in a three-year decline. Why?

Is it All Hot Air: Ventilating Homes, Why? How Much? and How?

Why do we need to ventilate homes? How much air do we need to do it? Once we’ve figured that out, what systems should we install? These are big questions, but this session will hopefully provide useful answers. We’ll begin with a discussion of health impacts of ventilation and different ventilation rates. The latter part will explore various ventilation systems: pros and cons, costs and benefits, and tips for installing the best systems for your project.

Putting Attention Where it is Needed Most - Building Resiliency in Multi-family Affordable Housing

A number of multifamily affordable housing developments in the New York City area were hard-hit by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Affordable housing organizations have learned from that experience and are working to improve the resilience--and sustainability--of their facilities, in ways both large and small. Alex Wilson and Jim Newman have been facilitating some of this work. This session reports on these efforts and presents practical strategies for making multifamily affordable housing--and all multifamily buildings--more resilient.

Resiliency: The Cynical Optimist's Path to a Better World

Resiliency has become about how many inches or feet of sea rise we will experience before 2100. It's currently a data driven goal, but it should not be. What about past 2100? How about we design, build and live for true resiliency, by making decisions with which we create no new problems, and even solve several issues at once (think green infrastructure)? Learn some concepts to drive true resiliency, and understand how these conceptsshould be applied to our work with individual projects, communities, and teams.

Lessons from Scandinavia (Part 1)

Paul, Chris, Andy, Tom and Heather went to Scandinavia to learn about what the Swedes and Danes are doing about climate change. In two sessions, we'll present what we learned in visiting buildings, building professionals, city officials, and researchers in these two countries, and how it may or may not relate to our efforts here at home. 

Lessons from Scandinavia (Part 2)

Paul, Chris, Andy, Tom and Heather went to Scandinavia to learn about what the Swedes and Danes are doing about climate change. In two sessions, we'll present what we learned in visiting buildings, building professionals, city officials, and researchers in these two countries, and how it may or may not relate to our efforts here at home. 

Community Energy Footprints: Taking Residential Efficiency to Scale

For all the Non Net Zero Homes out there, how can energy tracking at the community level help achieve 2030 goals? Four diverse building pros share lessons learned from their experience tracking the energy use of a typical Boston suburb using several benchmarking methods, and discuss how cross referencing tools and technologies can help create community buy-in for achieving C02 reduction targets. The session will close with an open discussion of how to scale up expertise to the community level.

Understanding the Living Building Challenge

The Living Building Challenge is the built environment’s most rigorous performance standard. It calls for the creation of building projects that operate as cleanly, beautifully and efficiently as nature’s architecture. Understanding the Living Building Challenge provides an in-depth overview of the program. The workshop will provide a deep exploration of two projects pursuing the program (Smith College and Williams College). Attendees will identify the key components of the Living Building Challenge and discuss the rationale for restorative design principles.

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