One of the biggest market barriers to net-zero energy retrofits is the incremental upfront cost. Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing overcomes this barrier, and it’s expanding with new innovations. Those innovations include resilience renovations, consumer protections, and the use of PACE to unlock Net-Zero Energy retrofits and new construction. Resilience renovations are on the rise following hurricanes, floods and power outages. Also, PACE for new construction can make Net-Zero Energy homes beat standard costs for home ownership. Come find out how to grow the market for efficiency and solar in your region from leading industry experts.

The products you specify--and how you structure your specs--have enduring impact on your building's occupants, the community where the product is made, and the workers who install it. We’ll share lessons learned about screening and choosing products employing the most rigorous material vetting standards in green building certifications. Where do you focus and where should you not? This session will coach designers in approaches and procedures to make any project healthier through careful materials selection. And while it's not designed to get you through the LBC Materials Petal, it will undoubtedly help.

This team’s contract with a university client for a new student housing project required LEED v4 Silver, a worthwhile goal. But the team wanted to punch up to meet more aggressive sustainability goals – Passive House and Living Building Challenge Materials Petal – within the same design and construction budget. Did they succeed? In this session, you’ll hear key findings associated with energy modeling, solar shading, water management, healthy materials, and high-performance building envelope. We’ll explore the metrics employed to evaluate options and their return on investment to make it palatable to naysayers and confirm financial feasibility. Speakers will also discuss the teams’ persistent approach to strive for a better building and strategies to engage the complex group of university stakeholders.

We truly regret having to cancel this session. Terry Brennan is unable to attend.

At the core of every successful Retro-Commissioning (RCx) project is an effective collaboration between the commissioning agent and the building's operating staff to identify and implement energy conservation measures. This session will provide guidance to commissioning agents and building operations teams about how to work together throughout the Retro-Commissioning (RCx) process to maximize the benefits of RCx. We will present examples from both the commissioning agent building operations perspectives of how previous project collaborations have been structured, including the development of training materials, to attain significant and sustained benefits beyond energy savings.

A building or home cannot begin to be deemed healthy if its building blocks – both the material used for exterior construction and the elements used to build and decorate the interior – aren’t healthy to begin with. Identifying healthy products is made easier with a wealth of new tools and certification programs that are being implemented, but that variety also creates confusion over what each program brings to the table and how that meets the needs of the user. This session will review the different product certifications in use, identify their main priorities, and show how to search for them online.

Growing marijuana indoors is extremely energy intensive, and this session highlights the latest efforts to reduce the industry's energy footprint. Attendees will hear from speakers with fingers on the pulse of trends, practices, and policies across the country. As highlighted at BuildingEnergy SRO inaugural session on the subject last year, there is a very small window for growers to coalesce around best practices, providing building energy professionals a unique opportunity. Efforts to collect profile data about cultivators' energy use will be shared, as well as latest updates about market and regulatory developments in Massachusetts and Maine.

Williams College has established the goal of 35% campus wide carbon reduction of 1990 carbon emissions by 2020. In this session we will present the development of a methodology (i.e., Green Gauges) for design and construction teams to communicate strategies with the owner early in the process, and to provide consistent information regarding operational energy and the resulting carbon savings. What is the cost per metric ton of avoided carbon over the operation life of that strategy? We’ll find out.

There are five basic components of building envelopes, each of which needs increased attention to meet and exceed current Energy Code while providing comfort for building users and durability and resiliency for building owners: 1. Opaque Assemblies - Walls and Roofs 2. Fenestration 3. Air Barriers 4. Thermal Bridging 5. Foundation Insulation and Slab Edges Join Jim and Jodi as they share revealing and entertaining stories from their practice. Engage in a discussion on how the challenges they reveal can be addressed by applying the nine habits of sustainability.

Do you want to hear how to drive energy efficiency in renovation projects and new buildings beyond expectations? Welcome. Our exceptional panel members have learned from many educational projects including high energy intensive science facilities.