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.

During the 2016-17 heating season, we tested the indoor air quality in the bedrooms of 22 Vermont homes spanning a wide range of size, age, airtightness, heating system type, and occupancy. Most exceeded twice the 1000ppm threshold for carbon dioxide (CO2) often targeted by energy and ventilation standards. An investigation of cause and effect led to a clear culprit. You will also learn about the latest research on the impacts of CO2 and other pollutants in our homes, see real-world data on the ability of centralized and distributed ventilation systems to tackle these problems, and hear about best practices for design and commissioning of ventilation in new and existing homes.

As the green building movement matures, a stronger focus is evolving on short-term and long-term occupant health impacts. The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health evaluated the health outcomes associated with living in new green housing, and the research revealed significant improvements in health among residents who moved from the existing housing into the green units. In this session, we will provide strong evidence that green interventions not only improve the environmental performance of housing, but also tackle major public health challenges in low-income communities.

The city is an important scale for holistic innovation that can play a major role in global decarbonization. Practitioners can learn to optimize this scale to integrate building-level, streetscape-level, and community-level clean energy ingenuity. Audience members will interact with: a community psychologist who has used a whole systems approach to shape our culture and places for decades; a regional practitioner who helps to usher in smart-city innovation; and a state agency that is working to foster community public-private microgrids. Each participant will leave with 3 action steps to implement a city-scale measure in their ecosystem.

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.

CANCELLED

This session outlines key strategies to help your team make informed decisions around building assemblies, products, and finishes. Whether you’re looking for simple, low-cost upgrades for a remodeling project or building new for a client with allergies or chemical sensitivities, you’ll walk away with new ideas to put into practice.