Many businesses are struggling to find, hire, and retain the next generation of workers. This session will help employers connect with training programs, understand barriers to employment, and learn how they can support new hires. Learn from graduates and teachers of training programs about the challenges and opportunities for people entering the construction workforce. We’ll explore common mistakes that employers make, what was useful about the training process (and what was missing), and suggestions for how to reach a broader pool of potential hires.

With so many ways to retrofit a building, how can owners identify the right scope of work? What about the right timing? Even the most well-intentioned building owner may leave carbon savings on the table, choose the wrong ECM or retrofit solution, or spend more than they should on a retrofit. Despite the urgency today to electrify and decarbonize as quickly as possible, we can and should stop, think, and plan to optimize retrofits and maximize savings, while investing in health, workforce, and equity.

As buildings become part of the climate change solution, more building professionals and their customers want to know how they can reduce carbon emissions in home retrofits. The presenters conducted a research study to answer this question by assessing the net carbon impact of insulation and air sealing upgrades when accounting for both embodied carbon emissions of materials and operational carbon reductions associated with weatherization upgrades.

In response to the increasing demand for certified electricians to meet the challenges of transitioning to a clean energy future, ReVision Energy launched a state-certified training education program in 2018. This innovative program is the first of its kind in the nation, providing trainees with the trade skills and licensing that will set them up for a lifetime of success. The training center is also a valuable recruiting tool for Revision Energy in hiring women and minorities in all positions within the company.

Integrative design and lean PM have the potential to mimic agile development; benefitting from fast iterations and innovation, but often don’t in practice. Owners are demanding increasingly high performance and firms won’t be competitive if they can’t pivot, transform and adopt the habits and disciplines of startup culture. What would firm management look like if we: 1) valued our staff as our prime assets, and 2) adopted a practice of continuous learning and improvement?

The Lloyd Center for the Environment is an environmental education building on a coastal nature preserve. This building is pursuing the most stringent environmental certification – LBC – and it is being constructed by students from Greater New Bedford Vocational Technical High School.

Multifamily Passive House new construction can be built today for low incremental cost and dramatic energy reduction. Join us for a review of eight affordable passive house projects, demonstrating that Passive House buildings in the Northeast are regularly achieving 60% to 80% lower energy use per square foot than code-built. Learn what has been hardest, what has been surprisingly easy, and what teams would do differently next time from two affordable Passive House projects built in Massachusetts: SquirrelWood in Cambridge and Harbor Village in Gloucester.

Bowdoin College is currently constructing a pair of connected campus buildings, both with mass timber structures. Located in the Pine Tree State, the project is ironically using timber sourced overseas.

Wood-insulated panels (WIPs) combine CLT with rigid exterior wood fiber insulation (WFI) to create a consistent, uniform panel with continuous exterior insulation. These panels can be used to fabricate shell systems, delivering a structural/thermal/moisture enclosure solution for use in new construction and retrofits, and the wood cut-outs from these panels go into the WFI "hopper" in a cradle-to-cradle cycle. This session will present the results from OPAL Build's pilot project, a 1000sf schoolhouse in Belfast, Maine.