Related Links: LEED v4 Approved by USGBC Members Skaska USA CEO: Don't Let Green Standards Wither ENR's 2013 Top Green Design Firms Tumult Grows Over LEED Rating System Update An Uphill Battle Against LEED-Based Codes International construction giant Skanska USA has terminated its membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce due to what the firm views as attempts to “halt progress in sustainable building.” The move reportedly came after failed talks with the U.S. Chamber about its policies and follows on the heels of a pro-LEED op-ed in the Washington Post penned by Michael McNally, president and CEO of Skanska
Related Links: Skanska Quits U.S. Chamber of Commerce Over Anti-LEED Lobbying ENR's 2013 Top Green Design Firms Tumult Grows Over LEED Rating System Update An Uphill Battle Against LEED-Based Codes Skaska USA CEO: Don't Let Green Standards Wither LEED version 4 has been approved by a vote of U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) members, with 86 percent of the voting body voting in the affirmative. Approval of LEED v4 as the next version of the LEED Rating System clears the way for its launch during the Greenbuild conference in November 2013.The landmark vote, in which more than 1,200 USGBC member
Related Links: Timber Tower Research Project Softwood Lumber Board Arup San Francisco The U.S. is lagging Europe, Canada and Australia in the massive-timber tall-building movement—heating up because renewable, low-carbon-footprint timber is the most sustainable structural material. A feasibility study released last week for a 42-story concrete-jointed mass-timber frame—considered supertall in a world in which the tallest timber building is only 105 ft—could begin to change all that by stirring up interest in tall timber structures in the U.S. and even providing grist for the mill for supertall timber towers elsewhere.Under the Timber Tower Research Project, a team from the Chicago
Related Links: Information on ASHRAE's bEQ program NYC Building Energy Reprt Called a Step Toward Saving Energy An energy labeling program, which allows commercial building owners to get a better sense of how efficiently their buildings operate, has expanded to include an "As Designed" label.The program, called Building Energy Quotient (bEQ) and originally developed as a pilot program in 2010 by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), now has two labels that building owners can obtain: an As Designed label, which rates the building's potential energy use under standardized conditions, independent of the building's occupancy and
Courtesy of the NYC Dept. of City Planning Map shows low-lying areas (dark blue) that would be affected by proposed New York City zoning-code changes intended to facilitate flood-resilient construction. Related Links: Designers Call for a More-Coordinated Effort to Improve New York City's Flood Resistance Interested parties have until mid-July to review proposed zoning changes to facilitate flood-resilient construction in designated flood zones in New York City. The City Planning Commission, which released the proposed zoning text amendment on May 20, will refer the proposals to 41 community boards—all of which contain flood zones—and all five borough presidents and borough
G-Gans Project, Tokyo, Japan Tokyo's cavernous G-Cans Project is one of several flood-management projects included in the AIANY report, "Post-Sandy Initiative." Related Links: New York City's Proposed Zoning Changes for Flood Zones Intended To Align With Other Rules Seven months after miles of New York and New Jersey waterfront were slammed by Superstorm Sandy’s surge, the area's design and planning groups are calling for the creation of a pan-regional entity to organize and lead the effort to deal with flood-resilience and climate change. They also are trumpeting the need for other reforms to eliminate myriad obstacles to climate adaptation, including
Installing a perimeter diaphragm wall to waterproof a shared deep basement of three 50-story office towers has been, so far, the biggest challenge for crews working on part of a nearly $6.1-billion waterfront redevelopment in Sydney. Laying the foundation for the ambitious Barangaroo South project, sited on 7.5 hectares of public land, is part of a scheme to create a replicable model for cradle-to-grave, grand-scale carbon-neutral development, starting from the moment construction begins to the end of the useful life of the buildings.Barangaroo South, on the site of a former container wharf, aims to be carbon-neutral in operation, including energy,
Photo Courtesy of NREL Building that will explore ways to integrate renewables into the grid is up and running. The Research Support Facility may soon produce as much power annually as it uses. Related Links: NREL Energy Systems Integration Facility NREL Research Support Facility 2011 Award of Excellence Winner: Jeffrey M. Baker: Conservation Crusader Though more than six months late, the U.S. Dept. of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., flipped the switch earlier this month on the final section of its nearly 2.5-MW photovoltaic system to power DOE's ultra-energy-efficient Research Support Facility. Turning on the 1.1-MW PV
Related Links: Building Owners and Managers Association A $100,000 study sponsored by building-owner interests has concluded there is no positive correlation between mandatory building-energy labeling and energy use. The six-month project was a response to increased interest among cities in passing legislation mandating energy scores and energy-efficiency programs."The biggest surprise to me was that we found, in what was a … comprehensive review of [labeling studies], no empirical evidence that these mandates have any effect on energy use," says Robert N. Stavins, co-author of "An Economic Perspective on Building Labeling Policies" and a professor of business and government at Harvard
A clear trend around the world is a shift to doing green building out of business, rather than environmental and social, motives (above). In 2012, 89% of the survey's respondents had installed or specified green buildings products (below). Related Links: For more data and intelligence on green building around the world, download the full World Green Building Trends SmartMarket Report. The picture on green building is getting clearer: Green building is growing around the world and quickly becoming an industry standard. A new research study conducted by McGraw-Hill Construction on global green building trends demonstrates that green building is well
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