Sustainability E-News
Scaling Green
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From The Editor
One of the challenges in the green building industry is program uptake - trying to get designers to design, and owners and contractors to build in a way that is better for the environment and the people that live and work in the buildings themselves. It is a challenge faced by all the various green programs on the market and there are valid reasons for it. LEED's initial success has tapered off in the last few years. The Living Building Institute is challenging for even those dedicated to "green". The International Green Construction Code has only been adopted in a few jurisdictions, and the ASHRAE Standard 189.1 for High-Performance Green Buildings has even fewer users. As a result, all are examining how they can make their programs more widely accessible, adoptable, and
used
. Several articles under
CODES and STANDARDS NEWS
discuss the steps these organizations are taking. In the end, whether it's a "scalable' approach (LEED and Living Buildings) or "core" and "above-core" (ASHRAE 189.1/IGCC), the hope is that more buildings will live lightly on the land.
Christine "Tina" Subasic, PE, LEED AP
CSubasicPE@aol.com
NOTE: Inclusion in this newsletter is not an endorsement of the products and materials featured, nor have these products been evaluated by TMS or the editor. Furthermore, the views expressed in the articles featured are those of the article authors.
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GREEN BUILDING NEWS
Despite the fact that the first two articles below confuse concrete masonry and concrete, they are great examples of using masonry to provide resilient designs. ~Tina
Ohio school to add reinforced concrete masonry tornado shelter
WSYX-TV (Columbus, Ohio)
Ohio's Fairborn Primary School is building a tornado shelter that will be able to hold 1,200 students inside, reportedly making it the first school in the state to do so. The shelter will have steel-reinforced concrete masonry walls that provide a safe space for students and staff.
Read more
.
Florida home contractor uses concrete for hurricane resiliency
BUILDER ONLINE
Delray Beach, Fla.-based Akel Homes offers homes constructed from concrete block to comply with the Florida Building Code requirements for hurricane resistance. The homes also include energy-efficient features and impact-rated windows so "form and function are in complete equilibrium," co-President Alexander Akel says in
this article
.
Column: The heating, cooling needs of net-zero-energy buildings
GREEN ROOFS.COM
Designers of net-zero-energy buildings need to account for a number of factors that affect heating and cooling needs, such as intended occupancy, equipment and the thermal envelope,
writes Michael Tobias
. HVAC equipment needs to have a high nameplate efficiency to reduce the building's energy consumption and operating costs.
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CODES and STANDARDS NEWS
The first article below caught my eye because it expressed a belief I have long held, that glass facades are not energy efficient. Looking at any large city though, you can see this fact does not translate into practice. The likelihood of this legislation passing is probably slim, but it is encouraging to see the dialogue it has inspired. ~Tina
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NYC to introduce bill to ban new glass skyscrapers
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
In a bid to curb New York City's greenhouse emissions by 30%, Mayor Bill de Blasio
plans to introduce legislation
to ban construction of new glass skyscrapers and require existing glass buildings to be retrofitted based on more stringent guidelines. The plan also calls for powering all of the city's operations with clean electricity.
Mass. considers net-zero building standard
ENERGY NEWS NETWORK
Massachusetts legislators Tami Gouveia and Joanne Comerford introduced a bill that would require many new buildings to achieve a net-zero energy standard. However, critics such as Byggmeister Design & Build President Paul Eldrenkamp believe that such a policy could have unintended consequences, as owners could construct less-efficient buildings and simply include more solar panels on them.
Read more
.
What’s next for LEED: V4.1, recertification and LEED Zero
USGBC
It’s been a little over a year since the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) first announced an update to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), the most widely used green building program in the world. What’s new with LEED version 4.1? What are the goals? Melissa Baker, senior vice president for technical core at USGBC, says
in this article
that the update is designed to equip project teams with the right tools to better understand how their buildings are performing, to demonstrate that all the sustainability goals are met, and to identify areas for improvement. “We wanted to make the rating system more accessible,” Baker says. “Establishing stepping stones, getting people [to use] credits that haven’t had much uptake, where we might have wanted to see uptake. Also, taking the market feedback that we’ve received and incorporating that while maintaining leadership.”
Living Building Challenge 4.0 Meets Market Demand for Increased Scalability
LIVING FUTURE
At the Living Future unConference earlier this month, the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) rolled out the latest version of its industry-leading green building standard, the Living Building Challenge 4.0 (LBC 4.0). At the same time, the Institute also released the
Core Green Building Certification
, and a new Volume Certification program which will make it more efficient for organizations to certify an entire portfolio of projects.
Read more
.
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GREEN PRODUCT NEWS
More on reducing the carbon footprint of concrete (and concrete products). ~Tina
Blue Planet takes a different approach to carbon capture
EARTH911.COM
Blue Planet has developed a carbon capture method that forgoes the usual energy-intensive process of producing purified carbon dioxide and instead uses CO2 as a raw material to make synthetic limestone for concrete. The material has already been put to use at San Francisco International Airport's new terminal and runways
. Read more
here
.
Lehigh Hanson enhances sustainability with PLC
WORLD CEMENT MAGAZINE ONLINE (UK)
Lehigh Hanson has improved the sustainability of its operations through the introduction of portland limestone cement, or PLC, which reduces carbon dioxide emissions by diverting a portion of limestone past the pyroprocessing stage. "Using PLC and slag may not sound as exotic as some of the other technologies out there, but by far and away it gives you the biggest bang for the buck when it comes to making an actual improvement on your environmental footprint," said Mike Stanzel, Lehigh Cement's technical services manager for Ontario and Quebec
in this piece
.
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EDUCATIONAL NEWS
Register Now for The Masonry Society Spring Meetings
MASONRYSOCIETY.ORG
Registration is now open for the TMS Spring Meetings to be held in Salt Lake City, UT June 14-16, 2019. For more information on the upcoming meeting and TMS Committee activities, check out
this link
or
listen to a recording of the recent
Virtual Town Hall
and review the Presentation pdf
.
Registration Open for 13th North American Masonry Conference
TMS
The 13th North American Masonry Conference will be held June 16–19, 2019, in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Conference is hosted by Brigham Young University and is the latest in a series of quadrennial conferences sponsored by The Masonry Society. More than 150 papers from more than 20 countries are anticipated to be presented on a wide array of masonry topics. For more information and to register visit the conference
website
.
Seeking Abstracts for Conference on Durability of Materials
You are invited to submit an abstract for the 15th International Conference on Durability of Building Materials and Components, which will be held June 30 - July 3, 2020 in Barcelona, Spain. Abstracts are sought in the areas of: Building Physics and Durability, Service Life Prediction Methodologies, Durability of Materials, Systems and Components, Sustainability and Durable Construction and more. For more information check out the
conference website
.
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