“Inexhaustible” Inspiration: Thomas Knittel Talks Biomimicry

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Biomimicry expert, Thomas Knittel

A building shaped like a butterfly. A skyscraper modeled after self-cooling termite mounds. A structure in arid climate inspired by a desert snail. Biomimicry, the application of nature’s principles to solve problems, is an emerging influence in modern day green building and other design and technology.

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Demonstrating the Benefits of Green, Inclusive Housing at the UN Climate Talks

COP-17 has made me proud to be South African for several reasons. First, hosting of the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) here in Durban, South Africa, has helped to remind the world that the impacts of climate change are already dis…

There’s More to Be Done: Government Summit Will Expand on Federal Government’s Green Building Efforts

With the release yesterday of the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) sustainability scorecards for federal agencies and departments, the public got its first progress report on federal agency efforts to cut emissions.
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You Can’t Manage What You Can’t Measure: Building-Level Metering

As the Manager of USGBC’s Building Performance Partnership and Recertification programs here at USGBC, I spend my time thinking over and over again about which aspects of building operations should be regularly monitored and which make the maximum contribution to the continuous high-performance of each building. We have to figure out how to encourage building operators to look at the holistic performance of their buildings and act based on the full story – So, how do we do that? What do we ask them to monitor?

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