As we continue leveraging the cultural influence of sports to advance green building, we’re taking to social media to engage players and fans alike.
Join the Center for Green Schools (@mygreenschools) for a twitter chat with the Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) and Green Sports Alliance (@SportsAlliance). We’ll be celebrating the sustainability initiatives of sports organizations and encouraging our followers to partake in their own.
This week, the Center for Green Schools honored 10 teachers who are leading the way in environmental education. Our brand new “Trailblazing Teacher” award aims to honor teachers across the country who are working to bring sustainable learning into the classroom and their students’ lives. We were flooded for applications for this award, and were humbled by the incredible work educators are undertaking to introduce creative ways to incorporate environmental components into their classrooms and curriculums.
So far this year, USGBC chapters have organized Advocacy Days in 20 states where they take their cause to the capitol, challenging state legislators to support green public policy for the betterment of their districts and their state. I love that picture: well-intentioned groups practicing democracy in its purest form, demanding that their state representatives demonstrate leadership in the critical arenas of economic development, environmental stewardship and the health of their people who spend 90 percent of their time in buildings.
Have you ever wondered what happens between the last public comment period and ballot? There are quite a few steps involved in closing the development process (when rating system changes are made based on marketplace feedback) and opening ballot.
Here’s our weekly collection of green building clips:
Green Building is Mandatory in Dubai, Sustainable Business. Dubai is targeting a 30% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, and a new law on green building will help it on its way.
Culture has been influenced by the sporting world for decades. Throughout the 20th century, fans mobilized around athletes to oppose war, support civil rights and promote disease awareness. The sports industry today is as influential as ever, with 58 percent of Americans self-identifying as sports fans, offering a robust platform for green building education and advocacy.
This past month has been a real doozy.
We, here on USGBC National’s advocacy team, got wind that Big Chemical was lobbying the Senate Energy and Natural Resources (SENR) Committee to attach a “poison pill” amendment to popular energy efficiency legislation that would ban LEED for use by the federal government. Thanks to the quick action of our chapters and their unrelenting commitment to better, healthier places to live, learn and work, we were able to keep the amendment from being added during markup, but the fight is far from over.
Are you an energy technical solution provider wondering how you can help LEED projects achieve the new Demand Response credit? Are you a practitioner who wants to know why air testing is valued at two points when the flush-out is valued at 1 point for the EQ: Indoor Air Quality Assessment credit? Or perhaps you’re a building owner who wants to know overall how the changes in the water credit category of LEED v4 will effect your existing building’s pursuit of LEED.
Last month, members of the Center for Green Schools team had the opportunity to take a hard-hat tour of 100-year old Cardozo High School in Washington, D.C., which is undergoing renovation as part of the D.C. Education Reform Act of 2007. When the school reopens in August for the 2013-14 academic year, it will feature larger, reconfigured and technologically updated classrooms, a new gym and central staircase, two enclosed courtyards used as a cafeteria and a refurbished auditorium.