From June 3-5, I had the opportunity to attend the National Green Ribbon Ceremony in Washington, D.C. on behalf of Green Ribbon Schools Award. Wow! The ceremony and the ensuing meetings and events were just fantastic! Washington D.C. was the perfect …
Author: LEaD Blogger
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The Brilliance of Green Building is Shining at Rio+20
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“It is time that we steered by the stars, not the lights of each passing ship.”
— General Omar Bradley
The green building world knows the following statistic all too well. On average, we spend 90 percent of our time indoors. That’s 21.6 hours out of every day. That’s 328 and a half days every year. Inside a building.
And we certainly take this to heart because, while we’re spending all this time inside, the quality of air we’re breathing is on average 3-5 times more polluted than outside, according to the EPA.
Transforming Buildings, Even the Little Ones: 20,000 LEED-certified Homes
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20,000: No, I’m not talking leagues under the sea. I’m talking LEED-certified homes.
That’s right: I’m particularly proud to announce that we’ve certified over 20,000 LEED for Homes units.
It’s interesting to look at a sampling of the projects we’ve certified in just the past couple of weeks to see the reach and versatility of LEED in the residential space:
Green Homes Continue to Grow Across the U.S
LEED for Homes surpasses 20,000 certified home milestone
Washington, DC – (June 13, 2012) – The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) today announced that more than 20,000 homes across the U.S. have earned certification through the LEED for Homes program. LEED for Homes is a national voluntary certification system that provides guidance and verification that homes are designed and built to be energy- and resource-efficient and healthy for occupants.
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Is a Sustainable City a Just City?
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In order to accommodate the expected increase in urban population of two billion people by 2030, we would need 200 new cities with populations of 10 million people—think 200 cities larger than Paris! Obviously the sustainable planning and construction of these cities is crucial to avoiding exponential increases in future emissions; however, accommodating two billion additional people will have wider implications than just on the environment. We need to address the livelihoods of the urban migrants themselves.
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Rachel Gutter Named World Green Building Council Chairman’s Award Winner
Rachel Gutter, the director of the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council, received the World Green Building Council Chairman’s Award this week at the WorldGBC Congress in Stuttgart, Germany. Rachel was honored for her leadership at the forefront of the green schools movement, and working to make healthy, energy-efficient schools accessible to everyone across the globe.
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Stakeholders Along the Road to Rio+20 Call Upon Leaders for Action at Upcoming Earth Summit
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On June 5, the Road to Rio+20 series made a final pit stop in Washington D.C., the North American host city for World Environment Day, to launch a new report, Advanci…
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President Clinton Announces the Launch of California’s Best Buildings Challenge at 2012 Clinton Global Initiative America
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Add six companies…five million square feet of collective real estate…and one challenge. Stir.
What do you get?
A recipe for something remarkable – not just better buildings, but best buildings. In other words, California’s Best Buildings Challenge.
Yesterday, six major leading companies – Adobe, Genentech, Google, Prudential Real Estate Investors, SAP and Zynga – stepped up to the Challenge, a commitment to achieve not just a 20 percent reduction in energy but also in water and waste.
U.S. Green Building Council, United Nations Environment Programme and World Business Council for Sustainable Development Release Report on the Role of Cities in the Green Economy
Report Highlights Key Messages to Leaders at Rio+20 Conference
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Important News About LEED 2012: A Message from Rick Fedrizzi
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To USGBC members and LEED users:
The amazing volunteers on all our LEED committees have been working extremely hard for the past 3+ years to get LEED 2012 ready for launch. The continuous evolution of LEED is made possible through hard work, and these committed technical experts undertake this work because they have a passion for USGBC’s commitment to market transformation and they see LEED as the best tool to help us get there. We are all deeply in their debt.