National Green Week is a time to make students aware of important sustainability topics and get them excited to do their part to make a difference! What better way to drum up enthusiasm than with a fun and educational contest?
If you thought we had a lot to celebrate in 2012, just brace yourself for 2013. Green building advocates have already mobilized for policy action in South Carolina, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Arkansas, Iowa and Colorado. I was fortunate enough to join the USGBC chapter-led advocacy efforts in Des Moines and Denver last week, and I think we’re on the verge of something big.
“From Outcome to Implementation” – That was the theme of the first universal session of the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Governing Council and Global Ministerial Environment Forum (GC/GMEF), which convened on Monday . The agenda for the meeting, open to all 193 UN member states for the first time, sought to create a framework for the implementation of the Rio+20 “The Future We Want” outcome document.
“I remain fully committed to the goal I first stated in July of 2011, that we will make the District of Columbia the healthiest, greenest city in the nation…this is my promise to everyone.” – Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, February 20, 2013
The following is a guest post by Alex Dodds, Online Communications Manager at Smart Growth America.
The biggest real estate investor in the United States isn’t Donald Trump, and it’s not a private equity firm.
Editor’s note: Browse the February issue of EDC, the official magazine for the LEED Professional – and preview the piece “LEED: More Than a Decade of High-Performing Buildings” by Brendan Owens below. Sign up today to get your free digital edition of EDC.
We want to thank you for your contribution to the development of LEED v4. With the ballot only four months away, we are taking every moment to make sure the rating systems are fully usable and the program has been thoroughly tested.
The last step in the development process is one final public comment period, open March 1 – March 31, 2013. This comment period will focus on refinement (both in the credit language and in calculations) and provides the public with one last chance to give feedback on the system before the member vote in June.
There sure has been a lot of talk about the federal government’s use of LEED lately.
Last week, the National Research Council released a report that reaffirmed what we’ve been saying all along—that LEED makes good economic sense. They recommended that the Department of Defense should require its new buildings or major renovations to be designed to achieve at least LEED Silver certification.
Recently, the city of Minneapolis became the latest city to lead by example in improving building performance by requiring the benchmarking and disclosure of energy and water usage for the city’s public and commercial building stock. USGBC supports benchmarking initiatives through the Mainstream Building Benchmarking Campaign and applauds the city’s move.
This is a very important time for the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED and the thousands of volunteers around the world who have contributed to the LEED green building certification program. LEED v4, the newest update to the rating system, will be up for ballot this June.