Beginning August 1st, 2017, business recycling rules will be enforced.
Author: LEaD Blogger
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Attend the annual Women in Green event at Greenbuild
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Gather with green building champions, at one of our upcoming Women in Green events at Greenbuild 2017.
Greenbuild China: Women in Green Power Breakfast
October 18 from 7:30–9 a.m.
Learn moreGreenbuild India: Women in Green Power Lunch
November 3 from 1–2:30 p.m.
Learn moreGreenbuild Boston: Women in Green Power Breakfast
November 9 from 7–9 p.m.
Learn moreWomen are change agents in business, in education, in health care, in technology and cutting-edge research, in service of our common defense, in government and in our homes. Without the powerful voices of women seeking change, so much progress would be stifled or delayed. Attend Women in Green to hear from groundbreaking women who will call upon attendees to speak up as individuals and as a group to achieve change in the workplace and the world.
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Register for the EDGE Technical Workshop at Greenbuild India
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Registration is now open for Greenbuild India. Held annually in the United States since 2002, the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo is the world’s largest conference and expo dedicated to green building. This November, the award-winning event will be held for the first time in Mumbai, India.
EDGE and resource efficiency in buildings will be front and center at Greenbuild India, where GBCI is offering its full-day EDGE Technical Workshop. This workshop helps EDGE project teams understand the EDGE standard, use the software application and navigate the certification process. It also prepares EDGE Expert candidates to take the EDGE exam.
This is the last in-person EDGE Technical Workshop that GBCI will be offering in India this year, so register now to claim your seat.
The EDGE Technical Workshop is not included in the conference pass for Greenbuild India. After the workshop, attend the conference for two days of speakers, networking opportunities, an expo hall featuring the latest green building products and technologie, and tours of Mumbai’s green buildings.
Date: November 1, 2016, 9 a.m.–6 p.m.
GBCI continuing education credit: 8 hours
Cost: 7,500 INR (early bird price, for registrations before Sept. 8)Please email GBCI with any questions.
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On the road to Boston, a look back at WaterBuild 2016
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WaterBuild 2016, the Water Summit at Greenbuild, kicked off its first of a three-year program series last year in Los Angeles. As we gear up for the 2017 Summit in Boston on November 7, here’s a look back at WaterBuild 2016.
“Water, water everywhere…”
A more sustainable built environment can address myriad water issues, from quality to quantity to equitable access. As 2016 summit keynote speaker Dr. Michael Webber said, our world is built around needing the right amount of water in the right place, at the right temperature, at the right time. Having too much, too little or water at the wrong time or in the wrong phase (ice, not water—or water, not ice), can create big, expensive and often energy-intensive consequences.
Eighteenth-century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge shared wise words in his “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” writing “Water, water, everywhere, / Nor any drop to drink.” The 2016 summit launched in a similar context, on the coast of the Pacific ocean, but in the midst of California’s historic drought.
Consequently, a number of discussions at the summit focused on water scarcity and how green buildings and infrastructure can help. Greenbuild 2016 also purchased Water Restoration Certificates to offset water use at the Los Angeles convention center and created a water footprint for the conference, tracking consumption from food, hotels, paper, freight fuel and venues (read more about the greening of Greenbuild 2016).
Three years of WaterBuild
WaterBuild 2016 convened changemakers in Los Angeles to workshop ideas, discuss challenges and inspire solutions for reducing water use, providing healthy drinking water and managing for water resilience. USGBC’s Chief of Engineering, Brendan Owens, introduced the summit series by detailing how WaterBuild will explore ways in which the green building industry can spur more meaningful transformation in important areas of water quality, access, efficiency and abundance.
Webber’s upbeat keynote presentation covered the gamut of water constraints and connections between energy, infrastructure and society. He gave a hopeful outlook on long-term sustainability through better water policy and pricing, collaborative integrated planning and appropriate technology deployment.
After three engaging educational sessions, the 200+ participants convened for lunch and to admire the work of the Land Art Generator Initiative, which uses public art to help the public experience water and energy infrastructure in new and beautiful ways.
At this first of three WaterBuild summits, a few dozen participants joined a unique local issue charrette. USGBC and the USGBC Los Angeles community teamed up with L.A. county and city leadership to explore policy solutions toward net-zero water. Future WaterBuild summits will repeat this opportunity to roll up your sleeves and dive into the details of a local water issue.
In a parallel track, WaterBuild featured a first-ever Pecha Kucha session. Eight presenters deftly raced through rapid-fire presentations covering topics of water quality, quantity, equity, policy, industry and equity. One presenter told a heartfelt story from Flint, Michigan, later covered in a USGBC+ article. Another highlight was an abridged version of the presenter’s TED Talk. Still another, by our beloved colleague, the late Bill Worthen, focused on on-site water treatment.
At the end of the day, WaterBuild participants joined hundreds of others for a combined closing plenary to conclude the day with celebration and make a tribute to President Obama’s eight years of leadership on green building, climate and sustainability.
Reconvening in Boston
On November 7, we’ll convene again for the second event in the WaterBuild series. This year’s focus is water resilience, so we’ll see additional attention to water-related opportunities in technology, policy and infrastructure. The format will be very much like 2016’s WaterBuild Summit, including keynotes, a practical charrette for a development site in Boston, educational sessions and the Pecha Kucha sessions, which will have even more focus of achieving ongoing impact.
USGBC staff and the volunteer organizing committee have come together to plan another impactful day that gives attendees the knowledge and ability to make positive change.
I am honored to be part of WaterBuild 2017, as a member of the LEED Water Technical Advisory Group, my colleagues and I work to leverage our collective knowledge to contribute to one of the world’s most amazing instruments for change. We have a lot of momentum to continue to build upon, and our water future has not yet been written. Let’s write it together. I invite you to join us on our WaterBuild journey.
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How LEED combats climate change
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The Earth’s climate is changing, and 97 percent of climate scientists agree that it is likely due to human activities. So where does that leave us and the rest of the building industry?
Buildings account for more than one-quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), according to the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction. Add in other infrastructure and activities, such as transportation, that are associated with buildings, and that number jumps.
By building green, we can reduce the impact our buildings have on contributing to climate change, while also building resilience into our homes and communities.
LEED vs climate change
One of the goals that guided the development of LEED v4 was reversing a LEED building’s contribution to global climate change. High-performing green buildings, particularly LEED-certified buildings, play a key role in reducing the negative climate impacts of the built environment. For this reason, 35 of the 100 total points in LEED v4 are distributed to reward climate change mitigation strategies.
The LEED process addresses a structure’s planning, design, construction, operations and end of life as well as considering energy, water, indoor environmental quality, materials selection and location. Green buildings reduce landfill waste, enable alternative transportation use and encourage retention and creation of vegetated land areas and roofs.
LEED rewards thoughtful decisions about building location, with credits that encourage compact development and connection with transit and amenities. When a building consumes less water, the energy otherwise required to withdraw, treat and pump that water from the source to the building are avoided. Additionally, less transport of materials to and from the building cuts associated fuel consumption.
Here are some of the ways that LEED weighs the various credits and strategies so that LEED projects can mitigate their contribution to global climate change:
- GHG Emissions Reduction from Building Operations Energy Use: To target energy use reductions directly associated with building operations. This includes all building systems and operations within the building or associated grounds that rely on electricity or other fuel sources for energy consumption.
- GHG Emissions Reduction from Transportation Energy Use: To target energy use reductions associated with the transportation of building occupants, employees, customers, visitors, business travel, etc.
- GHG Emissions Reduction from the Embodied Energy of Materials and Water Use: To target GHG-emissions reductions associated with the energy use and processes required in the extraction, production, transportation, conveyance, manufacturing, assembly, distribution, use, posttreatment, and disposal of materials, products and processed water. Any measures that directly reduce the use of potable water, non-potable water, or raw materials (e.g. reduced packaging, building reuse) will indirectly reduce energy as well because of the embodied energy associated with these product life cycles.
- GHG Emissions Reduction from a Cleaner Energy Supply: To target actions and measures that support a cleaner, less GHG-emissions intensive energy supply and a greater reliance on renewable sources of energy.
- Global Warming Potential Reduction from Non-Energy Related Drivers: To address the non-energy related climate change drivers (e.g. albedo, carbon sinks, non-energy related GHG emissions) and identifies actions that reduce these contributions to climate change (e.g. land use changes, heat island reduction, reforestation, refrigerant purchases).
Some of the top credits in LEED v4 BD+C, ID+C, and O+M that are associated with mitigating global climate change:
- LT Credit: Surrounding Density and Diverse Uses
- LT Credit: Access to Quality Transit / Alternative Transportation
- WE Credit: Outdoor Water Use Reduction
- WE Credit: Indoor Water Use Reduction
- EA Credit: Optimize Energy Performance
- EA Credit: Renewable Energy Production / Renewable Energy and Carbon Offsets
- EA Credit: Enhanced Refrigerant Management
- EA Credit: Green Power and Carbon Offsets
- MR Credit: Building Life-Cycle Impact Reduction / Interiors Life-Cycle Impact Reduction
To learn more about LEED and how it can help reduce the impact of global climate change, head to Greenbuild in Boston this November 8–10 (or check out our Greenbuild events in China or India). Greenbuild features LEED workshops, hundreds of green building educational sessions and inspiring speakers and events.
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Green building tech club in Boston to attend Greenbuild
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This excerpt is from “Madison Park High School Green Building Tech Club,” by Jen Cole, published on June 6 on the USGBC Massachusetts website.
As part of the Road to Greenbuild, USGBC Massachusetts has begun a legacy project at Madison Park High School called the Green Building Tech Club. The after-school program, starting in September, will run from 3 to 5 p.m. once a week and introduce and prepare the underrepresented community at the vocational high school to “green economy” careers in facilities management.
Students involved will be engaged with presentations from various local professionals, a trip to the Expo Hall at Greenbuild 2017, tours of high-performance green buildings in our area and mentorship from Wentworth Institute of Technology Environmental Collaborative.
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Register for Greenbuild India or Greenbuild China 2017
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Registration is now open for both Greenbuild India and Greenbuild China. For the first time, the world’s largest green building conference will be held in Mumbai and Shanghai, in addition to Boston.
Greenbuild India: November 2–5, 2017. Register for Greenbuild India.
Greenbuild China: October 17–18, 2017. Register for Greenbuild China.What do the events offer?
Delivering sustainability solutions, Greenbuild is the ideal space to learn about innovative green building strategies, products and services. It’s also a great opportunity for LEED professionals to earn continuing education (CE) credits.
Both events will feature:
- Inspiring speakers
- Invaluable networking opportunities
- Industry showcases
- LEED workshops with global industry leaders, experts and frontline professionals
Learn the latest about LEED v4 and its ability to impact energy, water and human health. Get introduced to LEED for Cities, the new Arc digital performance platform, the EDGE green building certification system for new residential and commercial buildings in emerging markets, the SITES rating system for sustainable landscape design and Parksmart for parking structures.
Greenbuild is unique in its ability to showcase the globally recognized LEED rating system for sustainable design, construction, and operations and maintenance. Today LEED, a product of the global green building industry, is found in more than 160 countries and territories.
See the full program of Greenbuild India sessions, and view the Greenbuild China agenda.
Who attends Greenbuild?
Network with hundreds of global building professionals focused on the global green building market: architects, builders and contractors, building owners, developers, educators, engineers, green building thought leaders, government planners and regulators, interior designers, real estate investors, sustainability officers, and utility executives.
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Registration Now Open for Greenbuild India 2017
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Award-winning green building conference and expo headed to Mumbai, November 2–5
Mumbai, India—(July 6, 2017)—Today, USGBC, the creators of the LEED green building rating system, announced that registration is now open for Greenbuild India. The event is presented by USGBC in partnership with ABEC Exhibitions & Conferences Pvt. Ltd.
Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, held annually in the United States since 2002, is the world’s largest conference and expo dedicated to green building. Greenbuild India will build on this by bringing together Indian and global industry leaders, experts and frontline professionals dedicated to sustainable building, making Greenbuild the ideal space to learn about groundbreaking green building products, services and technologies in the region.
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Wonderful Speech of Mr.Mahesh Ramanujam, President and CEO of USGBC at our eFACiLiTY® building
Mahesh Ramanujam , President and Chief Executive Officer at the U.S. Green Building Council blessed the Occasion by his presence and it was a great moment for our green building to receive the honor from an eminent person like him.
His words of wisdom as follows:
Good afternoon everyone. It is Good morning we are almost getting into Good afternoon. I will take a deep breath, particularly Mrs. Rema reading my profile right in the heart of my homeland in Tamilnadu, where I have been invited by SIERRA to give my first plaque presentation in my home state, Tamilnadu. This is going to be the first presentation I’ve done, am truly humbled, honored, inspired and I have no more words to express my gratitude to Mr. Sundaram, to Mr.Karthik, Mr.Giridhar, Mrs. Rema Giridhar – for your very kind introduction, and importantly being in the company of distinguished guests, I don’t want to list all the names because I will get into trouble, I will leave some names.
I would say, today it is my unique opportunity and a life-time privilege to be among the family in ‘Namma Coimbatore’. I don’t want to talk a lot about this building, because you heard that all in the story, so I won’t do the job of adding anything to it. But what I will talk about today is, about why it matters and why we have a unique opportunity to reflect a different image about what we do as Indians, as pro-Tamilians to do a greater good for the greater world, so just a quick introduction.
It talks about the Second highest ranking Green Building. So what I thought was very important that everybody understands what that means. I have a piece of paper and about to read it in a minute. It’s got 5 things at the top and 5 things at the bottom. I showed this to Mr. Giridhar when I walked in.
First U.S. Green Building Council was founded exactly 24 years ago, 1993. I graduated from Annamalai university in 1993. 24 years, so next year is Silver Jubilee. Second, LEED which stands for ‘Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design’ was established in 2000. It is a 17-year old program and it’s running every single day.
What is LEED?
Very simple way of explaining it is, if you go to the grocery store today you pick up any food article you are consuming, you will see an ingredient nutrition label listed on it. You are going to l see how much sugar or how much fat, what are the ingredients in there etc., etc., so you are very familiar with the nutrition label on food items.
LEED is the nutrition label for a building. Why this matters is because two things contribute to maximum carbon emissions in the world, one is building, another is transportation. So 50-50 somebody says, 45-45 somebody says 40-40. Still these are big numbers 40% of Carbon emissions is projected to come from buildings and we say it is important before we focus on this sector and create LEED as a framework to do better design, better construction, better corporations and most importantly better performance of a building, because initially in the olden days we just used to build because it was available. But now you build with lot of thought, that’s what that video talked about. It is about applying thought, it is about applying vision, it is about refocusing on all the concepts that are known to make it an efficient building, efficiently designed as a building that takes less from the environment and gives it back to the environment. So that is LEED, I just want to put that.
Now let me tell you the 17-year old story. The 17-year story is 90,000 projects are attempting LEED all over the world. So you can look at the empire state building in New York city, you can look at Shanghai tower, you can look at Taipei 101 in Taiwan. You can look at the tallest buildings in Paris, London and Beijing in India in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai we have varieties of buildings that have achieved LEED Certification around the world.
90,000 buildings around the world totaling the total square footage of 19 billion square feet present in 164 countries. Now Let’s talk about the second. Second among the 90,000 buildings. That is inspiring. I didn’t imagine that it will happen in my hometown.
So let me talk about, in India there are 5 buildings, I am going to talk about the top 5 buildings in India from a scoring point of view. If you know, this is a season of admissions, so let’s share some scores. This building is the number 1 in India, that’s very important because whenever I came second my father always asked who got the first. SIERRA ODC facility got 103 points on a total of 110 points. This looks like CBSE Results. But then in the top 5 buildings, let me talk about the other buildings in India which came next, so that you have a context of what these buildings are. The second building was ITC Green Center, Gurgaon. The third building is ITC Hotel Maratha in Mumbai, if you have visited Mumbai, it is a beautiful hotel. Again the ITC Green Centre certified again, so it is in 4th. The next one is ITC Rajputana Sheraton hotel.
So if you really look at it, it puts you on a very elite club, because ITC, you heard the news from Mr. Nakul Anand, that company transform division is called ‘Responsible luxury’. That vision was set and I am hoping SIERRA’s tag name is going to be ‘Responsible everything’.
Then from a world point of view, the number in the top 5 buildings is, one building in Dubai, one in Australia, of course one in Tamil Nadu which is SIERRA, one in San Francisco, California and one in Korea and of course, one in Gurgaon.
So 2, we got the top 2 sitting right here in India, thank you for making that happen. I was given 3 minutes it is hard to do this in 3 minutes. But, what I want to share is as an Indian, who sits outside India in Washington DC, two blocks away from White House, It is extreme privilege for me, that I can look at India from a different lens than most of the people do. It is a pride of India and I am very very glad that we are not just seen as people who are exporting software, we are also exporting sustainability, and it begins at SIERRA.
So with that, I just wanted to, while I was listening, while I was seeing all people coming, greeted, my heart started pumping and I said, I need to say something that is more meaningful for all of us. We need to carry on the SIERRA dream and Mr. Sundaram again, your leadership and your commitment, and as I was telling you on the side, Mr. Karthik did not add another line, called a steel structure. You are also a steel structure.
For reinforcing the principle of sustainability back to our core which is our culture, I thought I should leave you with a very important message. So I am going to read something I wrote, while everybody was talking. We are in Coimbatore, let’s take a little bit bigger view of the city. So this is what I wrote, “Imagine a city that is performing at the highest levels possible and is a global model of how cities are planned, developed, operated and measured.” We all know what gets measured, gets done. They measured it, they got it done. “A city whose buildings, neighborhoods and communities are as sustainable as possible and prioritizes and enhances human health, while saving energy, water, waste and everything else, prioritizing human health; a city powered by the cleanest and reliable energy; a city where every child goes to a green school or learns in a green school; a city that is affordable for even the poorest; a city that has accomplished its lofty goal of a sustainable future for all.”
So thank you SIERRA for setting the tone, setting the direction for the city of Coimbatore, Namma Coimbatore to lead the way to be the global inspiration to be the greenest city in the world and importantly starting this culture of sustainability to be exported out of India, so this can become the nation’s pride. With that, with all humility, thank you for your leadership, thank you for your inspiration and most importantly keep the good work going.
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Declared as the World’s 2nd and India’s Highest Rated Green Building by Mr.Mahesh Ramanujam
Coimbatore, India June 29, 2017 – The SIERRA ODC’s eFACiLiTY® building has been awarded LEED Platinum certification by Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI), the certifying body for all LEED projects worldwide, scoring 103 points out of 110 points, establishing it as the world’s 2nd highest ranking green building score under LEED NC v2009. There are 90,000 commercial LEED projects registered across 164 countries and about 37,300 have got certified so far.
SIERRA Quotes: “The ranking was a result of our initiative to create awareness among the public on Global Warming issues and the urgent need for all buildings on the planet to follow suit. Taking the concept further, we will be sharing and publishing the knowledge we have gained, the technologies adopted and the innovations deployed in our green building openly in various platforms for everyone to improvise upon and replicate freely to make our planet greener and a safer place to live in.”
The building was designed and constructed with an emphasis on increasing the efficiency of resource use – energy, water, and materials – while reducing its impact on human health and the environment throughout its entire lifecycle. To further promote the benefits of green building, SIERRA ODC is establishing an on-site Green Learning Center where students, social enthusiasts, industry experts and the general public can learn the benefits of green building and how they can easily apply certain strategies at home and work.
Achieved Metrics
“SIERRA ODC’s eFACiLiTY Building has been designed and constructed to be one of the greenest buildings in the entire world,” said Mahesh Ramanujam, President & CEO, U.S. Green Building Council (U.S. Green Building Council) and Green Business Certifications Inc. (GBCI). “By certifying this project to LEED, SIERRA ODC has demonstrated a strong commitment to the health, comfort and wellbeing of the people who will visit this building and to their community at large. This project will serve as a model in India and all around the world for how we can create a future that is safe and healthy for our planet and its people.”
SIERRA ODC Private Limited:
SIERRA ODC is a Coimbatore based Software/IT Solutions Company offering Custom Software Development Services and end-to-end IT turnkey solutions to customers world-wide.SIERRA is the developer of eFACiLiTY® – Enterprise Facility Management Software, a leading Computed Aided Facility Management (CAFM) Software in Asia & Middle East. SIERRA’s clientele includes many Fortune 500 companies and government agencies spread across Asia, Middle East, Australia, USA & Europe.
SIERRA is a Micro-Small and Medium Enterprise founded and headed by Coimbatore based Entrepreneurs.
GBCI:
GBCI is the premier organization independently recognizing excellence in green business industry performance and practice globally.GBCI is the only certification and credentialing body within the green business and sustainability industry to exclusively administer project certifications and professional credentials of LEED, EDGE, PEER, WELL, SITES, GRESB, Parksmart and Zero Waste.
