In a few minutes I’ll board a plane for Rome, where I’ll attend the board meeting of the World Green Building Council. WGBC is 94 councils strong today, each one modeled on USGBC, which was the first council. And it was birthed 20 years ago today.
USGBC has just announced that it is establishing a group of 11 to 15 volunteers to serve as a working group that will determine how to best implement Option 3 of the Material Ingredients credit proposed for LEED v4. The call for self-nominations of applicants posted April 1 to the volunteer opportunities page on the USGBC website, and USGBC will accept applications through May 1.
This article was originally posted on americanbanker.com on April 2, 2013
Since the 1930s, when the Federal Housing Administration published its earliest underwriting manuals, mortgage lenders have used a loan applicant’s debt-to-income ratio to measure his or her ability to pay a mortgage loan. But lenders today typically count only a limited basket of loan applicant expenses toward DTI: the new mortgage payment, taxes and insurance and other loan payments.
The LEED v4 Ballot is right around the corner. Want to vote? Register between April 1-30.
Who can register to vote?
All employees of USGBC national member organizations with membership in good standing since March 1, 2013. Membership should remain in good standing through the ballot period this summer. Be sure to register first.
After registering, you’ll have access to the LEED v4 webcast series on LEED v4, which begins on April 10. Webcast topics include:
Thirteen years ago, on March 30, 2000, LEED went from being an idea to a fully functioning rating system. Who could have known that this idea would turn into a global green building movement, with more than 1.5 million square feet of LEED space certifying every day? Who would have imagined that the program would grow to include over 184,000 LEED credentialed professionals and over 51,000 projects participating in LEED, making up 9.7 billion square feet of construction space?
The 2013 National Conference on Education took place in Los Angeles last month and saw thousands of superintendents gather from across the country to learn, network and share, but most importantly prepare for the changing landscape of public education.
Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?
The legwork has been done. The research has been conducted. The numbers have been crunched. As far as we can tell, it is going to cost the U.S. an investment of nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars to upgrade our nation’s schools just to working order, and nearly half a trillion to bring them into the 21st century.
And the cut-to-the-chase part boils down to one simple but undeniably tough question: How can we possibly afford to do that?
The National School Supply and Equipment Association’s (NSSEA) EdSpaces Planning Committee met recently to plan the 2013 event taking place December 4-6 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas. We were pleased to have Patrick Lane from USGBC’s Center for Green Schools with us help make EdSpaces the meeting place for the many relevant participants in the green schools movement whose jobs are to design, furnish, operate or maintain educational institutions.
Over the past three years, we’ve been proud to work closely with several federal agencies and more than 80 different NGOs to help develop and support the U.S. Department of Education’s Green Ribbon Schools recognition award. There’s widespread agreement in Washington that this collaborative program, which has brought so many different stakeholders together, is an historic milestone program in the green schools movement, and we tip our hats to the U.S.
Updated August, 26, 2014: The USGBC Webinar Subscription is no longer available for purchase. Review USGBC’s other education offerings.
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