| Green Roundtable Events and Trainings*
Join us for a tour, resource orientation, an "Ask the expert" clinic, and a seminar on "Home Heating On A Budget."
The City of Boston is partnering with GRT to offer this seminar to help you brace for rising energy costs this winter by buttoning up your home with basic energy conservation measures.
Tailor-made for developers, this event will teach you tips and tricks such as how to hire and manage design teams to achieve success certifying projects.
This workshop will provide you with the principles and tools to make a positive environmental impact in your life and create a more powerful impact by working with your community.
Beginning October 28, 8:30am-10:30am
NEXUS
This GRT training will prepare you to take the LEED for New Construction v2.2 AP Exam within a month of finishing the training. Spots are filling up fast!
This workshop will address the fundamentals of green materials and provide you with the knowledge to evaluate and utilize green building products to reduce your organizations environmental impacts.
NEXUS offers a designated meeting place and time for a LEED AP exam group study session.
Lunch and LEED
November 3, 12:30-1:30pm
NEXUS
All are welcome to bring a bag lunch to this monthly session where we address these questions and other questions you have about the LEED Rating System for green buildings.
*Learn more about these and other events from the NEXUS Events Calendar.
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| Massachusetts Membership Forum Meetings & Events*
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Greenbuild and Build Boston: Two-for-one
The perfect storm of design and construction industry events is headed to Boston next month. Attending either Build Boston or Greenbuild afford a great two-for-one opportunity. The BSA and the USGBC are partnering to offer attendees free registration for their respective exhibit halls.
Build Boston attendees who wish to visit Greenbuild simply need to pick up a voucher in the Build Boston design gallery. Greenbuild attendees who wish to visit Build Boston need only bring their convention badge to the designated counter at Build Boston. Learn more or register for each conference by clicking on the links above. |
Community Events*
10/24-10/26
New Bedford, MA
Join an internationally acclaimed annual gathering of environmental, industry and social justice innovators (Van Jones, Majora Carter, Gary Hirshberg) who have demonstrated visionary and practical models for restoring the Earth and its inhabitants.
Eco-Festival, Winchester
10/25
Winchester, MA
The themes will include recycling, energy efficiency, and renewable energy.
Energy Savings Fair, Lexington
10/25, 9am-3pm
Lexington, MA
Real solutions to homeowners' and business owners' rising fuel expenses, as well as reduce your carbon footprints.
GreenBuild Boston Harbor CruiseNovember 22, 11:45am -3:00pm
Enjoy some of Boston's notable green sites and historic landmarks aboard one of Boston's finest harbor cruise boats.
USGBC is offering special Education Provider Courses (click down on page)during the week of Greenbuild. They are particularly relevant for Residential Green Builders, Commercial Real Estate, Design Teams, Contractors and Manufacturers & Suppliers.
*Email Aaron to have your green building-related event highlighted. |
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MCAN Conference: The Power Of One, The Power Of All
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When: November 16, 2008, Sunday - 9:00 am to 5:00 pm
Stata Center, MIT, Cambridge, MA
Where: 32 Vassar St, Building 32
Near Kendall Square's Red Line stop
GRT is excited to partner with MCAN for their 2008 conference. The theme for the 2008 Conference-The Power of One, the Power of All-reflects MCAN's work to unite individual and local efforts into collective action. Our organization has hundreds of individual members, a large and growing network of chapters scattered throughout Massachusetts, and relationships with many partner organizations.
The 2008 Conference brings together many of our varied constituencies. We offer almost two dozen practical workshops, plenary sessions with fascinating and influential leaders, and opportunities to meet and talk with colleagues and potential new partners in doing something significant about climate change. Please join us! Register now! |
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Learn about writing for the newsletter and other ways to help build our community. | |
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Greetings!
We're excited to build this together!
Don't forget to check out SustainLane.com's Sustainability Rankings for cities across the US. Boston rankes incredibly high in many categories and achieved the sixth most sustainable city ranking overall. Hopefully our work can make Boston #1 next year! |
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Who are we? What's our story?
The Green Roundtable is the Massachusetts Affiliate of the US Green Building Council. The Green Roundtable is an independent non-profit mainstreaming green building in New England and beyond. The Green Roundtable has worked with the local green building community over the past year to create the USGBC Massachusetts Membership Forum.
The Forum's goal is to advance USGBC activities and the green building community in Massachusetts through opportunities in educational, technical and advocacy activities in addition to networking with industry professionals and laypeople. One of the group's most active committees is the Emerging Green Builders Committee that works to provide students and young professional's with affordable and accessible resources for community involvement and quality jobs in the growing green building industry.
The Forum leadership and committee members and The Green Roundtable staff and other community partners work together to grow and organize volunteer activities--in everything they do, work to advance the green building market and community in Massachusetts.
Find out more about how to get involved. | |
Event Highlight
Above: Pio Lombardo discusses drip irrigation as an effective strategy to reuse wastewater and to conserve water at an event September.
Last month, Environmental Engineer Pio Lmbardo shared his wastewater expertise at our Innovative Wastewater Reuse and Water Treatment Options event at NEXUS. Pio walked us through examples of his firms' commercial and residential projects, illustrations of different wastewater reuse and water treatment strategies and their respective cost analysis, and the positive environmental impacts of these strategies.
Many attendees had project-related questions that Pio addressed. For example, while wastewater reuse guidelines are more complicated in Boston buildings, waterwater reuse is permitted in Massachusetts and has been widely used in projects on the nitrogen-sensitive Cape Cod. Another person asked about making decisions about which strategies to employ for which projects. Pio directed us to the Cluster Wastewater Systems Planning Handbook intended "to serve as an executive roadmap for the successful planning, design, and implementation of cluster wastewater systems."
To learn more about this event and others, view | |
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Project Spotlight Kids Design A Sustainable Future
 Above: Learning By Design in Massachusetts is a non-profit organization dedicated to giving young people the skills and opportunity to communicate their ideas about their built and natural environments.
By Michael Davis AIA, Bergmeyer
A first! The USGBC's Legacy Grant to the 2008 Greenbuild conference host city joined forces with a legacy grant for the American Institute of Architects' 2008 AIA Convention to create a single project: focused on creating an interdisciplinary sustainable design K-12 curriculum.
Learning By Design in Massachusetts (LBD:MA), the non-profit organization tasked to partner with the USGBC and AIA, recently began approaching the subject of sustainable design and agreed to partner with the USGBC and BSA COTE for this project.
In May 2008, Learning By Design brought design professionals and educators together in a workshop in conjunction with the AIA Convention to kick off a three-year effort to craft an interdisciplinary sustainable design curriculum for students in grades 5-8 and, ultimately, K-12. Envisioned as a holistic, systems-thinking approach, students will start with an understanding of interconnectivity between the built and natural environments, define sustainability on a personal level, and then engage in hands-on activities synthesizing, imagining and representing their ideas.
A two-day follow-up workshop this August gave educators and designers an opportunity to collaborate on an integrated design project, address questions of curricular application and integration, and tour high-performance buildings. Learning By Design will host another workshop in November associated with Greenbuild. The near-term goal is to have a pilot curriculum ready for test implementation next spring.
The Project Development Team of Chin Lin, Phillippe Genereux, Michael Stack, and Galen Nelson have lead this unique effort, with support from a whole host of community members and organizations: USGBC Massachusetts Membership Forum, The Green Roundtable, The Boston Society of Architects, The Boston Architectural College, The Greenbuild Host Committee and Legacy Subcommittee, The Project Development Team, BSA COTE, and Learning By Design in Massachusetts. |
NEXUS is a project of The Green Rooundtable. The resources and offerings at NEXUS Green Building Resource Center continue to expand.
NEXUS Tours
We now offer regular tours of our green building resource center and office space. Drop in at 12:30pm on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday or 5:00pm on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month for a 45 minute tour of the free resources available at NEXUS. Learn about the innovative features that will help us attain LEED certification, browse our green samples and reference libraries, find out about local environmental organizations, and visit our Cyber Lounge for LEED study materials and more. Visit our Event Calendar for more information about tours and events. Contact Annie for more info or to reserve a spot at the next tour.
Green Building Bootcamp
On September 17, IIDA hosted nearly 50 interior designers to hear an inspiring "Green Building Bootcamp" presentation by Barbra Batshalom and to tour NEXUS. Request a speaker from The Green Roundtable or host an event at NEXUS.
Going to Greenbuild?
Save The Date: NEXUS is throwing a Greenbuild party on November 20! From 6-9pm, we will celebrate NEXUS and welcome green building professionals from around the US with a fun evening of food and drinks, networking and music. To sponsor the NEXUS Party during Greenbuild, contact Maryellen.
Join us from 11:00am-12:30pm every day during the week of Greenbuild/Build Boston for NEXUS Escape. Sessions will include massages, light lunch and tours of our green building resource center. For more information contact Maryellen.
There are still a few time slots available for your company to rent NEXUS during the week of Greenbuild! NEXUS offers an ideal space with easy access from the Boston Convention Expo Center as well as the one-stop green building resource center in Boston. Contact Aaron for information.
Join us on Saturday, October 11
From 10am-2pm George Whiting from Ecoheat Solutions will present on "Home Heating On A Budget." He will discuss alternative fuel sources that are practical and more affordable than traditional fuels. This event is part of NEXUS Second Saturdays and includes a tour, resource orientation, and Green House Doctor clinic.
NEW! NEXUS Open Hours Have Changed
We're now open longer at lunchtime!
Mon-Wed: 12-3pm (Tours every second and fourth Tuesday at 5:00pm)
Thurs: 12-7pm (Tours every first and third Thursday at 12:30pm)
Friday: CLOSED to the public
Second Saturday of Each Month: 10am-2pm |
By Iram Farooq
As you know, USGBC is in the process of regionalizing LEED - the first step to introducing a regional flavor into LEED and reflecting local priorities.
Our very own LEED Regionalization Task Group has spent numerous man-hours on this task -- identifying and mapping the environmental zones for Massachusetts and determining the appropriate credits to prioritize in each zone for LEED-NC/CS, LEED-CI, and LEED-EB.
The group based its work on the regionalization survey that you filled out in July. Their challenging task benefited from the broad expertise represented by the members - design, construction, planning, engineering, real estate, and equipment manufacturing and sales. Also of tremendous help, was the input graciously provided by the members of the Regional View Committee.
The work of the Task Group is almost complete. Recommendations have been forwarded to the Upper Northeast Regional Task Force, which is consolidating the work of the various states to generate a set of regional credit priorities. Jackie Henke, Norm Lamonde, and Iram Farooq represent Massachusetts on the Regional Task Group.
The Regional Task Group is a wonderfully varied group. Find out who is on the Regionalization Task Group. |
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Advocate Alert
Boston, MA- As of last month, all future affordable housing funded by Boston's Department of Neighborhood Development must be built "green". The Green Affordable Housing Program (GAHP) is one of the city's efforts to support and encourage sustainable development in Boston's neighborhoods. The program requires that all projects must meet the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED Silver standards, as well as the Energy Star standard and a number of green design guidelines.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino, along with DND Director Evelyn Friedman, kicked off the program last month by naming six housing projects set to receive funding to help them comply with the new green standards. This funding was made possible after receiving a $2 million grant from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.
The Green Affordable Housing Program is designed to create affordable housing that promotes the health and well-being of residents through use of green materials along with reducing energy costs for renters and homeowners through the use of green technologies. In addition, the program will seek to minimize the environmental impacts of development by conserving water, energy, and other resources. All affordable housing projects will have to meet either LEED-New Construction or LEED-Homes Silver standards, depending on the size of the project. The Department of Neighborhood Development will assist in determining the appropriate rating system. The GAHP requires only that homes be LEED certifiable rather than LEED certified.
This program follows the Boston's green building Article 80, which made Boston the first major city in the country to require all private development to adhere to the USGBC's LEED Certified standard as part of the review process.
View the Press Release. |
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Are you a green design, building or operations expert and have experience teaching your specialty?
Then apply to be in the new Massachusetts Sustainable Building Speaker's Bureau!
The Forum and GRT are collaboratively developing a Speaker's Bureau to identify and draw on the expertise of green building experts around the state and region. This will be a resource for building professionals, government officials, community groups, educators and individuals for events. If you or a professional colleague are interested in the Speaker's Bureau, please click here and to fill out our survey/submission form.
Find out more about the Speaker's Bureau or to get involved with educational activities with the Membership Forum, click here.
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By Moshe Cohen, The Negotiating Table, and Barbra Batshalom, The Green Roundtable
In the past few years, chances are you have encountered green design on one of your projects, and if you haven't, you will soon, most likely. For those of you who haven't, green design, also known as sustainable design, is the term used to describe the processes, technologies, and strategies that aim to make a project both environmentally friendly and cost effective.
Unfortunately, like many ideas trying to break into the main stream, green design and sustainability encounter considerable resistance when proposed into the marketplace. While green designers try to consider the costs as well as the benefits of their ideas, the building industry and building owners have generally been cool to the notion of greening their projects. The general perception is that sustainability is all about technologies, and that these technologies cost more, are unproven and unreliable, and interfere with the normal way of doing business.
So, as someone interested in development but not necessarily in sustainability, what can you do to avail yourself of the benefits of green design ideas while maintaining your healthy skepticism of green design and the folks who promote it? The first thing you can do is to suspend your disbelief in sustainability long enough to learn about its advantages. In some instances, your benefit might be in long-term capital cost savings, or in an integrated design and construction process that saves time and money. In other instances, the advantages will be in the form of government grants to try green technologies, or in the form of tax breaks.
Read the rest of Developing A Green Mindset. |
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Thanks and keep up the great work to mainstream green!
Aaron Desatnik Jim Newman Caroline Havey
The Green Roundtable Massachusetts Membership Forum Boston Emerging Green Builders | |
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