Today was the final day of the Greenbuild 2011 conference in Toronto. This morning I attended a session entitled “Solutions for Healthy Cities: Resiliency and Regeneration.” This session grouped a presentation on a healthy city initiative with two presentations on disaster resilience, a pairing that I was delighted to see. The healthy city presentation was about a project initiative in Mexico City to restore their main river (out of about 45 major rivers running through the city, ...
Posted by Matthew Comber on October 7, 2011 8:39 PM
This afternoon I attended a specialty update system on the weighting system that is the underlying methodology behind the allocation of points in the upcoming 2012 LEED system. For those unaware, the USGBC is currently working to develop the next version of the LEED green building certification system, which is planned for release in 2012 and implementation in 2013. The public comment period for the 2nd draft of the LEED 2012 system closed recently. The Degenkolb Sustainability ...
Posted by Matthew Comber on October 7, 2011 5:34 PM
This year marks the second year in a row that Degenkolb Engineers was named the best mid-size structural engineering firm to work for by Structural Engineer Magazine. The firm ranked #4 in the overall category of best structural engineering firms to work for.
The magazine states, "Reports of pay cuts, slashed benefits, and longer work days have filled the headlines, but not all firms are convinced a profit comes by extracting the most from employees while giving the least – ...
Posted by Alethea Odell on October 6, 2011 6:14 PM
Day 2 of the Greenbuild conference started for me at an education session learning about cool roofs and efforts of another major structural firm in embodied carbon accounting. The cool roof portion of the session consisted of a presentation about the reduction in energy required for buildings to manage their internal air temperatures in hot climates that can be realized by using cool roof systems. Cool roof systems are basically highly reflective roofing systems that reflect sunlight away ...
Posted by Matthew Comber on October 6, 2011 5:08 PM
The second half of day 1 of the Greenbuild conference was spent attending the final education session for the day and keeping myself occupied in the expo hall. The education session I attended was an overview of green building codes and a discussion on green building code implementation & enforcement as well as incentivizing better performance. The first half hour of this session consisted of an overview of the levels of green building incentives and code mandates ...
Posted by Matthew Comber on October 6, 2011 4:42 PM
Greetings everyone from the 2011 annual Greenbuild Conference and Expo, hosted by USGBC (the organization responsible for the LEED building sustainability rating system). This year's Greenbuild conference is being held in Toronto, Ontario. The conference is packed with representatives from all walks of life within the green building community including everyone from engineers/architects/designers to owners to policy-makers to investors to attorneys and the list goes on. I’ll be writing the next few days about what is happening ...
Posted by Matthew Comber on October 5, 2011 10:36 PM
