2016 September-October

28 Sep

Posted at 14:17h in 2016 September-October, LEED ON

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_single_image image="22800" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width="1/4"][vc_single_image image="22802" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_column_text] Mayor Eric Garcetti City of Los Angeles, California [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="3/4"][vc_column_text] [dropcaps type='normal' color='' background_color='' border_color='']W[/dropcaps]hen it comes to sustainability, the bigger the city, the bolder the goal in its scale—but also the more important and influential when achieved. If Los Angeles, a metropolis of 4 million people and 503 square miles, with the third-largest metropolitan GDP on Earth can become sustainable, so can any other city and town. Los Angeles has been a hub of green building activity for many years. As early as 2002, when I first served on the City Council, we became the first big city to require virtually all new municipal buildings to be LEED-certified. In 2009, we raised the minimum standard to LEED Silver. But our most impactful achievement was using the public sector to show that green construction had arrived. As Council president in 2007, I championed legislation to accelerate the greening of L.A.’s private sector buildings. We adopted the city’s first Green Building Program, which required large, new construction or major renovations to meet LEED standards. As our city’s public sector led its private sector on green construction, so the...

28 Sep

Posted at 14:16h in 2016 September-October, COMMUNITY

[vc_row css=".vc_custom_1469033175715{margin-bottom: 20px !important;}" row_type="row" type="full_width" text_align="left"][vc_column width="1/3"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_single_image image="18094" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_single_image image="22817" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_column_text] By Kiley Jacques [/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_column_text] Once a defunct naval shipyard, Century Villages of Cabrillo supports a diverse community of once-homeless individuals and families. [/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="20"][vc_column_text] "On any given night of the year, 1,300 people—either formerly homeless or at risk of becoming homeless—find housing at Century Villages of Cabrillo (CVC) in Long Beach, California. The residents are as diverse as the services available to them. Those who have found their way into the community have discovered a supportive environment where counseling, case management, healthcare, life skills programming, and employment resources are at their disposal. “We really try to surround our residents with all the tools they need to take that next step in their lives, whatever that may be,” says senior vice president of housing for Century Housing, Brian D’Andrea. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_single_image border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full" image="22828"][vc_column_text]Century Villages of Cabrillo in Long Beach, California, proves housing for 1,300 formerly homeless or at-risk of becoming homeless. Century villages is owned by Century Housing, a community development financial institution. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type="row" type="full_width" text_align="left" padding_bottom="25" padding_top="20"][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text] Century Housing, a leading community development...

28 Sep

Posted at 14:16h in 2016 September-October, local pulse

[vc_row row_type="row" type="full_width" text_align="left" padding_top="50"][vc_column width="1/3"][vc_single_image image="22812" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="20"][vc_single_image image="22814" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_column_text css=".vc_custom_1474307501535{margin-top: 20px !important;}"]Kevin is internationally recognized for his contributions to the building industry. He is an innovator, pioneer, and green business leader, creating transformative strategies. Illustration by: Tristan Chace [/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="20"][/vc_column][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_column_text]Q.What is your greatest fear? My biggest fear is that we get ahead of ourselves in the green building industry with our successes and think the job is done. We have a long way to go and as a great man once said after winning a famous battle, “This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. Rather the end of the beginning.” Q.Which living person do you most admire? President Clinton. He takes on the world’s greatest challenges—AIDS epidemic, climate change—with unique approaches to harnessing global collaboration with business and leadership. Q.What is your greatest extravagance? My Tesla. I love the vote of confidence in the future that Tesla represents and the world of EV [electric vehicles] and renewable transport. The leather is nice, but maybe I should have gone with standard upholstery. Q.What is your favorite journey? Driving up Highway 1 in California with my family—the ocean on one side and...

28 Sep

Posted at 14:16h in 2016 September-October, ADVOCACY

[vc_row row_type="row" type="full_width" text_align="left" padding_bottom="15"][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text] Driving Sustainability Beyond the Building [/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_column_text] General Services Administration has adopted SITES, a rating system that takes sustainability outside and into our landscapes.   By Alexandra DeLuca [/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_column_text]Can landscape architecture help save the world? The way Christian Gabriel, the national design director for landscape architecture at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), describes the federal agency’s recent work in the field makes a compelling case for the affirmative. Take, for an example, how an evolving approach to landscaping, such as delaying cleanup of vegetation that would have previously been deemed an eyesore, is creating crucial foraging space for honey bees—in a time when colonies and other pollinators are dying off at unprecedented rates, yet are responsible for more than 50 percent of the world’s food supply and $25 billion of the annual U.S. economy. GSA’s efforts to counter this threat were prompted by a 2014 memorandum by President Obama, and it is a prime example of how the federal agency uses its diverse real estate portfolio comprising more than 140,000 acres of land to tackle “increasingly complex environmental and forward-thinking aspirational policies,” says Gabriel. “We take these ideas and chase them within the context of designing...

28 Sep

Posted at 14:15h in 2016 September-October, COMMUNITY

[vc_row row_type="row" type="full_width" text_align="left" padding_bottom="15"][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_column_text] Building a Legacy [/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_column_text] Eco-Tech Makerspace is this year’s Greenbuild Legacy Project.   By Alexandra Pecci[/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_column_text]When Isai German, T4T.org’s STEAM Lab coordinator, saw a call for proposals for the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) 2016 Greenbuild Legacy Project, he knew his organization would be the perfect fit. After all, T4T.org is dedicated to using sustainable materials, championing stewardship, and education. There was just one problem. “It was due in six days,” German says of the proposal. The tight time frame was no deterrent, though, and soon after, German got the good news: T4T.org’s Eco-Tech Makerspace would be this year’s Greenbuild Legacy Project. “I got the letter at 11:00 at night before I went to bed,” he says. “I started jumping!” All that jumping and enthusiasm is certainly warranted. Through the Greenbuild Legacy Project, T4T.org is the recipient of a $10,000 grant and support to add a much-needed technology component to its already innovative and exciting work. T4T.org, formerly known as Trash for Teaching, is a nonprofit educational program that reclaims safe landfill-bound items and reuses them for educational building projects. “We collect manufacturers’ waste: Castoffs, mistakes on the factory room floor,” says Leah Hanes, PhD, the...

28 Sep

Posted at 14:10h in 2016 September-October, ecosystems, LEED impact

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_single_image image="16705" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_single_image image="22861" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_column_text] By Calvin Hennick [/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_column_text] The memorial park at the United Airlines Flight 93 crash site incorporates sustainable building elements in a natural setting. [/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="20"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_single_image image="22863" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_column_text]The Flight 93 National Memorial’s concrete walls follow the path the plane took on 9/11. Photo: Eric Staudenmaier Photography and Paul Murdoch Architects.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type="row" type="full_width" text_align="left" padding_bottom="25"][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text] The grief and the memories hit people in different ways when they visit the Flight 93 National Memorial. For many, the focal point is the 17-ton sandstone boulder that marks the site where the wreckage of United Airlines Flight 93 smoldered 15 years ago. Others get chills as they walk along the Wall of Names—composed of 40 individual slabs of white marble, each inscribed with the name of a crew member or passenger who died in the attack—and realize that they are traversing the jet’s final flight path. For some, a gentle breeze and a ray of sunshine are enough to transport them back to that early fall day in 2001, when planes across the country were grounded and the calm...

28 Sep

Posted at 14:09h in 2016 September-October, COMMUNITY, LEED impact

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_single_image image="18094" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_single_image image="22840" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_column_text] By Alexandra DeLuca [/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_column_text] Environmental Charter Schools challenge their students to examine how they think about the environment. [/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="20"][vc_column_text] Stepping onto the Lawndale campus of a growing network of charter schools in the south Los Angeles area, visitors are greeted by an atypical environment for ninth to twelfth graders. In addition to students and teachers, chickens and rabbits populate grounds housing a stream and fruit trees, called “free vending machines,” with signs that implore you to “reach out and help yourself.” [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_single_image image="22842" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_column_text]Julie Vo is the development manager of Environmental Charter Schools, which operates three public schools in the south Los Angeles area. The schools challenge kids to think about the scope of the environment and their role in it.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type="row" type="full_width" text_align="left" padding_bottom="25"][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text] “We often tell people that you really have to come and see it for yourself,” says Julie Vo, development manager of Environmental Charter Schools (ECS), which was established in 2000 and now operates three free public schools with more than 1,000 students. “I can send photos and compose lengthy emails,...

27 Sep

Posted at 20:44h in 2016 September-October, LEED impact, SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS

[vc_row][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_single_image image="22881" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_single_image image="22882" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_column_text] By Alexandra Pecci and Amanda Sawit [/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_column_text] The American Chemistry Council strives to promote safe, sustainable, and responsible supply chains. [/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="20"][vc_column_text] When Debra Phillips was at her last job at a chemical company, her firm would conduct self-evaluations to keep track of its process, occupational, and environmental safety performance. And while she may have considered that approach to be pretty state of the art in 1996, steady progress over the past 20 years for responsible supply chains sets the stage for continued and accelerated progress over the next 20. [/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][vc_single_image image="22883" border_color="grey" img_link_target="_self" img_size="full"][vc_column_text]Right: Debra Phillips, ACC’s vice president of Responsible Care. Photo: Ana L. Ka’ahanui[/vc_column_text][vc_separator type="transparent" position="center" up="30"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type="row" type="full_width" text_align="left" padding_bottom="25"][vc_column width="1/1"][vc_column_text] Now, as the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) vice president of Responsible Care, Phillips oversees the flagship performance initiative for ACC member companies to promote safe, responsible, and sustainable management of chemicals through their life cycles and for their intended uses. Responsible Care aims to not only keep up with, but also set, the course for the chemical industry related to improving employee safety, environmental protection,...