Just over five years into its existence GRESB, the benchmark for portfolio-level sustainability performance has merged with GBCI, the dominant building-level sustainability certification body. The move makes clear winners of GRESB (the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark) and GBCI (the Read more…
The U.S. Green Building Council has announced that projects will still be able to register under the current LEED 2009 through October 31, 2016. News of the extension of LEED 2009 began circulating this week and is being heralded and Read more…
The Federal government has long been a leader in constructing green buildings, and LEED has been the Federal standard of choice. The Department of Energy issued a final rule updating its recommended certification standards and levels for all Federal buildings Read more…
Take one outdated commercial building in Sunnyvale, California, one crack engineering and architecture team, some top Silicon Valley technologies, and one audacious design challenge. The result? 435 Indio. A building transformed from nondescript 70s tilt up to sleek, modern, drool-worthy Read more…
Much has changed, but much has remained the same, in the arena of green building law mandates since March 18,2002, when the city of Normal, Illinois enacted Ordinance 4825, the first ever mandatory green building law, requiring LEED certification in Read more…
In 2015 the use of LEED v4 will become mandatory, a new 2015 International Green Construction Code will be available, an updated ASHRAE 189.1 will be published, the new ICC 700 National Green Building Standard will be approved, and there Read more…
Last week, a federal appeals court brought back from the dead, a more than $6 Million lawsuit filed over materials supplied in 2000 for the first ever LEED certified Platinum building. Despite that the unpublished opinion is not binding precedent, Read more…
You’ve purged your inbox of property manager emails and compiled a mountain of data into one gleaming, “almost-final” 2014 GRESB response. Just one last meeting with the Powers That Be stands between you, the submit button, and a well deserved glass of Read more…
DOE. LEED. USGBC. EPA. ISO. The number of certifications for energy efficiency, as well as the organizations that can help guide you, can make your head swim. Does the EPA have anything to do with LEED? Can the USGBC help Read more…
A case filed last week in a California court is a prime example of the importance of contract documents in a LEED project. Earlier this year the City of Palo Alto gave notice firing Flintco Pacific, Inc., the general contractor Read more…
Ok, no surprise to see Washington, D.C. or San Francisco ranked high in a list of the cities with America’s greenest buildings. But Atlanta? Georgia’s capital was the only southern state to make the top ten in the 2014 U.S. Clean Tech Read more…
We are increasingly called upon to give legal opinions that a green building is LEED certified, ‘certifiable’ or otherwise really a green building. The purpose of a legal opinion given in a commercial real estate transaction is, most simply put, Read more…
On July 1st the U.S. Green Building Council released a change to LEED classifying electronic cigarettes as a form of tobacco smoking for the purposes of the smoking prohibitions of the LEED Environmental Quality Prerequisite 2, Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) Read more…
Last week, an ordinance was introduced in the Baltimore City Council for the purpose of adopting the International Green Construction Code. The IgCC will be adopted as an overlay in conjunction with existing building, fire and related codes and will Read more…