Welcome to ecoBuilderToday

USAA Real Estate Company is serious about continuously improving the
performance of their buildings. Their property managers improve their buildings’
energy efficiency by benchmarking through the ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager and
have incorporated LEED-EBOM high-performance credits within their preventive
maintenance program to institutionalize improvements to their sustainability
efforts. USAA seeks a five percent improvement in their ENERGY STAR ratings on
both an asset by asset basis and on an overall portfolio-wide basis. Next up in
their performance improvement process: earning the BOMA 360 Performance
designation for their entire office portfolio.

USAA Real Estate Company has already started putting buildings through the
BOMA 360 Performance Program®, including the ...

They said it couldn’t be done. But ConduitNW, an online watering hole for energy efficiency professionals, has nearly 1,000 members since launching in May of this year. As Sustainable Business Oregon reported last week:

Led by [Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance] NEEA in partnership with the Bonneville Power Administration, Conduit was built and will operate through 2014 on a $1.25 million budget, about $400,000 of that dedicated to development costs.

The BPA contributed a separate grant, in addition to the startup website’s group of utility funders, to get ConduitNW up and running. The two agencies have been working for the last two years on the project.

The new social media site – which is a mix of LinkedIn, Facebook Groups (from way back when?) and Google ...

Contrary to common belief that nothing is really happening in green building at the Congressional level these days, I provide the following two counterexamples.

 An amendment to the Senate Appropriations Bill for Energy and Water introduced by Senators Wicker (R-MS), Boozman (R-AR), and Inhofe (R-OK) would essentially eliminate the use of LEED and Energy Star for DOE green building programs.  According to the NRDC:  

This rider would prevent the Department of Energy (DOE) from using strong green building energy rating standards. The amendment limits DOE to using only green building standards that are developed and approved in accordance with American National Standards Institute (ANSI) rules. Such a requirement would effectively limit DOE to using only the ...

Hey, I love bashing the French as much as the next guy, but I just can’t bring myself to really blame them (or the rest of Europe) for our current situation.  Clearly, some recent market volatility can be attributed to endless European debt woes, but the US economy remains the primary driver of US market direction; as well as global risk seeking/aversion behavior.  A bitter cocktail of persistant high unemployment, a massive Fed balance sheet, ad-hoc banking regulation and political uncertainty is what ails US markets.  One need only take a long term view of some markets to understand my point.

The green line is the Dow Industrials and the black dashed line is a NAREIT index (both on a log scale).  The blue line is the TED spread ...

With the announcement today of Coach’s commitment to move into 600,000 square feet of office space, the train at Hudson Yards has finally come in.  The new agreement represents a substantial change and push for the Hudson Yards redevelopment project that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been pushing for several years.

Construction will be performed by Stephen Ross’ Related Cos. and follows their continued development push in New York and other major metropolitan markets as well.  Related recently announced the start of several other new tower projects in Chicago as well as a number of renovations scheduled in Lowell, MA and three other sites in Manhattan.

While in recent years, we may have seen the emergence of three or four new tower projects like the one at ...

My loyal readers may have been surprised (or relieved) by my hiatus from publishing.  I was not idle, however.  I led a study on Energy Efficiency Policy in New Jersey and Pennsylvania on behalf of the Department of Energy-funded Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster for Energy Efficient Buildings.  

I have also been advising New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on developing the 2011 Energy Master Plan for New Jersey.  The draft plan is available here.  The findings of the eight-person work group on clean energy will be made public shortly, and public hearing is being held on October 21 from 9:30-12:30 at the Rutgers Eco-Complex.  Details are available here. 

My public sector work has given me some new insights into green building ...

Here’s a look at some of the largest construction projects throughout the world. The projects range in purpose, from entertainment and leisure to scientific research. The results have been ranked by cost, based on U.S. dollars.

10. Great Man-Made River Project – Libya – $27 billion
Since 1985, Libya has been working to irrigate 387,000 acres of arid land and provide several major cities with water.

9. Saadiyat Island – Abu Dhabi – $27 billion
With completion slated for 2018, this project will boast 27 square kilometers of cultural paradise.

8. Sellafield Nuclear Site – England – $30 billion
As the U.K.’s primary nuclear-fuel reprocessing facility, the plant spans 700 acres and employs 11,000 workers.

7. Songdo ...

Here’s another post from Dave Hewett, AirAdvice senior advisory consultant and  former Chairman of BOMA International. It’s part of a series of guest posts from his blog, “Dave’s View,” a from-the-hip view of issues facing commercial real estate executives published on his site, ecobuildertoday.com.

Enjoy!

This past week was a week of conferences and travel. I was in Colorado by invitation of a AirAdvice at the Mechanical Service Contractors Association (MSCA) Annual Conference in beautiful Colorados Springs’ Broadmoor hotel.

While there, I snuck away to Las Vegas for a few hours (about 28) to attend the Facilities Decision Conference and Expo at the invitation of the Building Owners and Managers Institute ...

This event last year was GREAT ! Take the time to go if you are anywhere near the east coast on November 10th ! And it is FREE

The BOMA Foundation, in conjunction with the Master of Professional Studies in
Real Estate, School of Continuing Studies, Georgetown University, will be
holding a future oriented Thought Leaders Symposium: “2025: A Vision for
Commercial Real Estate” on November 10, 2011. This even will bring together some
of the best and brightest minds to explore the future of commercial real estate
from the perspective of workspace and workplace demands, how demographics will
drive future needs, how the integration of technology will substantially impact
of workforce and workplace environment, and what a career in commercial real
estate will look like in the 2020s.

Earlier this week, I received an alert that "Five AIA Contract Documents are going green!" Developed using AIA’s flagship documents as a base, and incorporating concepts and model language from the AIA’s Guide for Sustainable Projects, the new documents address the unique roles, risks and opportunities encountered on sustainable design and construction projects.

 “The development of these new documents for sustainable projects is a natural next step following the release of the Guide for Sustainable Projects in the spring,” said Ken Cobleigh, Managing Director and Counsel for AIA Contract Documents Content. “We continue to see a demand for incorporating sustainable elements in projects. The AIA Contract Documents program continues to revise existing ...