12/10/12- Article. Cooley Law School Celebrates Riverside Campus Grand Opening
Archives for 2012
SPreading the word
October 23, 2012
As more and more properties Catch the Wave with SERF Certification, we’re beginning to fall behind in processing applications. Maintaining our early decision to cede the lengthy process award to the other 4-letter certification, we are, instead, embarking on a fix.
Our new professional designation SERF Professional (SP) will enable real estate professionals to act as third party verifiers for SERF Certification applications. SPs will be independent from SERF and will set their own fees and contract directly with certification applicants.
Historic Structures Deserve VIP Treatment
September 25, 2012
Restoration of historic buildings is tricky business. Among other challenges, preservation concerns severely limit façade alterations.
Restoration often includes deep energy retrofits which generally increase the thermal resistance (R-value) of the envelope. For existing structures adding insulation to the exterior is generally preferred over the interior as adding insulation from the inside will reduce its floor area. But for historic structures this approach is self-defeating.
Vacuum insulation has been used widely in non-building applications like refrigerators, thermos containers, and thermal doors. Its use in building envelope insulation is fairly new and still in R&D. Vacuum Insulated Panels (VIPs) are composed of two stainless steel plates which sandwich a core of vacuum and fumed silica.
Program Offered in Partnership with Centre for Sustainability and Excellence for Professional designation in Green Building Certification
September 12, 2012
CHICAGO, Sept. 27, 2012 — The Society of Environmentally Responsible Facilities (SERF), an environmental building certification organization, in partnership with the Centre for Sustainability and Excellence (CSE), today announced the launch of a new accreditation program that certifies professionals to evaluate buildings’ sustainable systems and practices according to SERF’s comprehensive certification criteria. Candidates who successfully complete the program will earn the designation of SERF Professional (SP). Additionally, CSE will be verifiers for the SERF certification process.
“At SERF, we believe that building owners and facility managers should be committed to broad, ongoing environmental sustainability, and our goal is to make certifying that process more affordable, streamlined and accessible as possible,” said Joe Maguire, president of SERF. “By creating this program with the CSE and growing the number of SERF Professionals, we hope to cultivate and recognize more sustainably-focused facilities.”
[Read more…]
VOCs paint an ugly picture
September 11, 2012
Who doesn’t love the smell of fresh paint? But, as so often seems the case, the good things in life are bad for us.
Green buildings transcend their structure and actually produce a positive effect on the health and comfort of their occupants. A key factor which determines this is the type of architectural coatings (paints, sealers etc.) and how many volatile organic compounds (VOCs) they contain. Alas, these toxins are responsible for that wonderful fresh paint aroma.
Who really pays for LEED certification?
August 23, 2012
Obtaining LEED certification costs a lot of time and money. The resources required are not limitless and are generally diverted from other uses, though that seems impolite to discuss when pursuing sustainability.
But LEED certification does not, of course, add to a property’s sustainability. Rather it confirms, or certifies, that objective sustainable criteria have been met. If anything, the high costs of LEED certification divert funds that may be otherwise be spent on sustainable materials or systems.
In the end, the high cost of LEED ultimately comes from somewhere….or someone.
The Greenest Building is the one that is already built
August 21, 2012
This elegant phrase by architect Carl Elefante is bolstered by an important new study, The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse.
National Real Estate Investor opines that the study, commissioned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Preservation Green Lab, empirically shows, “It is unequivocally greener to retrofit an old building than construct a new building, no matter how many high-tech bells and whistles are in the new construction.”
Convective Heat Loss, a sneaky villian
August 14, 2012
Strategies to increase building energy efficiency typically focus on increased efficiency of the HVAC system and increased thermal resistance of the envelope and fenestration. An oft- overlooked, but vital, path to efficiency is reduction of air-leakage.
Heat transfer in buildings occurs in three forms: conduction, convection and radiation. Of these, conduction and convection transfer most of the heat. Conduction occurs when one body transfers its heat to another with which it is in contact–in this case, the transfer between interior and exterior air. Convection occurs when a heated body physically transports itself to another location. In this case air physically moving through leaks in the wall. Thermal insulation prevents conduction but does little to prevent convective heat losses.
Green parking, chicken houses and bankers
July 31, 2012
Beginning in 2011, parking structures were deemed unworthy of attaining LEED certification owing to the fact that they are, after all, chock full of those pesky cars.
So great the sin of enabling the proliferation of hydro-carbon fueled vehicles that no amount of energy efficient lighting, designated stalls for alternate fuel vehicles, reduction of heat island effect and countless other ways to make a parking structure more sustainable has lowered the upturned nose of the USGBC.
How do you like them Apples?
July 12, 2012
Apple recently announced it will not certify its products with EPEAT. EPEAT is a non-profit organization that certifies “environmentally preferable products”. It is also a program that is backed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
EPEAT would affect Apple’s sales to some governments and educational institutions which require EPEAT certification as a prerequisite for purchase. But how does this affect Apple? According to the blog Apple and EPEAT: What it means the sale of Apple computers to government and educational institutions is a tiny fraction of Apple’s total sales. The real market lies in the consumer market which demands products like their ultra-thin MacBook Pro. According to a Wall Street Journal blog Apple Removes Green Electronics Certification From Products, this laptop design requires the battery to be glued to the case, making disassembly and recycling difficult. This causes the computer to fall behind EPACTS stringent recycling requirements.
Get on your way to green.