SERF News — SERF

Catch the Wave on free webinar

January 11, 2013 Joseph Maguire

SERF and the Centre for Sustainability & Excellence (CSE) are co-hosting a free webinar 12:30-1:30 CST on Thursday, January 24.

CSE , a global leader in sustainability consulting and training, is partnering with SERF to train SERF Professionals (SPs). SPs have the exclusive ability to act as third-party verifiers for SERF certification applications.

SERF president Joe Maguire and CSE president Nikos Avlonas will be on hand to discuss SERF as a streamlined, affordable alternative to LEED certification and the SP designation as opportunity to expand your professional practice. Click here to register.

Tagged With: Centre for Sustainability and Excellence, CSE, Green Building Professional, Green buildings, SERF News, SERF Professional, Society of Environmentally Responsible Facilities, SP, sustainability, Webinar

SPreading the word

October 23, 2012 Joseph Maguire

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 Stan Samuel

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 SERF Editor

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…]

Tagged With: Green Building Certification, SERF News, SP

VOCs paint an ugly picture

September 11, 2012 Stan Samuel

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 Joseph Maguire

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 Joseph Maguire

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 Stan Samuel

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 Joseph Maguire

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.

Bridging the Political Divide on Sustainability

June 28, 2012 Joseph Maguire

The gulf between conservatives and liberals on the merits of sustainability may be lessened with a little history lesson. So says SERF Scholar Colin Maguire in his paper American Stewardship: A Path Already Laid, which he is presenting at next week’s 2012 Environmental Justice and Global Citizenship Conference at Oxford University in England.

The study traces the Founders’ philosophies on private property rights, a core American principle, with the corresponding responsibility for property owners to be good and proper stewards of their land. Sustainability is, it seems, not such a new concept in America, and should be embraced as an essential element of our nation’s founding.

Tagged With: 2012 Environmental Justice and Global Citizenship Conference, Industry News, Oxford University, Oxford University England, private property rights, SERF News, SERF Scholar, Society of Environmentally Responsible Facilities, sustainability

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