I am going to be honest with you, I have been sitting on some LEEDigation-related stories. I sat on these stories because I wanted to understand the implications before writing about them.

Our buildings are central to our lives, and we put a tremendous amount of our wealth and skills into making them. The modern green building movement is a highly tuned, intensive, and measured approach to building that values efficiency, health and durability.The success of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) has not been based on their radical agenda but on the practical results of the types of building they have helped shape. The improvement in productivity in LEED commercial buildings alone can pay for the entire building. These large projects have demonstrated the value gained by investing in green building principles

The wave of green litigation has arrived. This means more third party challenges, mushrooming building interest group litigation, and private litigation with a green tinge. These suits will involve not only knowledge of LEED and green building, but also the energy codes and other ancillary regulations.

While the terms green and sustainable are often used interchangeably, not all green building techniques are sustainable. Green building encourages the reduction of harmful impacts that buildings have on the environment and their occupants while focusing on environmental sustainability, but does not necessitate truly sustainable practices. While sustainable strategies stipulate the conservation, or preservation, of resources and require the reconciliation of all economic, social, and environmental demands.
There is a need for the establishment of a framework that encourages economic, social, and environmental sustainability for green buildings.

Green buildings provide long-term savings and solid returns on investments. they also command much more than similar non-LEED buildings due to the economic benefits they offer. Soon Class A office buildings that do not attain LEED certification will see their property value decline as LEED becomes the de facto benchmark in measuring quality in construction.

Much like the term “fast track” that was popular several years ago, the terms “sustainable” and “energy efficiency” should be part of every building design. You don’t hear the term “fast track” anymore. It was a new concept of speeding up design and construction to deliver a facility faster, but now it is standard operating procedure. Everyone wants their project fast-tracked. I want the same thing to happen for sustainable design.

A look a why green demotion is an important part of the sustainability equation, how to go about it and how to keep your cost down.

Michael Favicchio tell Tony Brown story on how he transitioned a new university graduate with a degree in English to a green building project manager at Chapman Construction in Newton, MA.

Green design and construction is a career arena in which there are not an abundance of women being represented, yet we found a number of women working in these sectors and leaving their distinctive mark. Below are profiles of 10 women who we believe are pioneers in the green building and design field.