“That energy audit was a good starting point. Then the thought became: ‘We have this energy audit—what’s next? What do we do with this information?’” Andrews says. “That’s where USGBC’s ADVANCE program proved useful.”

The congregations saw sustainability on a spectrum: Some saw how cost savings could help expand their mission, while others had environmental stewardship sewn into the fabric of their ministry. Along the same lines, some had been longtime sustainability proponents, while others were just getting started. “We weren’t just one organization with all of its stakeholders at the table: We were a diverse group of organizations with one or two champions at the table,” says Johanna Schweiss, volunteer and outreach coordinator for the Missouri Gateway chapter.

Meanwhile, it was a perfect opportunity for USGBC volunteers around St. Louis to share their building science expertise and gain further experience. “The cool thing about ADVANCE is that it’s a portal for both sides: Volunteers find a place that fits their passion and interest, and congregations, nonprofits, and other groups to find the assistance they need to green their buildings and their communities,” Andrews says.

At the February PLANBuilder workshop at the Lafayette Park United Methodist Church in St. Louis, USGBC volunteers versed in all sectors of sustainability gathered with representatives from 15 multifaith congregations. After summarizing each LEED credit category, the attendees paired off to talk about the needs of each congregation and set distinct goals. Those goals and the strategies to achieve them were compiled in workbooks detailing the steps each congregation needed to take. For congregations that had yet to receive an energy audit, benchmarking went to the top of the list of strategies for representatives to share with their congregations.

For congregations that already had energy audits, next steps ran the gamut from low- and no-cost tweaks like changing thermostat and hot-water heater settings, all the way to budgeting for capital investments. “One congregation said they expect to need a new roof within a few years, and after the workshop, they’ve made getting a high-reflectance roof into a priority,” Schweiss says. Additionally, USGBC encouraged every congregation to take the 25 x 20 Pledge, a benchmarking initiative that’s part of its campaign in St. Louis to reduce buildings’ energy consumption 25 percent by the year 2020.

The workshop also allowed congregations to share some of their sustainability success stories, like organizing initiatives to mitigate the waste generated during after-service coffee hours, using church gardens to grow food for local food banks, and using carpooling as a way to help needy congregation members make it to Sunday services—while reducing single-occupancy vehicles in the parking lot. “We had such great things already happening, and it was lovely to see people share those projects and give each other the appreciation they deserved for work they had already done,” Schweiss says. Thanks to ADVANCE, the experts and the enthusiasts have a rapport with one another, a vital step in bringing those PLANBuilder strategies to fruition. Now, it’s time to make the community they all cherish a deeper shade of green.

Workshops held at the congregations spread the word about mitigating waste, growing vegetables in the church gardens, and carpooling. Top right photo: Kathy Arnold; Left and bottom right photos: Kari R. Frey, FREYtography

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Whole Trees Architecture & Structures

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WholeTrees uses whole diameter tree trunks and unwanted branched timbers that would otherwise be removed from routine forest thinning (such as fallen or diseased trees) to create structural building solutions. What results is round-timber: a sustainable, cost-effective alternative to steel, concrete and heavy timber products. Round-timber uses less than one-fifth of the energy required to make conventional lumber. It’s 50 percent stronger in bending strength than comparably sized squared timbers and typically costs less to install than other materials and is more light weight, reducing the need for foundation capacity. Round-timber helps earn points in green building rating systems, including up to 10 LEED points (v 4.0), and comply with international and state building codes. For more information on using WholeTrees products, visit www.wholetrees.com or call 608/310-5282.

Whole Trees LLC
www.wholetrees.com

Solarban® z75

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Solarban® z75 glass provides a steel-blue/gray appearance with an exceptional 0.24 SHGC in a standard one-inch IGU. Similar in appearance to Solarban z50 glass, the coating on Solarban z75 glass provides an added level of solar performance, giving architects two options for neutral cool-gray glass that is optimized to local climate and building code demands. With VLT of 48 percent, Solarban z75 glass offers superior daylighting to support sustainable design. Low reflectance levels deliver clear, natural outdoor views and enable Solarban z75 glass to harmonize well with other clear, color-neutral glasses such as Solarban 67 and Solarban R100 glasses.

PPG IdeaScapes
www.ppgideascapes.com

Essence

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Essence is both an essential money-saving machine and a work of art. Ranging from 8 to 14 feet (2.4 to 4.3 meters) in diameter, Essence was developed to excel both indoors and out. With its high-efficiency, direct drive motor, Essence provides the air movement needed in large spaces like lobbies, pavilions, and music venues to seaside dining and open-air theatres.

Big Ass Fans
www.bigassfans.com

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Atlanta’s Commercial Buildings Energy Efficiency Ordinance is bold in its scope. It is only the fourth to have a policy inclusive of the powerful triumvirate of benchmarking, transparency, and commissioning, with a retrocommissioning option and the first city to include water audits.

“Cities can be powerful incubators for ground-breaking policy, especially on the energy front,” remarked Stephanie Stuckey Benfield, newly minted director of Atlanta’s Office of Sustainability. “Atlanta’s ordinance is particularly innovative since it includes water efficiency as well as energy efficiency.”

Benchmarking and transparency policies, now in 14 cities, two states, and one county, are the embodiment of the aphorism “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” The building area covered by benchmarking and transparency (in multiple forms) across the country is equivalent to approximately 6.6 billion square feet of floor space.  In its basic form, the first component of these policies, benchmarking, does exactly what it sounds like it might: sets the base against which the progress toward energy efficiency will be compared. Buildings then report their benchmarked consumption, and progress over time, to the administering authority via the transparency portion of the policy.

The third part of the policy puzzle is the energy audits, and in few cases retrocommissioning. The energy audit is defined as a professional appraisal of the existing equipment, operations, and opportunities for improvement. Retrocommissioning is an extension applied to existing buildings, in Atlanta’s policy this is a voluntary add-on, and ultimately was a concession to stakeholders looking for a more “iterative” approach to efficiency upgrades.

The version that Atlanta’s City Council was able to pass is on the high end of the spectrum in terms of its requirements and expected outcomes. Specifically, all city-owned or operated buildings and all commercial buildings over 25,000 gross square feet must comply with benchmarking and disclosure using ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, and all city-owned or -operated buildings and all commercial buildings over 25,000 gross square feet must submit energy audits once every ten years. Notice of compliance went out early this spring; city-owned buildings had to comply first (by April 2015) and privately owned buildings have until July 20, 2015 to meet the requirements.

When asked about the expected impact, Matt Cox, Buildings Energy Efficiency Project Manager for the city, said, “At full implementation, we’re expecting this policy to provide significant across-the-board benefits, not just to building owners, but also in terms of public health benefits from reduced emissions and more jobs that will contribute to Atlanta’s economic well-being.”

Passing this type of ordinance, though gaining momentum in municipalities across the country, like most innovative ideas, faces resistance. The Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) has been working with governments to overcome challenges and create opportunities for benchmarking and transparency policies.

“One challenge that owners often voice is that they can’t control the entire building themselves and that tenants have a big impact on energy use in a building. This points to two market needs and opportunities,” describes Cliff Majersik, executive director at IMT. “One, a need and opportunity for green or energy-aligned leases. These tools align the incentives for both tenants and owners to invest in energy efficiency so that both parties come out ahead when a building becomes more energy efficient. These leases also allow owners and tenants to set goals jointly and find pathways to reaching these goals together. Having a numeric score, such as an ENERGY STAR score, provided through benchmarking, creates a helpful, measurable target for everyone. The other need and opportunity is for whole-building data access. To fully benchmark a building, you need access to all of its energy use data.”

Despite challenges, IMT states that governments across the country are actively pursuing benchmarking and transparency to confront increased attention to water and energy management. In fact, the trend toward even more rigorous add-ons, like retrocommissioning and mandatory audits is becoming more popular as a policy option.

Atlanta is one of those governments. With 2,350 buildings (88 percent of the total commercial building space in the city) required to participate, Atlanta is well positioned to earn the moniker of the new capital of conservation in the southeast and beyond.

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“That energy audit was a good starting point. Then the thought became: ‘We have this energy audit—what’s next? What do we do with this information?’” Andrews says. “That’s where USGBC’s ADVANCE program proved useful.”

The congregations saw sustainability on a spectrum: Some saw how cost savings could help expand their mission, while others had environmental stewardship sewn into the fabric of their ministry. Along the same lines, some had been longtime sustainability proponents, while others were just getting started. “We weren’t just one organization with all of its stakeholders at the table: We were a diverse group of organizations with one or two champions at the table,” says Johanna Schweiss, volunteer and outreach coordinator for the Missouri Gateway chapter.

Meanwhile, it was a perfect opportunity for USGBC volunteers around St. Louis to share their building science expertise and gain further experience. “The cool thing about ADVANCE is that it’s a portal for both sides: Volunteers find a place that fits their passion and interest, and congregations, nonprofits, and other groups to find the assistance they need to green their buildings and their communities,” Andrews says.

At the February PLANBuilder workshop at the Lafayette Park United Methodist Church in St. Louis, USGBC volunteers versed in all sectors of sustainability gathered with representatives from 15 multifaith congregations. After summarizing each LEED credit category, the attendees paired off to talk about the needs of each congregation and set distinct goals. Those goals and the strategies to achieve them were compiled in workbooks detailing the steps each congregation needed to take. For congregations that had yet to receive an energy audit, benchmarking went to the top of the list of strategies for representatives to share with their congregations.

For congregations that already had energy audits, next steps ran the gamut from low- and no-cost tweaks like changing thermostat and hot-water heater settings, all the way to budgeting for capital investments. “One congregation said they expect to need a new roof within a few years, and after the workshop, they’ve made getting a high-reflectance roof into a priority,” Schweiss says. Additionally, USGBC encouraged every congregation to take the 25 x 20 Pledge, a benchmarking initiative that’s part of its campaign in St. Louis to reduce buildings’ energy consumption 25 percent by the year 2020.

The workshop also allowed congregations to share some of their sustainability success stories, like organizing initiatives to mitigate the waste generated during after-service coffee hours, using church gardens to grow food for local food banks, and using carpooling as a way to help needy congregation members make it to Sunday services—while reducing single-occupancy vehicles in the parking lot. “We had such great things already happening, and it was lovely to see people share those projects and give each other the appreciation they deserved for work they had already done,” Schweiss says. Thanks to ADVANCE, the experts and the enthusiasts have a rapport with one another, a vital step in bringing those PLANBuilder strategies to fruition. Now, it’s time to make the community they all cherish a deeper shade of green.

Workshops held at the congregations spread the word about mitigating waste, growing vegetables in the church gardens, and carpooling. Top right photo: Kathy Arnold; Left and bottom right photos: Kari R. Frey, FREYtography

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How the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids matters to climate change.

 

Spoiler alert: We may be wrong about how the ancient Egyptians built the Great Pyramids. Decades of schoolchildren are taught the prevailing theory: The pyramids were constructed from enormous blocks of solid stone, cut by hand from far away quarries, and hauled across the searing desert sands. We imagine—thanks in large part to Cecil B. DeMille—thousands of shirtless, sweating slaves harnessed to thick hemp ropes, dragging enormous square blocks of stone up steep ramps. The feat seems so incredible that some wonder whether the Egyptians had help from other planets. Always a rational voice in the room, Neil deGrasse Tyson counters, “Just because you can’t figure out how ancient civilizations built stuff, doesn’t mean they got help from aliens.”

Figuring out how the pyramids were built has interesting applications beyond Egyptology. Today’s building materials do not have an expected lifespan anywhere near 4,000 years. And many of our modern construction processes consume so much energy and emit so much CO2 that we’re quickly destroying the very world we’re working to build. The Egyptians seemed to know something we don’t about using locally sourced materials to construct extraordinarily durable buildings without the huge environmental footprint so common today. Did the Egyptians use their minds as much as their muscle, and if so, what can we learn from them?

The skepticism Tyson addresses comes from a logical place. Despite the common teachings of the building of the pyramids at Giza, the feat of construction seems almost implausible. The Great Pyramid of Khufu was the tallest man-made structure on earth for over 3,800 years—16 times as long as our country has existed—until the construction of the Lincoln Cathedral in England. When built, the pyramid was 756 feet long on each side, 481 feet high, and composed of 2.3 million stones weighing on average nearly three tons each. Many of the joints between the blocks are so accurate that a human hair cannot be passed between adjoining blocks.

According to what we’ve been taught, quarried stone blocks weighing several tons were hauled to the pyramids, before the invention of the wheel. They were quarried out of the hillside with tools made of copper. And a city’s worth of laborers were housed and worked in a cramped area for decades. It’s difficult to imagine and little evidence exists to support this idea—no copper tools have been found around the site, no evidence remains of housing laborers, and no clear hieroglyphs exist documenting the quarrying, transportation, or ramp-lifting of these blocks.

In the 1980s, a French materials scientist named Joseph Davidovits proposed a different theory—the Egyptians didn’t haul the blocks to the pyramids but rather made the blocks one at a time in place on the pyramids. Davidovits suggested that the blocks were formed by pouring an ancient concrete—he called it geopolymer—into wooden molds. A fraction of the laborers would be needed to haul sacks of moist geopolymer concrete to wooden forms placed exactly where each block was needed. Joints between poured concrete blocks would always be perfectly accurate as a compacted moist mixture hardens against neighboring blocks. Davidovits suggested that the geopolymer concrete was made from crushed limestone, clay, water, and lime, a highly alkaline activator that caused the crushed limestone mixture to reconstitute into a man-made stone.

Davidovits’s theory caused quite a stir among Egyptologists, historians, materials science researchers, and anyone who cared that a well-established explanation for the construction of something as iconic as an Egyptian pyramid was being turned on its head. Not only that, but if the Egyptians cast block in place from an early form of concrete, many established theories assigning the invention of mass-produced concrete to the Romans would be off by a few thousand years.

One would imagine that modern scientists with electron microscopes could prove in short order whether Davidovits was correct. Michel Barsoum, professor of materials science at Drexel University and a native of Egypt, never meant to get into the study of the pyramids but was amazed to hear Davidovits’s theory. Barsoum was more amazed to find that no one had proved—or disproved—the idea.

Left: A gash in the side of one of the pyramids shows a combination of irregularly cut quarried limestone blocks surrounded by tight-jointed, cast-in-place geopolymer blocks. Middle: Curved, perfectly aligned joints between these backing blocks are evidence of the blocks being cast in place rather than poured. Right: A ground level block in front of the Great Pyramid of Khufu includes an irregular lip at the bottom. This lip indicates that the block was cast in place. Images © Michel Barsoum, used with permission.

Barsoum, along with a graduate student named Adrish Ganguly, began studying samples from the inner and outer casings of the pyramids. What they thought would be a months-long study turned into a five-year odyssey. In the end, they disproved some of Davidovits’s assumptions but proved his overall theory.

Barsoum believes that the Egyptians did cast a small but significant portion of the block in the pyramids. His electron microscope analysis indicates the Egyptians didn’t use clay in the geopolymer mixture, as Davidovits proposed, but rather diatomaceous earth, a naturally occurring, commonly found soft sedimentary rock formed from the fossilized remains of algae.

And Barsoum importantly disagrees with Davidovits by suggesting that not all the blocks were cast-in-place geopolymer. Rather, Barsoum suggests that the Egyptians used both man-made cast block along with limestone block quarried and hauled to the site in the way our traditional explanation proposes. Barsoum believes that only the exterior casing blocks and the blocks at the higher levels of the pyramids were cast geopolymer blocks. This makes sense: The casing blocks were visible, so cast-in-place block with extremely accurate “joints” would be appropriate to exterior application. And the blocks at higher levels of the pyramids were harder to reach for quarried blocks hauled up ramps—replacing these with cast-in-place geopolymer blocks made the process easier.

Linn Hobbs, professor of materials science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has also added to Davidovits’s original theory and Barsoum’s corroborating research. Hobbs’s students have reverse engineered a geopolymer concrete made from crushed limestone, kaolinite, silica, and natron salts, a substance found in the evaporated remains of saline lake beds. The Egyptians used natron salts for mummification. When exposed to water, natron salts become alkaline, a perfect activator to make a geopolymer reaction.

As predicted, new theories that suggest that even a small portion of the stones in the pyramids at Giza were man-made blocks formed from an early form of concrete have erupted into a firestorm of resistance and vitriol, most notably from those with the most to lose when an established theory is pulled apart. As much as Barsoum assumed that solid materials analysis could indisputably prove how some of the pyramid’s blocks were made, the debate still rages on.

Cement factory in China. The production of cement alone is responsible for 6 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions. Image ©Jonathan Kos-Read, used with permission of Creative Commons license.

Separating the debate from the historical discussion can shed important light on how we can improve today’s construction materials by exploring what the Egyptians might have done. Just the idea of an ancient form of geopolymer concrete masonry that has lasted 4,000 years can forever change the way we build today.

Concrete is the most voluminous material made by all humankind. It’s used all around the world in roads, bridges, dams, and buildings. The key binding ingredient in today’s concrete is Portland cement, which alone is responsible for 6 percent of the world’s CO2 output.

And concrete made with Portland cement isn’t as durable as its environmental footprint might warrant. Concrete bridges are often taken out of service after only 50 years, due in part to harsh conditions like road salt, heavy truck traffic, and freeze-thaw cycles. While the relatively stable environment of the Giza pyramids avoids many of the harsh conditions of today’s urban built environment, the 4,000-year durability of the structure indicates the expanded material lifespan possible with geopolymer concrete. When coupled with a much smaller carbon footprint—geopolymer concretes like those the Egyptians likely pioneered have a tenth the carbon footprint of Portland cement–based concretes—geopolymers offer a compelling alternative.

Watershed Materials has developed the first prototype of a new masonry block machine that applies intense compressive force to allow the interparticle contact necessary for geopolymerization of common earthen materials of relatively low reactivity. Along with the design of a new machine for producing sustainable masonry, Watershed Materials is developing mix designs to create strong durable geopolymer masonry from common clays and earthen aggregates found nearly everywhere across the planet.

While we may have been wrong about how the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids, learning the right answer has implications for modern materials science and provides a new way forward toward developing far more durable and sustainable alternatives.

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Kaiser Permanente turns to renewable energy to create a healthier environment.

 

To witness the profound effects of climate change, look no further than California’s Central Valley, where a record drought has left an eerily parched, dust-blown landscape. Scientists in California, the home state of healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente, are sounding dire warnings that unless greenhouse gases are vastly reduced, conditions are expected to worsen.

The effects of climate change, such as those found in the Central Valley, have the potential for great harm to human health, both directly and indirectly. Kaiser Permanente, headquartered in Oakland, California, has a long history of linking the environment to human health. Now the healthcare provider and not-for-profit health plan, already a leader in green energy, will take another major step forward and purchase enough renewable energy to meet half of its electricity consumption in California.

Between two separate deals with NextEra Energy Resources and NRG Energy, solar and wind power will replace much of Kaiser Permanente’s need for fossil fuels, significantly reducing greenhouse gases, a known contributor to climate change. Kaiser Permanente facilities—including 38 hospitals and more than 600 outpatient medical offices countrywide—emit more than 800,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases a year. The facilities use almost 1.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a year.

“We see climate change as a health issue,” says Ramé Hemstreet, Kaiser Permanente’s chief energy officer. “We think this is a tangible example of improving the health of the community we serve.” Purchasing renewable energy is one outcome of the organization’s bigger goal: a pledge in a 2012 Sustainable Energy Policy to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by almost a third, by the year 2020 (from a 2008 baseline). “That’s an absolute goal, despite the fact that we are adding members and building new facilities,” Hemstreet says. “Buying renewable energy is a big step in reaching it.” The wind and solar projects, in fact, will enable Kaiser Permanente to meet its goal three years earlier than expected.

By purchasing solar and wind power, Kaiser Permanente will do more than just reduce its reliance on carbon-based fuels; it also will reduce the water required to produce the electricity. “It’s a win-win,” Hemstreet says.

Climate change impacts human health directly and indirectly, Hemstreet says. Hotter days result in injuries and illnesses. Storms threaten public safety. Degrading air quality likely causes more respiratory disease, such as asthma. Warmer weather, as well, creates a change in pathogens, possibly changing the nature of disease—as Hemstreet says, creating “a larger range for certain diseases.”

Construction on the wind farm and solar installations that will supply the alternative energy is underway, Hemstreet says. The Golden Hills Wind Project, in Alameda County in Northern California, will be supplying energy later this year, after existing turbines are replaced with more efficient and more avian-friendly turbines. Solar energy will be provided by the Blythe Solar Power Project in Southern California’s Riverside County. It is expected to be operational by mid-2016.

NRG Renew, a subsidiary of NRG Energy, Inc., will install solar panels at as many as 170 Kaiser Permanente facilities, which includes medical offices, hospitals, and clinics. As much as 70 megawatts of on site solar will be produced through these solar photovoltaic arrays, primarily on carports and other parking structures that accommodate a combined 20,000 parking spaces.

Besides reducing the carbon footprint, Kaiser Permanente’s move toward renewable energy will save water. Wind and solar energy require essentially no water to operate, thereby not polluting water resources or threatening other needs for water, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. In comparison, fossil fuels require a great deal of water, and some forms, such as coal mining and natural gas drilling, can pollute sources of drinking water. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) that extracts natural gas also requires large amounts of water.

Kaiser Permanente’s renewable-energy project is another step toward a safer, healthier environment and a deeper expression of the organization’s long-held understanding of a link between environmental health and human health.

As early as the 1960s, Kaiser Permanente staff questioned the role of the environment in human health. In 1961, staff members invited Rachel Carson, author of the groundbreaking environmentally themed book, Silent Spring, to speak to its staff physicians and scientists. More recently, Kaiser Permanente formed a partnership with Health Care Without Harm and the Business Renewables Center, begun by the Rocky Mountain Institute, to help the healthcare industry and the rest of the country’s business community develop more renewable energy resources.

Kaiser Permanente hopes to inspire other healthcare organizations to take a leadership role in reducing the potentially devastating consequences of climate change. In fact, it is the organization’s responsibility to help lead the way, Hemstreet says. “We hope to set the example for others in the healthcare community,” he says.

There are other healthcare organizations making an effort, Hemstreet adds, pointing to Gundersen Health Systems in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and its environmental program, Envision. “They’ve been a leader,” Hemstreet says. But compared with Kaiser Permanente’s enrollment of almost 10 million members, Gundersen is small. “I’m quite confident that the total amount of renewable energy that Kaiser Permanente is purchasing is larger than any other healthcare organization in the U.S.,” says Hemstreet.

It’s not too late to turn the ship around, Hemstreet and others agree. One study, by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, considered the feasibility and impact of generating 80 percent of the country’s electricity from renewable sources by 2050. The conclusion: Global-warming emissions from electricity production could be reduced by approximately 80 percent.

Hemstreet sounds a note of optimism. “I certainly think we have to look now at how we’re going to adapt to a changing climate,” he says. “I think there’s still time to avoid a cataclysmic effect.”

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Mexico City’s Instituto Thomas Jefferson looks for ways to make its sustainability efforts as impactful as possible.

 

For 37 years, the Instituto Thomas Jefferson (ITJ) has been a forerunner for social emotional learning, project-based education, and student-powered innovation. Today, its mission is campus-wide sustainability on all fronts—from LEED-certified buildings to Green Apple Day of Service projects to the environmentally focused K-12 curricula.

ITJ—a network of schools based in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Queretaro—is committed to “whole school sustainability,” which is built on a framework that looks at organizational culture, physical place, and educational programming. “ITJ is not a common school,” notes Organizational Culture Leader Monica Bleiberg, whose role it is to connect the ITJ community through initiatives that build a sustainability culture. “We enrich our educational model with innovative projects all the time so our teachers and students are used to new challenges,” she explains. “When we decided to embrace the whole school sustainability framework, Green Apple Day of Service became the perfect way to motivate teachers and students to commit to sustainable initiatives.”

Green Apple Day of Service is a global initiative developed by the USGBC that encourages educators and students to rethink their schools—participants have multiple and varied opportunities to redesign and transform their surroundings to make them more sustainable. Past projects have included removing toxic materials from school grounds, performing sustainability assessments, hosting open houses at green schools, and creating signage to encourage conscientious behavior. ITJ has set the goal of 1,000 Day of Service projects this year. Bleiberg admits the figure is a challenging one, but believes it is achievable. “We still have some time…we already have 910 projects registered, so I think it is likely we will get to 1,000 projects.” Given Green Apple Day of Service is scheduled for September 26, 2015, they will likely reach that goal.

However, Physical Place Leader Mariana Aristizabal notes, “To have a high-quality, big-impact project is more important than the number of projects.” This idea is somewhat new—originally the focus was on the number of projects completed. Now they wish to emphasize quality over quantity. “It is more important to have a project that includes all of the community and all of the schools, teachers, and staff,” says Aristizabal.

Each ITJ campus has its own sustainability coordinator, who is responsible for organizing Green Apple Day of Service projects. Individual project ideas come from many sources including educators—one teacher looked into how to create wind power on site. The students, too, offer suggestions—like conserving water by putting a bucket in the shower to collect the water that flows while waiting for it to heat up, and using it for irrigation, cleaning, or some other purpose.

In 2014, ITJ made the decision to invest in its future as a forward-thinking, cutting-edge institution. It has since worked tirelessly “to put all of its students and teachers in schools that have a responsible environmental footprint, support the health of occupants, and support education for sustainability.” The institute has partnered with U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC’s) Center for Green Schools, which works to “ensure every student has the opportunity to attend a green school within this generation.”

The Center works directly with staff, teachers, faculty, students, ambassadors, elected officials, and communities to turn schools into sustainable places to learn, work, and play. Through its work with the Green Schools Fellowship Program, the staff at the center have gained insights into system-wide sustainability for schools like ITJ. Hannah Debelius and Anisa Baldwin Metzger from the center recently used this knowledge to design and lead training with Bleiberg and Aristizabal to clarify the roles and responsibilities of ITJ’s sustainability coordinators.

Currently, ITJ’s Physical Place department is building a new high school for which they are seeking LEED Platinum certification (it will be the first to achieve this designation in Mexico). They have set 27 goals that will aid in its function as a learning tool. They also seek certification for existing buildings. “We work on everything people can touch and see,” says Aristizabal, who oversees the reconstitution and renovation of the campuses. With support from the Center, ITJ plans to implement LEED Lab, a multidisciplinary immersion course that utilizes the built environment to educate and prepare students to become green building leaders and sustainability-minded citizens. Students at each campus will participate in the certification process.

“For ITJ, the emotional health, the values, and the skills of a child are even more important than his or her academic success,” says Bleiberg. “We care about the emotional side of learning, of buildings, of teaching because at ITJ we know, we have seen the amazing things a passionate 15-year-old student can do. So we work to engage and direct the students’ passion toward positive changes.”

ITJ’s K-12 curricula focus on energy efficiency, water conservation, transportation, air quality, food and nutrition, and waste management. Their collaboration with the Center for Green Schools has resulted in the idea of “sustainable intelligence,” which is based on the award-winning curricula and programming of EcoRise Youth Innovations in Austin, Texas. “This year, we encouraged sustainable projects through project-based learning,” explains Bleiberg, who sees this as a way to cover all academic areas. “Next year, we will pilot a sustainable intelligence curriculum from kindergarten through 12th grade.”

And what do the students think of all this? “They are happy,” says Aristizabal. “They understand we only have one planet so we need to start taking action right now. They are committed to these sustainable teachings. They know they are doing good things for the planet at this moment and they want to keep going. We have 22 students who want to be leaders on climate change.”

Rachel Gutter, senior vice president of Knowledge at USGBC speaks with Ricardo Carvajal, co-founder of Instituto Thomas Jefferson.

Commitment to whole school sustainability includes communicating with the greater community to share their activities and to keep people abreast of the schools’ progress. Establishing “conservation behavior” and institutionalizing “progressive efficiency” are also key components for success. It takes the whole academic body to reach such ambitious goals. Luckily, its educators, staff members, and students share the same vision and are excited to see it coming to fruition. Of ITJ’s students, Bleiberg says, “They are used to feeling empowered and capable of having a positive impact on the world, but it still requires consistent and great effort from them.” Clearly, they are making that effort.

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That sentiment is at the heart of 100 Resilient Cities, the Rockefeller Foundation’s $100 million effort launched to help El Paso and 99 other urban areas around the globe meet 21st-century challenges—from climate-change-induced disasters to deep-rooted economic and social problems. By making progress within this 100-metropolis nucleus, the rest of the world can share the benefits. “We may be called 100 Resilient Cities, but our work is not just about 100 cities,” says Michael Berkowitz, the president who oversees the program. “It’s about building the tools and frameworks so that all the world’s cities can use them. In other words, we’re trying to build a global practice of resilience, one that can help cities do better for their citizens in both good times and bad.”

The 102-year-old Rockefeller Foundation has spent generations addressing the needs of cities because urban settings are uniquely relevant to us all. They’re hubs of culture, business, and technology. Today, more than half the world calls a city home. “By the middle of this century, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities,” Berkowitz adds, “and those urban areas will face greater threats than ever before from factors such as climate change and globalization.”

The concept of resilience refers to how well a city’s constituent parts—its businesses and institutions, the systems that keep it functioning, its residents—can survive, adapt to, and overcome adversity. That adversity generally comes in two forms: chronic stresses (entrenched problems like food and water shortages, drug addiction and violence, and economic deprivation) and acute shocks (distinct disasters like earthquakes, floods, and severe hurricanes). A city’s resilience boils down to four overarching aspects—leadership and strategy, health and well-being, economy and society, and infrastructure and environment—and draws in disparate fields, from sustainability to disaster risk reduction to economic and social justice.

If the scope of resilience sounds far reaching, that’s by design. “It’s about recognizing the intersection of social, physical, and economic issues,” says Max Young, vice president of global communications and marketing at 100 Resilient Cities. “You can’t think about responding to a storm without thinking about poverty: By and large, the poor and vulnerable are the most impacted by storms, especially when you get weeks and months removed. Similarly, you can’t think about earthquakes without thinking about small businesses, because half of small businesses don’t reopen after a disaster.”

At the same time, one resilience intervention often creates a cascade of positive outcomes. Young mentions Medellin, Colombia, a 100 Resilient Cities designee that was once at the center of the global drug trade. For the population living in poverty on the city’s hillside, narcotics seemed to be the only viable career: They were cut off from Medellin’s public transportation system and, as a result, were several hours removed from jobs in the city’s economic center. But when the city built a system of gondolas into the hillside and linked it into the subway system, things changed. “People went from having a commute of several hours to 20 minutes,” Young says. “All of the sudden, they have access to these jobs in the valley floor.” Community centers appeared at the base of the gondolas, new buildings on the hillsides drew more people to the city’s outskirts, and drug-related crime and violence fell along the way. “By solving an economic problem, they actually solved physical and social problems,” Young says.

In 2013, the Rockefeller Foundation announced 100 Resilient Cities, a program designed to improve the resilience prospects of cities around the world. Since 2013, the program has selected 67 locales, from Bangkok, Thailand, to Lisbon, Portugal, to New York City. (The remaining 33 will be selected next year.) Each selection was based on the cities’ track records for building partnerships, their leaderships’ propensity for innovation, and other criteria. Along with connecting these 100 cities to a network of more than 50 partners from the private, public, academic, and nongovernmental organization sectors to help implement resilience measures, the program funds two to three years’ worth of salary for each city’s chief resilience officer (CRO). These advisors report to mayors and chief executives, garner support for resilience-building projects by working across government departments and the broader community, and create strategies based on efficient, cost-effective solutions that have profound, positive impacts.

“The CRO organizes people, brings initiatives together, breaks down silos, and makes sure we’re all moving in the same direction and with the same vision toward the same goal,” Nicole Ferrini says.

El Paso—Ferrini’s lifelong home—was among the first cities selected by 100 Resilient Cities, and Ferrini took her post as CRO in December 2014. Ferrini holds degrees in architecture and interior design and a wealth of experience in urban planning. “But you know what really prepared me to do this?” says Ferrini. “All my time with USGBC.” In 2006, Ferrini helped found the USGBC Chihuahuan Desert Chapter, spending nearly a decade getting the region familiar with the concepts of green building and sustainability. Resilience and sustainability, as Ferrini sees it, are inextricably linked. “Resilience zooms out from the built environment, organic foods, all those places where sustainability tends to live, into this greater umbrella that includes economic development and social justice. But when I map it out in my mind, it always drills back down to that core foundation that sustainability provides. Is resilience different? Yes. Can you separate the two? In my view, absolutely not.”

Joseph Riccillo, chairman of the board for the Chihuahuan Desert Chapter, who has high praise for Ferrini’s early efforts as El Paso’s CRO, agrees. “To be honest, I think sustainability started the conversation and made people more aware of the need for resilience. Resilience and sustainability go hand in hand.”

For the last six months, Ferrini has been working out of the city’s Office of Resilience and Sustainability, building on her years of experience with the USGBC Chihuahuan Desert Chapter to hash out El Paso’s resilience strategy. While the region has occasional, disastrous flooding—the last such incident occurred in 2006—it’s not as exposed to the same acute shocks as other 100 Resilient Cities locales. Instead, Ferrini expects El Paso’s resilience strategy to address those everyday stressors that affect the city’s long-term stability: economic diversity, access to quality affordable housing, access to water in an arid climate, and, in particular, health and wellness. “Health and wellness has been a huge driver in every single conversation we’ve had,” Ferrini says. “How can we leverage a physical environment within our city that supports wellness for the individual? How do we create an economic system that allows people to be comfortable enough to focus on their own health and wellness? How do we get past some of these preventable disease components? How do we reduce the strain on our local healthcare system?”

The answers to these questions and others transcend borders. Ciudad Juarez—another 100 Resilient Cities designee just over the Rio Grande in Chihuahua, Mexico—and Las Cruces, New Mexico, share many of the same resilience challenges as El Paso, as do other desert locales around the world. “The capacity to survive, adapt, and thrive in the face of 21st-century challenges is critical for any city,” says Kurt Fenstermacher, assistant to the city manager for El Paso. “El Paso, however, is unique in that we are positioned to set the standard for safety, prosperity, diversity, and human health in the context of a growing international metroplex nestled in the arid climate of the desert southwest.”

As part of formulating the city’s resilience strategy, Ferrini has connected with more than 25,000 residents through social media and met face to face with hundreds of community stakeholders through a series of intimate roundtable discussions. And when her audience’s opinions dissent from her own, she opens her ears. “Really, I want to hear what they think resilience means for their community and measure those perceptions against the activities we have going on,” Ferrini says.

Recent strides in green building have helped further the resilience conversation in El Paso. The city is home to Paisano Green, a 73-unit complex that’s the first LEED Platinum-certified senior public housing building in the country. (Within the next half decade, all of El Paso’s public housing will be upgraded to LEED Silver standards or better.)

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Brendan Owens

chief of engineering, USGBC

A few years ago I was chatting with a new USGBC employee who had just joined us in a senior leadership position. We had just wrapped up a meeting about something or other and this new leader was explaining how excited they were to be working at USGBC. I get to hear that a fair amount— people like to work here and we do inspiring, important work with really fun, smart people. But the next statement they made blindsided me. It was something to the effect of “and I’m so happy to be at this place in such early days—this organization has so much potential.”

I didn’t know what to say. Had they missed the memo that LEED had fundamentally changed the construction industry? In less than a decade! In 150 countries! And 10+ billion square feet!

Sometimes the prideful, automatic reaction is the exact wrong one. The hard truth of it is that we’ve got a long, long, long way to go. In the face of the causal role that the buildings industry plays in global calamities like climate change, resource scarcity, biodiversity loss, drought—the list goes on—it’s fundamentally irresponsible to look backward and think that our job is done. It was a humbling lesson that I’ve tried very hard to carry with me ever since.

This issue of USGBC+ is about past success to be sure, of which these examples are but a few of thousands we could have chosen. But more importantly it’s about how these buildings must be a catalyst for an even more rapid, effective, and inclusive revolution of the built environment.

I have a semi-tortured relationship with at least one of the projects we’ve chosen to highlight. Back when I joined USGBC as staff, we didn’t have very many options in terms of case studies that we could present during trainings about LEED. As such, I have, if the rough calculations I just made are correct, spoken about aspects of the Phillip Merrill Environmental Center almost 350 times in the last 15 years. Needless to say, it got kind of stale. But seeing it here is like visiting with an old friend (a friend who, in hindsight, turns out to have been more of a professor and mentor than drinking buddy) and it brings me joy.

So enjoy these case studies of the transformative work that your colleagues in this movement are responsible for— but don’t enjoy them as memorials to great work. Enjoy them as gauntlet’s thrown directly in your face as a dare to create something better. Draw inspiration from them, but more importantly draw motivation from them and then go and do it better.

USGBC’s best days, in my opinion, are the days when we work to make ourselves obsolete. The idea that we’ll look back on these buildings as artifacts of a bygone era may seem preposterous, but that time will come. We’ll look at them as buildings that used more energy than they produced or polluted rather than cleaned water and that is thrilling to me, and existential for those who come after us. So while we want to—and should celebrate what we’ve achieved, let’s also use it as a place to demarcate where we jumpstart what’s next and the future that we’re counting on you to deliver.

LEED ON,

Brendan Owens

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