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A new report driven by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and Yale University's newly-formed Yale Center for Ecosystems + Architecture (Yale CEA) has recommended drastic reductions in the industry’s use of certain construction materials as it faces the environmental headwinds of sector-wide... View full entry
The American Institute of Landscape Architects has published the results of a members' survey on the role of landscape architecture products in aiding decarbonization and biodiversity in the built environment. Insights were garnered from 454 landscape architects, designers, and educators out of... View full entry
California has become the first U.S. state to establish general code standards mandating the reduction of embodied carbon emissions in large commercial and school buildings. The decision, recently announced by the California Building Standards Commission, encompasses commercial buildings exceeding... View full entry
Boston is officially ending its reliance on fossil fuels in government-owned buildings after Mayor Michelle Wu signed a new executive order banning their use in all new municipal construction and renovation projects across the city. In a press statement released on July 31st, Wu told reporters... View full entry
The American Institute of Architects has announced that nearly $20 billion of the $27 billion allocated by the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) under the Inflation Reduction Act has been released by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has introduced two funding opportunities: the $... View full entry
New research from MIT has found that adding sodium bicarbonate, otherwise known as baking soda, to concrete mixtures may make a significant dent in the material’s carbon footprint. The findings, published recently in the journal PNAS Nexus, also suggest that the addition of sodium bicarbonate... View full entry
By 2030, around a quarter of UK buildings should be heated using them, according to the UK government's climate advisory body, rising to 52% by 2050. Electrifying heating will also be key to decarbonising buildings in the US, says Melissa Lott, director of research at the Centre on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. One study in San Francisco referred to heat pumps as the "single most impactful lever" to reducing emissions. — BBC
Communal heatmains can be used to overcome the challenges of digging expensive boreholes for heat pumps in private homes and urban apartment blocks where most of the UK’s population resides. The country’s push to heat half of its homes using heat pumps, which are evolving, puts it... View full entry
For much of its recent history in mitigating climate change, Denver has concentrated on buildings’ operational energy — the energy needed to run basics like heating, air conditioning, lighting and hot water. That will shift in May, when Denver’s newly adopted green code takes effect, said Christy Collins, green communities specialist with the local government. — Smart Cities Dive
Denver’s new green code will make it so a building’s embodied carbon is considered. It will provide minimum requirements for the siting, design, construction, and plans for the operation of projects. Commercial projects in Denver are now required by law to choose around 10% of the green code... View full entry
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has revealed an update to its Urban Sequoia project it says can be built right now, during a presentation that took place today at the COP27 climate summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. SOM Partner Chris Cooper was on hand to make the presentation of his firm’s... View full entry
Megadeveloper Lendlease is one of the entities behind a new study into the use of mushrooms as a means of decarbonizing construction waste through their application on discarded asphalt roofing shingles. The company teamed with Rubicon Technologies, Mycocycle, and Rockwood Sustainable Solutions to... View full entry
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has just announced the addition of six new strategic partners to the $50 million Empire Building Challenge in aims of enhancing the state’s stock of energy-efficient buildings. The newly-added partners will be tasked with developing "highly repeatable" solutions to... View full entry
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has announced an ambitious new city-wide plan that would eliminate the use of fossil fuels in new developments and major renovations in an effort to take "every possible step to climate action." If passed, the Home Rule Petition to the state’s new Bill H.5060 would make... View full entry
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $39 million to 18 projects dedicated to developing technologies that can transform buildings into net carbon storage structures. The initiative titled the Harnessing Emissions into Structures Taking Inputs from the Atmosphere (HESTIA) program... View full entry
Cityzenith, a Chicago-based digital twin platform, announced last week that it is partnering with the Los Angeles branch of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Challenge to help construct a digital twin, or virtual replica, of a section of the city to help make its buildings more sustainable and reduce carbon emissions. — Construction Dive
The project will initially center on the downtown Los Angeles neighborhood of Bunker Hill. Cityzenith’s SmartWorld digital twin product will be implemented to enable building owners to simulate their financial paths to net-zero emissions. This is part of Cityzenith’s "Clean Cities &mdash... View full entry
Citing the climate crisis, the Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to ban most gas appliances in new construction, a policy that’s expected to result in new homes and businesses coming equipped with electric stoves, clothes dryers, water heaters and furnaces.
The nation’s second-largest city was late to the game, said Councilmember Nithya Raman, the policy’s lead author — but no longer.
— The Los Angeles Times
Raman’s motion echoes that of many other cities in the state as well as a recent proposal to phase out non-electric car sales by the year 2035. It also includes a provision that all newly-constructed buildings be emissions-free, a requirement it first adopted for all municipal properties in... View full entry
