USGBC-LI's Peter Caradonna Foresees a Sustainable Future

As a 3^rd generation architect, Peter Caradonna eventually married (what else?) an architect.  But his life’s work truly started in the mid 1990’s, working on a branch library in Brooklyn.  Peter was handed the NYC Department of Design and Construction High Performance Building Guidelines.  Curious what such a building would be, Peter spent the weekend reading the guidelines, gaining a new understanding of “the future of our business.”  

Peter’s introduction to sustainability convinced him that architects could regain their former importance to society, becoming “a catalyst to a critical paradigm shift.”  Starting his own firm in 1996, He sought to learn everything he could about green building.

In 2000 he joined the US Green Building Council (USGBC), working on the programs committee for USGBC New York, one of the organization’s six original chapters.  Recruited to help start the Long Island Chapter, Peter became its first chair.  His leadership skills impressed the national organization, where he now sits on the Chapter Steering Committee.  USGBC now has over 79 chapters, and Peter enjoys a national network of bright, forward-thinking progressives to share ideas with anywhere he goes.

Of course, sustainability faces a huge challenge from entrenched business and political entities.  Peter says the green movement must work twice as hard to achieve its goals.  He also believes the next generation will use their life-long relationship with computers to take up this struggle, informed by a different understanding of the world.  “I can’t wait to see what they come up with,” he says.  “They’re my greatest hope.”

“Anywhere you go on earth,” Peter notes, “the human footprint is evident.  Even in the furthest wilderness areas.”  In addition to sustainability, he foresees restorative and regenerative systems to maintain the planet, even as our society grows exponentially.

For now, the current generation needs to determine the standards for making all buildings carbon neutral.  “And you know what?” Peter asserts.  “That’s not a bad way to end this generation’s work.”

Post written by David Sporn.

Originally posted on the USGBC-LI Blog

Who Will Be The Star Trek Generation?

As I listened to Billy Joel’s “Summer, Highland Falls” last night I couldn’t help but compare it to the political climate of today. We live in a world without compromise. Neither side wants to give, they only want to get. When Billy Joel sings this song in concert he usually dedicates it to “All the Manic Depressives in the audience.” Is that what our society has become?


Our leaders can’t seem to look past today. They have become obsessed with today while sacrificing tomorrow. It is not a sustainable political or social environment. Everyday we are confronted with our own inhumanity, the rising poverty rate and the decline of the middle class, the spread of disease and infection, and the differences in each others religious beliefs. Our leaders seem to choose their own madness over the reality of the situation. They needlessly dissipate their energies promoting their own selfish agendas while distracting others from the respective similarities of the issues.


They have been arguing and so called compromising on the same issues for over 6 decades but it seems that nothing has changed. They are still standing on the ledges of their own unwavering beliefs with an unwillingness to take a step back and see it from another perspective.

What generation is going to standup and sacrifice to become what I like to call, The Star Trek Generation? By that I mean, the generation that is going to put the future of our world ahead of their own agenda. If any of you are fans of Star Trek you know that in that world there is no more disease, social classes, or political unrest. Everything is done with the good of society as a whole in mind. Only then will we truly become a sustainable society.

Solargle

How is Solargle helping to clean up our world?

A recent Global Warming forecast released by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states the following:

"As early as 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages. Residents of Asia's large cities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding... Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water... If unchecked, global warming will spread hunger and disease, put further stress on water resources, cause fiercer storms and more frequent droughts, and could drive up to 70 percent of plant and animal species to extincti..." The full report can be seen at National Geographic News

The above report was deliberated on by 140 national delegations before being adopted, and its message is clear: In the words of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, "These scenes are as frightening as a science fiction movie... But they are even more terrifying because they are real... Only urgent, global action will do..."

Solargle aims to be a symbol of that global action. It is not enough for our policyholders to take action, and we must each do our part, every single day, to reduce the carbon emissions polluting and destroying our earth.

Solargle's hosting is 130% wind powered. This means that we are not only neutralizing our environmental impact, but reversing it! Our host's contribution to saving the planet is approximately equal to preventing the emission of 3117 metric tons of carbon dioxide, or, in other words:

Removing 444 cars from the road for a year, or

Powering 321 homes with clean energy for a year, or

Saving 5,654 barrels of oil, or

Protecting 551 acres of forest for a year

Click here to see our host's Green Tag purchase certificate!

Solargle's searches are powered by Google's Custom Search.

How can you help make a difference?

This planet needs all the help it can get. The more people we have concerned for the planet's future, the more chance we have of healing the planet. Please, set Blackle as your home page. By doing so, you will be able to browse the internet in a manner that doesn't damage our planet. Encouraging your friends to do so as well, giving us a hand by mentioning us on your social networking status or spreading the word about us means you are doing your part, every single day, to prevent a little bit of pollution entering our atmosphere. It's that simple.

Long Island Needs Plan for Sustainable Future

Great article.  Just wanted to pass it along

by

John D. Cameron Jr. is the chairman of the Long Island Regional Planning Council.

Michael E. White is the council’s executive director.

from

Long Island Business News

The news, opinion pages and blogs of LIBN have been filled with the challenges Long Island is facing, and it seems that the very best of what “Our Island” has to offer is at risk. While we share many of the problems faced by other communities, we have regional challenges that make our plight unique and in some ways more desperate. The Long Island Regional Planning Council is tackling these challenges and will ascertain how Long Island may achieve a sustainable future. If we are to be successful in solving these challenges, Long Islanders must be ready to embrace a future that preserves appealing aspects of our suburban life, recognizes our remarkable assets and creates a community based upon the principles of stewardship and sustainability.

Our distinction as the most highly taxed populace, with the highest energy costs in the continental United States and a lack of housing options to meet the needs of our changing population has resulted in an accelerated loss of our talented and educated work force, particularly our young people. The affordability problems of our young work force are shared by our seniors, a growing segment of Long Islanders. You have heard this before.

“Our Island” also faces an aging and inadequate infrastructure. We cannot build or revitalize our downtowns without adequate sewer capacity and treatment to protect our drinking water. We cannot alleviate our traffic congestion without better transportation and transit choices. The natural resources that attract us to the Island are stressed or even disappearing. Failure to address global climate change and reduce greenhouse gases could bring more unhealthy air and permanent flooding. Our ability to attract and retain quality businesses which employ highly skilled, highly paid workers must be strengthened. These challenges threaten our quality of life and our economic viability.

Acknowledging these challenges and problems as daunting, there is hope that we can still right the ship. The council, with core support from our counties and in collaboration with our towns, villages, cities and an array of stakeholders, is embarking upon a sustainability planning initiative to ensure that not only does Long Island remain an economic engine, but that our quality of life will be preserved and enhanced. Our “LI-2035 Regional Comprehensive Sustainability Plan” initiative will produce an integrated sustainability action plan. It will NOT merely be another study of existing deficient conditions or a vision devoid of a charted course of how and what to change.

Assisting the council is a team of talented planners, engineers, scientists, economists and sociologists headed by Arup, an internationally respected firm, supported by local firms and community-based organizations in conjunction with federal, state and local government. The work product will draw upon sustainability successes from around the world with specific application to Long Island.

First, we will identify and assess the challenges we face in economy, infrastructure, resources and land use. We then will establish goals; develop a series of sustainable strategies with metrics to assess their impact on meeting our challenges; and identify the necessary governmental actions and funding mechanisms required to implement the strategies to reach the goals. Second will be the integrated action plan providing the “how to” and “who needs to do what” to reach a condition of sustainability by the year 2035.

The council is supported in the development of this plan by a Leadership Advisory Cabinet comprised of Long Island leaders in business and industry, institutions, regional government, the community, the environment and nonprofits. The cabinet is co-chaired by Bob Catell and Pat Foye. Supporting the cabinet will be stakeholder resource groups acting as technical advisors in specific thematic areas. The experience and expertise of our cabinet and stakeholder resource groups as well as broad public outreach will ensure that the critical issues affecting Long Island will be addressed, practical solutions proposed, information generated widely disseminated and that the action plan will be implementable.

The critical challenges and associated problems we face are real and significant. It is up to all of us to seize the opportunity to create a sustainable future for “Our Island.”

USGBC Wants an Environmental Label for Every Building

This article appeared in:

Environmental Leader

Every building in the U.S. should have a label as to its environmental impact, said the U.S. Green Building Council’s president at the Healthy Buildings meeting.  At the same event, IBM told how it is taking green buildings one step further with bright-green buildings, which converges green buildings with intelligence, said an IBM executive, reports Central New York News.

Rick Fedrizzi, president of the U.S. Green Building Council, would like to see a label similar to nutrition labels found on food packaging on the side of every building, that discloses the quality of the air, water and other environmental factors inside, reports Central New York News.  Fedrizzi was the opening keynote speaker at the Healthy Buildings 2009 conference.

Fedrizzi said in the article that indoor environmental quality ranks near the bottom of the nation’s policy issues, and to change that, more research is needed to demonstrate the links between health and indoor air quality. He also noted that green building research attracted less than 1 percent of all federally funded research in 2007.
Jane Snowdon, a key executive at IBM’s Intelligent Building and Smarter City Research at the T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., told an audience at the Healthy Buildings 2009 conference that buildings need to be smarter because they consume 70 percent of the world’s electricity, 12 percent of its potable water and 40 percent of the raw materials used globally, reports the newspaper. T hey also create 136 million tons of waste per year worldwide, she said.

The smart grid would play an integral role in making buildings more energy efficient.  As an example, National Grid, a utility in New York and New England, has applied for $200 million in federal stimulus money to create a smart grid in three states involving 200,000 customers, reports the newspaper.

Christopher Cavanagh, director of new products and services for the utility, told Central New York News that smart meters, appliances and monitoring systems will let consumers choose to consume energy when it’s cheaper — generally at night, or off-peak hours — and let the utility manage demand for energy.

To help building owners garner financial savings from green building practices, a new nonprofit organization was formed earlier this year to support and promote environmental sustainability among property owners and managers nationwide.

The Association of Green Property Owners and Managers (AGPOM) offers several services to members including a cost-effective Green Building Plan, green insurance products that provide discounts for going green, and Green Premium Plus, a program based on renewable energy credits (RECs).

The Rights of Future Generations

Some people seem to have a hard time even understanding the concept of the rights of future generations. The idea that people who do not yet exist have the right to assert their needs in our lives is one that seems to be hard to fully grasp.


Think of this example: If someone set a bomb to go off in a public square 100 years from now, is he committing a crime? Should he be stopped? Almost everyone would say yes. Should he be tried before a court of law and prevented from doing further harm? Most of us would agree that he should.


Now, here's the tricky part: climate change is the bomb, and our great-grandkids are the victims. By transgressing planetary boundaries, we are seriously and effectively permanently undermining the ability of the planet to provide the kind of climate stability, ecosystem services and renewable resources that future generations will need to maintain their own societies. In the worst case scenarios, we are in fact dooming many of them to extreme suffering and early death. Life on a planet 10 degrees hotter is not something we would wish to have inflicted on ourselves.


And we don't really have the ethical or legal right to inflict it on our descendants. There is no legitimate basis for thinking that we have the right to use the planet up, that the property rights of our generation trump the human rights of all generations to come.


Put it another way: ethically, our riches are not our own. We hold the planet in trust, and as long as we don't use more of the planet's bounty than can be sustainably provided in perpetuity, we have the ethical right to enjoy the best lives we can create. But the minute we stray into unsustainable levels of consumption, we're not in fact spending our own riches, but those of future people, by setting in motion slow-fuse disasters that will greatly diminish their possibilities.

Unfortunately, nearly everyone in the developed world now enriches their lives at the cost of future generations. As Paul Hawken says, “We have an economy where we steal the future, sell it in the present, and call it G.D.P."

Now, obviously, most of us did not intend to find ourselves in this situation, and so we have a legitimate argument that we need a reasonable amount of time to change and eliminate our ecological impact. What a reasonable amount of time is, though, is becoming the subject of fierce debate, especially since it's clear that many people's definition of a reasonable time for change is sometime after they're dead.

The really interesting question: if future generations have legal rights -- and it's pretty clear they do -- in what courts might those rights be defended, and how?

Planetary Boundaries and the New Generation Gap

This is a great article I figured I would share with everyone.

by

Alex Steffen,

www.worldchanging.com

June 30th 2009

A sort of generation gap on global issues is emerging around the pace of change. The older generation, especially the older generation of well-heeled white men, today respond to our calls for rapid change by urging "realism" -- meaning an expectation of delayed action and minimal commitment. We saw this most recently in the U.S. debate about the Waxman-Markey climate bill, which both takes effect too slowly and demands too little, in comparison to what we know we need to do based on climate science.

Those of us with a little clearer grasp on reality know that every moment lost now has real consequences. Ecological crises and development challenges are combining in ways that make solving both issues much more difficult with every passing day. Clear thinking people -- and at this moment, polls show, most of us tend to be on the younger side -- get that we do not have decades to act. We hear the clock ticking.

We're about to hear a lot about "planetary boundaries." Planetary boundaries reflect the idea that the limits of the Earth to support human civilization can be measured across several natural systems. They're a scientific attempt to describe the base conditions for global sustainability. If we've going to thrive, we need to figure out how to do it within these limits.

Last year, a group of scientists led by the Stockholm Resilience Centre took a shot at defining those boundaries. They found three hard targets:

Climate Change: Stabilized concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 350 ppm

Stratospheric ozone layer: A decrease of five percent in column ozone levels at a given latitude with respect to 1964-1980 values

Ocean acidity: Concentration of carbonate ions in surface sea water of the Southern Ocean should not fall below 80 µmol per kg-1


In addition, they defined seven other boundaries for which specific hard targets were more difficult to pin down but which nonetheless demanded attention: freshwater consumption and the global hydrological cycle; deforestation; interference with the global nitrogen cycle; terrestrial biodiversity; chemicals dispersion; marine ecosystems.

We're in the process of straying beyond every single one of these boundaries. Of course, each of these boundaries is a massive issue in its own right, the subject of a global debate involving hosts of experts and advocates; but put them together -- as we must, since they are all tied together and affect one another -- and we begin to see just how massive the ecological crisis at hand is.
But, as useful as the concept of planetary boundaries is, it also leaves out another critical interplay, the one between human aspirations and abilities and the very real generational thresholds we face.

We are headed towards a peak population of at least nine billion people shortly after mid-century. Almost all of those people will aspire to greater prosperity, quite reasonably in most cases (I think that trying to talk the world's poor out of their aspirations is a fool's game). That means we need to expect to see billions more people reaching for what they see as the good life.

At the same time, we can't repeat the path to wealth that made the developed world rich. We've already exceeded the planet's biocapacity; we're already beyond the planetary boundaries, meaning that business as usual has prohibitive environmental costs. We're running out of places to dump and spew waste without dire human cost. We've also used up a tremendous share of the planet's easy bounty -- from old trees to cheap oil to big fish to virgin metals -- meaning that conventional resource and energy use will largely come from more and more difficult (and often more and more ecologically costly) stocks. Peak everything will not only make getting rich the old fashioned way more expensive, it will also make it more destructive. The combination of what are technically known as declining stocks (less good stuff to use) and shrinking sinks (fewer places to safely put the bad stuff) will make development far more difficult for the world's poor this century than last.

Adding to that difficulty is the on-going waste of human potential, and the growing costs of lost opportunities to engage the world's poor in transforming their own situations.

Think in terms of medicine for a moment. We're starting to get our heads around the fact that compared to treating disease, preventing them is far cheaper, more effective and happier for the patient. Prevention, though, to a certain degree demands early commitment. Start a lifelong exercise, nutrition and stress-reduction program in your teens, and your results will be profoundly better than someone who starts one at 60 after a lifetime of smoking, eating junk food and working too hard. For that 60 year-old, it's still worth getting healthier, but there are hard limits on how healthy he will ever get.

What applies to medicine also applies to human development, especially now in countries with very young populations: the degree of sustainable prosperity we are capable of achieving depends to some large extent on how good a start we get, how quickly.

Even another two decades of the status quo will make many of our goals nearly impossible.

Needless deaths, injuries, sicknesses and malnutrition today will impose an astronomical cost on us over the coming decades. Missed opportunities to educate children (especially girls) leave lifetimes of limited opportunities. The trauma of conflict and collapse, of natural disasters or of family tragedies, could combine with the strains of living in extreme poverty to leave hundreds of millions with a lifelong difficulties coping. The disillusionment of a generation of young people, who find themselves trapped in corrupt or failing states, or simply shut out of opportunities for dignity and work in the global economy, can turn them away from productive engagement with the problems around them and turn some of them towards extremism and terror. As much as we want to believe in an endless potential for human transformation, the reality is that people's energies, spirits and opportunities for growth are themselves limited resources.

Right now, we're squandering them in mind-boggling volumes, and that waste has costs. With every passing year, the task of raising billions of people out of poverty to become parts of stable, democratic states with functioning economic, legal and health systems becomes more difficult.

And all this while climate vulnerabilities, food shortages and rising energy costs begin to undermine even the progress much of the developing world has managed so far. There are generational thresholds for change, and it is possible to fail to act boldly enough to move through them.

The brutal reality is that failure is possible in human societies as well as in ecological systems. There are points beyond which societal problems start to become effectively impossible to solves. And when you combine the two -- an on-going societal meltdown with massive ecological degradation -- the result can be real, catastrophic failure that lasts for generations, perhaps effectively forever.

Both the planetary boundaries we're exceeding and the generational thresholds we're failing to step through ought to be matters of concern for every person on the planet. We know now that in a thousand extremely practical ways we're all tied together through webs of ecological interdependence, global economics, culture, disease and public health, conflict and terror. It may be possible for large failures to happen while much of the rest of the world improves; some large failures may even be inevitable. But widespread failure to spread stability, human welfare and a reasonable degree of prosperity will ultimately doom any level of progress we make in keeping within our planetary ecological boundaries. And ultimately, a planetary collapse will leave no one -- not even the richest and best situated -- unaffected. Our children's hopes are dependent on the futures other children inherit.

This is why bright green solutions are so important. We here in the developed world need to not only redesign our lives to reduce our own impact; we need to reinvent prosperity itself, so that billions of people around the world can take the innovations we create and make their own versions of sustainable prosperity. And the reality is that it must be us; to think otherwise is to willfully ignore the massive disparity in research funding, institutional capacity and education levels that exists between the wealthy and the poor on this planet. (Besides which, we're responsible for causing many of these problems.)

We must also do it quickly. We need to do it yesterday. We can't simply plan to cut our own impacts down to a level that could be shared by everyone over the next four or five decades.

Even if we had that long a time to reduce our impacts -- and we don't -- there is no way the rest of the word can get stable and sustainably prosperous in that time frame unless we lead the way right now. Anything less than an all-out effort now is morally inexcusable. Small steps, incremental reductions, slow plans -- unless these are tied to big, systemic and quick solutions, they will not be enough. We need a bright green future, right now.

All that is the bad news.

Here's the good news: We can build that bright green future. We have the technological prowess, the design insight and even many of the working examples we need to transform our systems and reinvent our cities. We have the money. We may even be gaining the most needed components, vision and political will.

Here's the better news: Not only can we build it, but we'll be better off when we live in it. We will be better off in a stable world than a collapsing one, rather obviously. (It is a monumental failure of our public debate that our choices are still understood as an option between "going green" and the status quo; when in fact they are transformation or imminent ruin.) But most of the evidence indicates that we will be better off in a bright green future than we are now in our dark gray present: better off in crass material terms, with more disposable income, more comfortable homes, nicer communities and better food, but also better off in terms of quality of life, health, time demands and stress. What we gain outweighs what we lose, by far. Put simply, I believe that in almost every way a bright green future would be a better choice than the status quo, even if there were no planetary crisis at all.

There are plenty of reasons for despair and cynicism these days. But it's really important not to underestimate the power of the politics of optimism, the power of actually having better ideas and answers. They are especially powerful when the people opposing us have nothing whatever to offer besides a white-knuckled grasp on a broken status quo. Their only weapons are fear, uncertainty and doubt. It's time we counter with optimism, vision and examples. We need to counter with a future that works.

In the months leading up to Copenhagen we need to insist on the fierce urgency of now: on why we cannot wait, why we have no more time, why half measures and stalling tactics are no longer acceptable; why, in short, the day for real change has come. We need to make that point ring in the media, in political debates, in our corporate boardrooms, in our community meetings, in our classrooms, in our churches and at our cultural events. Everywhere people talk about who we are and where we are going, we need to loudly demand actual reality-based realism... and a bright green economy.

This summer is the calm before the clamor. This fall, we need to let the world know what time it is.

Why to Go Green: By the Numbers

1 pound per hour: the amount of carbon dioxide that is saved from entering the atmosphere for every kilowatt-hour of renewable energy produced.

60 percent: the reduction in developmental problems in children in China who were born after a coal-burning power plant closed in 2006.

35 percent: the amount of coal's energy that is actually converted to electricity in a coal-burning power plant. The other two-thirds is lost to heat.

2.5 percent: the percentage of humans' carbon dioxide emission produced by air travel now, still making it the largest transportation-related greenhouse gas emitter.

5 percent: the percentage of the world's carbon dioxide emissions expected to be produced by air travel by the year 2050.

1.5 acres: the amount of rainforest lost every second to land development and deforestation, with tremendous losses to habitat and biodiversity.

137: the number of plant, animal and insect species lost every day to rainforest deforestation, equating to roughly 50,000 species per year.

4 pounds, 6 ounces: the amount of cosmetics that can be absorbed through the skin of a woman who wears makeup every day, over the period of one year.

61 percent: the percentage of women's lipstick, out of the 33 tested, found to contain lead in a test by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.

36: the number of U.S. states that are anticipating local, regional or statewide water shortages by 2013.

1 out of 100: the number of U.S. households that would need to be retrofitted with water-efficient appliances to realize annual savings of 100 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and 80,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

3 trillion: the number of gallons of water, along with $18 billion, the U.S. would save each year if every household invested in water-saving appliances.

64 million tons: the amount of material prevented from going to landfill or incineration thanks to recycling and composting in 1999.

95 percent: the amount of energy saved by recycling an aluminum can versus creating the can from virgin aluminum. That means you can make 20 cans out of recycled material with the same amount of energy it takes to make one can out of new material. Energy savings in one year alone are enough to light a city the size of Pittsburgh for six years.

113,204: the number, on average, of aluminum cans recycled each minute of each day.

3: the number of hours a television set can run on the energy saved from recycling just one aluminum can.

40 percent: the percentage of energy saved by recycling newsprint over producing it from virgin materials.

Sources: Consumer Reports, Environmental Health Perspectives, Raintree Nutrition, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and EPA Water and EPA Recycling, Worldwatch Institute, Energy Information Administration, Ready, Set, Green, Earth911.org, The Telegraph, Yahoo! News

It's Starting.........

Trend Watch: Statewide Ban On Landfilling Plastic Bottles, Electronics, And More

by

John Laumer, Philadelphia

08.27.09

Somehow I had missed the trend of State government forcing recycling rates up on specific materials by banning landfill disposal. The Daily Southerner reports that a local "tip" in North Carolina, Edgecombe County Landfill, soon will no longer accept items that citizens and businesses are accustomed to tossing: wooden pallets; plastic bottles; used oil, yard trash, antifreeze, aluminum cans, whole scrap tires, lead acid batteries and oyster shells. Oyster shells. Who knew that was even an issue?

By 2011 the tip will also be banning disposal of electronic devices.

Per the Southerner story Plastic bottles, oil filters, wooden pallets on landfills’ new banned items list there are advantages to the new approach:

The state ban on disposing of those materials "will save space in the landfills, and it will help with the recycling part" of Edgecombe County's public utility, County Landfill Director Danny Bagley said.

What state is next?

The Enertia Home

This a great video. Really amazing green building technique. This is a segment from the Science Channel's Eco-Tech.

USGBC: Long Island Chapter

I am now a member of the Long Island Chapter of the United States Green Building Council.

The U.S. Green Building Council is a 501(c)(3) non-profit community of leaders working to make green buildings available to everyone within a generation.

This is the place to:

Certify your green building
Join USGBC as an organization
Join a chapter as an individual»
Sign up for courses and workshops
Purchase LEED Reference Guides
Learn about Greenbuild 2009
Sign up for e-newsletters
Become a LEED AP
Learn about green building

The U.S. Green Building Council is the nation's foremost coalition of leaders from every sector of the building industry working to promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work.

USGBC's core purpose is to transform the way buildings and communities are designed, built and operated, enabling an environmentally and socially responsible, healthy, and prosperous environment that improves the quality of life. USGBC-LI works to bring these values to the communities of Long Island.

The Strategic Plan 2009-2011

Vision:
The purpose of the Long Island Chapter of the US Green Building Council is to mirror and advance the core purpose of the US Green Building Council locally; to transform the way buildings and communities are designed, built and operated, enabling an environmentally and socially responsible, healthy, and prosperous environment that improves the quality of life.

Mission
The USGBC-LI is committed to working with our fellow Long Islanders to improve our quality of life by improving the quality of the structures we build, and the environment in which we all live, work, and play. We are committed to leaving the world a little better than we found it so that future generations have an unfettered opportunity to do the same.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Long Island’s economy has been driven by the real estate and building sectors. With these sectors at the core of the economic meltdown, the challenges for Long Island are particularly pronounced. The Presidential blueprint for addressing these challenges features energy efficiency in the built environment. Energy efficiency opportunities are abundant on Long Island. Both the interior and exterior atmosphere benefit as a result. Existing buildings account for 40% of U.S. energy use. A 25% improvement in efficiency would lower our carbon footprint by 10%, equivalent to the total output of the United Arab Emirates, the world’s third largest oil producer. To the list of efficiency benefits add energy independence and security. Over the last decade, the U.S. Green Building Council has set the bar for the new built environment. USGBC national has marked 2009 as the year for expanding its influence with the theme for Greenbuild 2009 being “Main Street – Beginning the Conversation.” The Long Island chapter of the USGBC has already established itself at the forefront, with eleven out of thirteen municipalities requiring Energy Star standards plus a role in crafting one of the country’s most rigorous municipal LEED standards for new commercial construction. Now, having supported the development of Long Island Green Homes, the residential energy retrofit program, the chapter is poised to establish itself as a model for suburban Main Street and partnered with the Town of Babylon to launch The Babylon Project. This project was designed and positioned to take this Long Island Initiative nationally.

The members of the USGBC-Long Island have come together to change Long Island’s status from the “birthplace” of suburban sprawl into one of leadership in environmental stewardship, through the construction of environmentally sound, healthy, and profitable buildings.

HISTORY OF CHAPTER
The Long Island Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council owes its foundation to the vision, and initiative of Catherine Shawn. Catherine Shawn was instrumental in assembling a group of like minded professionals and instilling in them the belief that together they could make a difference. It was her inspiration and driving force that propelled Peter Caradonna to believe that he could help start a local Long Island Chapter.

On August 9th, 2005 the Long Island Chapter Organizing Group held a successful Inaugural Event that helped begin the process of membership leading to the first official Board elections.

In November 2005, the first Board of Directors of the newly recognized Long Island Chapter of the USGBC was elected to a term beginning January 01, 2006.

I: Challenges
Many challenges face the Long Island community and must be responded to by the Long Island Chapter. Not only do we face the political and economic issues of the era, but how do we educate the community in the benefits of green construction and change the perception that green does not have to cost more.

The challenges for the chapter are both organizational and operational in responding to the community’s needs.

Challenges include:
Continuity in administrative staffing with integration of paid staff with our volunteer members

Increased value to membership

Change perception from “green costs” to “green saves” to address perceptions that green building is not cost effective and to make an effective case for green building to the financial community.

Expand knowledge and education programs.

Meet the demand for green building with regards to increasing the capacity and training of many sectors such as building trades, designers, developers, and code officials.

Meet the educational needs through the address the education needs for building owners, operators, and occupants on how to manage, operate, and inhabit green buildings.

Creating and maintaining consistent revenue streams to the chapter to maintain programs and operations.

Expand membership base and community involvement.

Developing meaningful and productive relationships with other Long Island not-for-profit organizations.

II: Principles
Promote triple bottom line by promoting and creating solutions that clarify and strengthen a healthy and dynamic balance between environmental, social and economic prosperity.

USGBC-LI will strive for honesty, openness and transparency.

Promote Design with nature - harmonizing human activities and natural systems.

Support efforts to develop affordable LEED-certified housing (in conjunction with municipalities, LIHP, Sustainable Long Island, and Habitat for Humanity).

Support efforts of other organizations in helping to expand ‘green’ residential development (such as LIBI, Neighborhood Network, Vision Long Island)

Reconfigure workplaces, homes and communities in consonance with eco-systems to mitigate building impacts.

Increase access of populations to the benefits of green building by educating building owners and occupants in mobilizing public and private capital for green building projects.

AGENDA: Goals and Objectives
Goal 1: Serve as the portal for USGBC national and the go-to organization for green building on Long Island.

Objectives:
1.1 Transform our web-site into a resource-rich, go-to destination for green searches from throughout the nation. Launch the national web-zine and blog-site, Green Burbs as a core attraction

1.2 Create Resource directory providing access to relative links and a directory of local providers.

1.3 Clearinghouse for policy makers and other advocates.

1.4 Develop relationships with media contacts at the local and regional level.

1.5 Develop replicable process for disseminating information to media contacts.

1.6 Build off the energy efficiency retrofit operations of Long Island Green Homes through directorship of The Babylon Project to promote Green Homes’ operations in other municipalities across Long Island and around the state.

Goal 2: Education - Increase the awareness and level of education to the general and professional communities on the benefits of green construction. Educate professionals and trades in green construction processes and techniques as well as occupants in green building operations and maintenance policies.

Objectives:
2.1 Provide education to building owners and users about the role of the built environment in climate change and resource depletion and the tools available to reduce carbon footprints and resource use associated with the built environment.

2.2 Promote the use of LEED programs, particularly Homes, Neighborhood Development, and Existing Buildings.

2.3 Offer technical training for both professionals and tradespersons in the region, work to promote good sustainable practices in their day-to-day businesses, and provide materials and resources to designers and builders at all levels in support of LEED guidelines and process.

2.4 Encourage the integration of relevant aspects of green building into the curricula of secondary, undergraduate, and graduate education.

Goal 3: Reach out to develop alliances with the building community, i.e. LIBI, AIA, etc.

Objectives:
3.1 Establish a steering committee of building stakeholders and NGOs who work in this area like Neighborhood Network, Sustainable Long Island, LIHP, Habitat for Humanity (provide not just a seat at the table, but entire table at the gala).

3.2 Partner with industry trade associations, professional societies, and other organizations. USGBC will continue to work with an ever‐widening range of public, private, and non‐profit organizations in pursuit of its strategic goals and objectives.

Goal 4: Organizational Stability and Growth

Objectives:
4.1 Develop consistent financial resources in order to provide capacity for growth in order to fully achieve our mission

4.2 Development of specific indicators and metrics to measure organizational growth with respect to; finances, LEED projects, program developments, membership perceived value, outreach and institutional involvement.

4.3 Develop a paid administrative staff.

4.4 Evolve the board of directors’ role, structure, and composition to provide the vision, high‐level strategic guidance, organizational direction, financial resource development, and diplomacy necessary to achieve USGBC-LI’s strategic priorities. Diversify the USGBC-LI board.

Goal 5: Expand the green building market

Objectives
5.1: Analyze, aggregate and disseminate information that demonstrates the environmental, health, social, and economic benefits of green buildings.

5.2 Identify gaps in the green building delivery chain and build capacity to bridge them.

5.3 Analyze the market and identify key stakeholders by researching comparable markets, identifying and incorporating elements from other municipal initiatives.

Goal 6:Increase advocacy efforts for the voluntary inclusion of green building procedures in new construction, existing buildings, and major renovations

Objectives:
6.1 Assess City and County policies and resources and advocate for; Low impact development requirements, Preferential permitting for green buildings, Develop incentives for green building practices, and Reduce barriers to green building.

6.2 Develop "starter kit" for states/local governments including model guidelines, model legislative language, and common indicators, utilizing USGBC resources and tools.

6.3 Develop database of information on state/local successful initiatives.

6.4 Serve as a resource to local businesses of all sizes and functions on greening business operations, products and services.

6.5 Develop Speakers Bureau available to businesses and organizations interested in how to be more sustainable.

6.6 Assess and promote municipality integration of sustainable design principles into the core competency skill-set of the County/Town planners, architects, engineers, and project managers.

6.7 Survey stakeholders to identify most important information needs, gaps and sources; generate additional data from regional summits.

6.8 Develop media-oriented materials to expand visibility and impact with building industry and mainstream consumer press.

6.9 Maintain and strengthen working relationship with New York Chapters (Upstate and NYC) on statewide issues.

Goal 7: Transform the programs committee into the nerve center for all programs, salons, workshops and events where previously little coordination and logistical support existed.

Develop a brand identity and consistency that positions the chapter as the experts in the field within our region through interesting topics and programs.

Objectives:
7.1 Create a committee structure with tools and procedures that were previously lacking.

7.2 Create Monthly Salons - Develop monthly salons that recur consistently throughout the year as opposed to ad hoc. Salons are an intimate classroom style atmosphere about 2 hours in length (45 minutes networking and 1 hour and 15 minutes for presentation and Q&A. Salons are usually topical and product and technology related.

7.3 Monthly Salons serving two regions - USGBC-LI membership is drawn from Nassau and Suffolk counties covering 1,200 square miles of some of the most populous and congested regions in the nation. USGBC-LI recognizes that travel considerations to salons during peak rush hour times would be difficult at best. Therefore, the chapter will host two salons, one serving Central/Western Long Island and the other serving Eastern Long Island. This strategy will maximize the ability for all members to enjoy the educational value of the chapter salons.

7.4 Create Salon 1 - Audience is generally Nassau County and Western Suffolk. Salons will be held the first Wednesday of every month.

7.5 Create Salon 2 - Second presentation for the east end membership comprising Central/Eastern Suffolk County including the North and South Forks. Salon 2 presentations are scheduled ad hoc.

7.6 Create Programs - Programs are major evening presentations often with a panel discussion and multimedia presentation. Programs are 3 hours in length (1 hour networking/dinner and 2 hours for presentation and Q&A.

7.7 Develop a sales package that excites and entices potential presenters that USGBC is the premiere organization to show their products, services and technologies.

7.8 Change the negative revenue structure into a profit center by charging appropriate fees to presenters and membership alike.

7.9 Recruit new committee members to support the stated goals and objectives.

7.10 Develop quarterly workshops in conjunction with USGBC National.

7.11 Organize tours of LEED Certified properties
7.12 Offer coordination and logistical support by serving as the conduit for other USGBC-LI committees’ program activities

IV: IMPLEMENTATION [years 1-3]
Develop action plan for operation to ensure sufficient income to meet or exceed financial plan.

Recruit Chapter and Program Sponsors.

Continue Annual Awards ceremony.

Hire a full/part-time administrative assistant and Executive Director.

Host regional summits and local programs to expand the local membership base, provide networking opportunities for existing and potential new members, address issues of national and regional interest, and heighten awareness and support for green building efforts at the regional level.

Develop and distribute Annual member satisfaction survey that will provide dynamic feedback to the benefits of local Chapter membership.

Spread energy efficiency retrofits for existing building retrofit operations to municipalities across Long Island and the state.

Staffers See the Need for LEED

by

Bernadette Starzee

Long Island Business News

Published: July 21, 2009

Nine architects and engineers at the Hauppauge office of Stantec recently became LEED accredited professionals. Stantec, which has more than 130 locations in North America, provides consulting services in planning, engineering, architecture, interior design and other disciplines.

According to Joe Lamagese, a senior architect who is one of the nine, getting employees certified fits with the company’s overall philosophy. “One of our company’s goals is to be the North American leader in sustainable design, and with 75 LEED certified projects in North America, we’re getting there,” he said.

More than 100,000 people have become LEED APs since the accreditation program was launched in 2001, said Paul M. Meyer, education chair for the Long Island Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, which administers certification for green buildings. Most LEED APs are directly involved in building design and construction.

VHB Inc., an engineering, planning, environmental and transportation firm with an office in Hauppauge, has 77 LEED APs among its 800 employees in 18 offices on the East Coast.

“It’s important for our staff to be familiar with the latest requirements and techniques so that we can contribute more effectively in our interactions with architects, building owners and others,” said Leo Pierre Roy, a principal of the firm. “The LEED program has led to a more integrated design process, in which many different professionals come to the table to determine how to make buildings that are more efficient, that use fewer natural resources and that have a healthful environment.”

E.W. Howell, a general construction and construction management firm with offices in Woodbury and New York, has three LEED APs on staff as well as three LEED certified projects under its belt, including two Brookhaven National Laboratory facilities in Upton.

“Having LEED APs is both a marketing and an operational tool for us,” said Dominic Paparo Jr., vice president of business development. “It’s an important element in our presentations when we’re competing against other firms. A lot of clients want to see LEED AP involvement on jobs.”

This is especially true among government concerns, universities and other institutions, he said. “The number of private companies that request it is in the minority, but it’s moving in that direction,” he said.

“Building codes will eventually be written to encourage sustainable design, and products are becoming more sustainable,” Lamagese said. “If a company doesn’t keep up, it will find itself out of the market.”

LEED APs understand the LEED rating system and how to handle documentation, and they can identify which areas to focus on to ensure that a project will be eligible for certification, Paparo said. The company’s APs are on the operations side of the business, but Paparo said E.W. Howell expects a couple of employees on the estimating side to become accredited by the end of the year. “It’s important, because there are costs involved with LEED,” he said. Besides knowing how to apply the point system, LEED APs bring a certain level of expertise to the table. “Going through the accreditation process opens the door to all the options that are available to improve the sustainability of a building, including all the resources that the USGBC offers,” Lamagese said.

For Ava Amrieh, an electric engineer at Stantec who also became accredited, an important takeaway was learning more efficient ways to accomplish sustainability. “I learned that it doesn’t have to cost that much more to build green if you’re cautious with the design from the beginning,” she said.

Because it is becoming increasingly important to have LEED APs on staff, companies generally pay for their employees to take preparatory courses and the accreditation exam as part of their professional development. However, according to Meyer, some companies only pay for the exam if the employee passes it.

While LEED APs have an advantage over their non-accredited counterparts when seeking a job, they generally do not command a higher salary simply because they have the credential.

“We see this credential as something folks should have as part of their training,” Roy said. “So we don’t offer a salary increase to someone who gets their LEED AP, unlike what we would do if someone earned a Master’s degree or passed the PE [Principals and Practice of Engineering] exam.”

In addition to those professionals who work directly in building design and construction, some in related fields are becoming accredited, as well. According to Meyer, LEED APs include real estate brokers, mortgage brokers, interior designers, attorneys, building managers and moving and storage providers.

“Being a LEED AP gives someone some credibility when dealing with other members of a project,” Meyer said. “For instance, if you have a roof salesperson that says he is offering a green roof, and he’s a LEED AP, you’ll know he knows what he’s talking about.”

John T. Proscia, president of Sutton & Edwards Management, a property management firm in Lake Success, recently received his LEED green associate certification, a new certification level that the GBCI began offering in June.

“With my new, intimate knowledge of the LEED certification process, I have a unique understanding of how to manage a LEED certified building,” said Proscia, who has an accounting background. “For those owners that do not have a green certified building, I can use my LEED knowledge to advise them on how they can make their buildings more efficient and, as a result, lower their operating costs.”

Two Levels, New Specialties
Significant changes to the LEED accreditation process went into effect in June. Those individuals interested in becoming a LEED AP must take two exams instead of one.

Individuals who pass the first test become accredited as a LEED green associate, which demonstrates general knowledge of green building practices.

Qualified GAs can then sit for a second specialty exam that corresponds to one of the LEED rating systems. The specialized exam categories are Building Design & Construction, Interior Design & Construction, Operations & Maintenance, Homes and Neighborhood Development.

“An interior decorator would probably go for the Interior Design & Construction exam,” Meyer said, “while a property manager would probably opt for Operations & Maintenance.”

In late August, the USGBC-Long Island Chapter will begin offering a seven-week course, with a two-hour session each week, to prepare individuals for the green associate exam. Preparatory courses for the specialty exams will follow.

How Long Island Is Setting the Standard for "Going Green"

If you have been watching the news or reading the paper, you're sure to have noticed that the latest trend is "going green." Various industries have been making news by "going green." Computer companies such as Hewlett Packard, car companies like BMW and giants including General Electric have all decided to join the "green" movement. It was only a matter of time before the real-estate industry caught on. But what do all those pictures of flowers, lakes and crystal clear skies mean?

In simple terms, "going green" means reducing the amount of energy and natural resources being consumed. In the real estate industry, the largest expenditure of energy and natural resources is office buildings. According to the U.S. Green Building Council, each day in the United States office buildings account for 42% of total energy consumption, 65% of electricity consumption, 40% of greenhouse gas emissions, 30% of both raw materials waste and landfill waste and 12% of potable water consumption. "The energy you use to light the space that you're in, the computer itself, the heating and cooling systems, all those systems are running," says Bob Rose of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that if each building owner took on the challenge to become green, by 2015, Americans would reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by amounts equal to the emissions from 15 million vehicles, while saving $10 billion. These undeniable facts and statistics jumped off the pages and inspired change through action. Some of the largest names in Long Island real estate have taken huge leaps in an effort to be more "green." From developers to landlords, Long Island has put itself on the map when it comes to "going green."

In 2003, Russell Albanese of the Albanese Organization together with Castagna Realty, the owner of Americana Manhasset shopping center, ventured to modernize an existing office building into the first green office building on Long Island. 1001 Franklin Ave. in Garden City set the standard for green buildings and revolutionized the future of Long Island's commercial structures. The building features recycled and natural materials including stone floors and recycled furniture fabric. Rainwater is collected and stored in a 5,000 gallon tank in the basement supplying water to irrigate the landscaping of the building. A state-of-the-art HVAC system reduces power use and features a high-quality filtration system designed to catch dust, pollen and impurities. The paints and adhesives used throughout the building are also environmentally responsible. Even the cleaners used to keep up the building are ammonia free and peroxide-based instead of chlorine
reducing the amount of pollutants being emitted into the air. Every detail of 1001 Franklin Ave. is carefully designed to minimize the building's environmental impact.

Since 2003, many of Long Island's landlords have been making similar upgrades and changes to their buildings' structure and function.

Long Island realizes that it is equally as important to build a green building as it is to operate it responsibly. Strict recycling programs have been implemented in buildings such as 600 Old Country Rd., owned by Vincent and Michael Polimeni. In addition to the new recycling program, new burners have also been installed to alleviate energy use. Improvements to existing structures are the key to ensuring an
environmentally conscious Long Island.

Aside from implementing changes to existing structures and building new office buildings from scratch, Long Island has been flooded with new ideas on how to solve the dilemma of environmental sustainability. Vincent Polimeni has proposed building a tunnel to connect Syosset on Long Island's north shore and Rye in Westchester County. The proposed project will save an estimated 24 million gallons of gas per year and reduce air pollution by 16.7% throughout the entire North Eastern region. Donald Trump has proposed building a green restaurant to replace the recently demolished Boardwalk Restaurant in Jones Beach.

RexCorp's Scott Rechler continues to introduce energy saving technologies in office building construction on Long Island. Rechler is also one of many Long Island developers who contribute to scholarship funds aimed at promoting a new generation of forward thinking Long Islanders.

With thousands of commercial properties on Long Island, the opportunities to build green are limitless. Revolutionary thinkers and ideas are the key to promoting a healthy and sustainable environment. Long Island's future depends on innovative thinkers. Judging by the recent surge of environmental initiatives, commercial real estate on Long Island is sure to flourish in a responsible way.