Opinions & ideas on energy use, climate change, and the economy in Vermont
Al Gore’s recent TED Talk, The Case for Optimism on Climate Change, is a true game changer. It is likely to have an impact as great as, or greater than, An Inconvenient Truth. Three Simple Questions: Al Gore asks three simple questions about carbon and climate change: Do we have to change? Can we change? Read More …
Getting to Net Zero National Forum, Washington D.C. I was fortunate to attend the Getting to Net Zero National Forum in Washington, DC on February 1-3 which was promoted as “A gathering to share perspectives on the growth of zero energy buildings, learn about best practices for successful projects and collaborate on opportunities for zero energy to Read More …
In our GBA guest blog on August 26th , and our Net Zero Energy Vermont blog, we posed a question concerning net zero (NZ) statistics and metrics. What are the metrics that will move us toward our net zero goal and future? When we purchase a car we generally know what the fuel mileage is. Read More …
We are alive at a unique and remarkable time – this moment in history marks one of the most major changes in human civilization. Today, fossil fuels no longer make economic sense. We have reached the tipping point where using renewable energy costs less than using fossil fuel energy. This cost consideration even excludes the Read More …
The International Living Futures Institute, the parent organization for the Living Building Challenge, hosted an “unConference” on May 23rd Portland, OR. Among the highlights, Maya Lin, renowned international architect, and Lance Hosey the author of The Shape of Green: Aesthetics, Ecology, and Design both spoke. I presented as a part of a panel with Mark Read More …
On a sunny day in July, I was happy to find myself in Boothbay, Maine for the grand opening of our most recent net-zero project, The Bosarge Family Education Center at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Heralded by the press as “The Greenest Building in Maine”, this educational center is the first net-zero commercial/institutional project Read More …
I recently had the chance to travel to Montreal and present one of our Vermont projects, the net-zero Putney School Field House, at the international ASHRAE conference. This was an exciting chance for us to share with others how it really is possible to achieve net-zero in the cold climate of Vermont. This was also a Read More …
Is obfuscation one of your goals? I didn’t think so. It does seem to be a goal in many architectural, energy efficiency and sustainability circles though. The terms zero energy building, net-zero carbon, net-zero energy cost, zero net energy, net-zero energy site, net-zero electricity, near net-zero, and net-zero ready…are all tossed about to describe a Read More …
The Promise A recent opinion piece by Alec Appelbaum in the New York Times caught my eye. In “Don’t LEED Us Astray,” Appelbaum wrote about the promise represented by the grand opening of 1 Bryant Park, a new LEED platinum-certified office tower in New York city. The tower is the first to rate platinum, the Read More …
Image by geofones via Flickr At the 2010 Efficiency Vermont’s Better Buildings Conference, Andy Shapiro of Energy Balance and I offered an “Energy Challenge” to the audience of architects and building owners to begin a broad based campaign to track building energy performance. This challenge extends not only to collecting the data for your business Read More …