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“Businesses that achieve LEED certification have reduced environmental impacts, increased energy efficiency, and improved quality of the work environment for their employees.”- EcoStar Standard 11 Green Building Design, Page 53, EcoStar Action Guide.

Green Building Roundtable Library:
Text Box: Green Building and the Bottom Line: the business case for sustainable building design — June 2008 The June Roundtable was held at Fidelity Bank’s new headquarters which was designed and constructed using the New Buildings Institute’s “Advanced Buildings Benchmark” rating system. Participants discussed the benefits of sustainable building design and how it affects the triple-bottom line (economy, environment, social) and learned about Fidelity’s decision to “go green” and the results to-date. View Select slides from the Green Building Presentation here and to view select slides from the presentation on the Advanced Buildings Benchamark and Fidelity, click here. The workshop closed with an interactive tour of the building. and check out the local news coverage of the event.

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Text Box: Existing Buildings—The Greenest of Green Buildings — January, 2009 Existing buildings contain a tremendous amount of embodied energy. Adaptive reuse/renovation can be a more cost-effective, efficient and sustainable method of construction versus building new. Devens has numerous examples of adaptive reuse of existing buildings and numerous opportunities to "green" existing buildings. In this Roundtable we heard from a number of architects, engineers and building owners and operators about some of the pro's and con's regarding existing buildings. A number of great resources were discussed: Historic Preservation and Green Building Thanks to EcoStar Member Al Collins of Habitat Advisory Group for the Article on Historic Building Preservation—an insightful read! USGBC LEED for Existing Buildings Operations and Maintenance Rating System Draft Wastewater Reuse Regulations from MA DEP Hybrid Discussion Existing Building Reference Handout Text Box: Getting to Zero Energy Building -- April 2009 In this session we discussed some of the latest advancements in energy efficient building design. Participants shared their experiences with implementing cost-effective solutions to constructing and renovating buildings to maximize energy efficiency. Carter Scott from Transformations, Inc. gave a great overview of how he is building Zero-net energy homes today. We went over proposed changes to the MA building code, as well as a look at the final report from the Governor's Zero-Net Energy Building Task Force—two steps Massachusetts is taking to help lead the path towards zero-energy building and the goal of meeting our carbon reduction targets by 2030. We also touched on passive survivability and plus-energy buildings that are essentially becoming decentralized power suppliers. The following are links to the presentations and some of the resources that were made available to attendees: Neil Angus’s Presentation Carter Scott’s Presentation Text Box: Passive Energy Building Design and Construction—September 2009 As a spin off from our April Green Building Roundtable on Getting to Zero Energy Building, this Roundtable focused on Passive Energy Design which is quickly growing in popularity again as energy costs remain unstable and nations, cities, towns and individuals strive to reduce their carbon footprint to combat global climate change. Participants from both the residential and commercial/industrial sector discussed the latest in energy efficient building techniques and Passive House Design standards. We also viewed a short film on a Passive and Active solar mixed use development in Germany which utilizes a number of Passive House standards. Many resources and funding programs were shared and discussed at this session. Below are links to those resources: Presentation Slides and Passive Energy Resources Components of a Passive House Design of Passive Solar Heated Buildings Commercial Energy Efficiency Incentives Rolf Disch’s Surplus Energy Homes Text Box: Construction and Deep Energy Retrofits -- January 2010 As interest in energy efficient design and construction remained a key topic for this roundtable group, this quarter’s roundtable focused on foundation construction methods to control moisture. In the second half of the session, we discussed super-insulation and other deep-energy retro-fits and some of the opportunities and challenges in implementing these methods into new construction and existing buildings. We finished off with a quick look at the deep energy retrofits of the Empire State Building and provided some valuable resources for attendees. Construction and Deep Energy Retrofit Presentations (this is a large file and may take a minute to download!) Empire State Building photo on EnergyPriorities.com courtesy City of New YorkText Box: Adaptive Reuse: Grady Research Building Tour — April 2010 Members heard from John Grady about his restoration efforts and challenges in redeveloping this former trolley company building that was converted into an icehouse and now houses Mr. Grady’s research facility and hydro-power facility that can generate enough energy to power up to 300 homes. Text Box: IGCC & ASHRAE Standard 189.1-- July 2010 The International Code Council's recent release of the International Green Construction Code includes ASHRAE Standard 189.1 (modeled on the USGBC's LEED Green Building Program) as a “total building sustainability package”. Standard 189.1 serves as a jurisdictional compliance option to the Public Version 1.0 of the International Green Construction Code (IgCC). Chris Schaffner, P.E., LEED AP, a nationally recognized expert in cost effective, high-performance design, provided a great overview of Standard 189.1 and got an insightful discussion rolling. Standard 189.1 Overview ASHRAEIESUSGBCText Box: Reducing Toxicity in Buildings and Building Materials— October 2010 Toxicity in building materials can lead to serious indoor air quality problems and jeopardize the health of your employees. Participants discussed information and resources available to help make smarter choices in building materials, paints, coatings, adhesives as well as cleaning and maintenance practices. For additional information and valuable resources, download the presentation here: Reducing Toxicity Presentation Toxics Use Reduction InstituteText Box: Design For Reuse: Sustainable Design and Deconstruction-- January 2011 This roundtable focused on the emerging trend of designing buildings to be deconstructed or reused. Past roundtables have focused on building longer-lasting buildings and moving away from our current disposable design and build practices. We went a step further and looked at ways people are deconstructing buildings and reusing the materials to construct new buildings (really extending the life-cycle of building materials!). We discussed how to incorporate reuse strategies into new building designs and looked at some sample reclaimed materials and local resources for reuse. Local Reuse Suppliers Design for Reuse Presentation