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Del Birmingham

Inside Interface's bold new mission to achieve 'Climate Take Back' | GreenBiz - 0 views

  • Interface reconstituted its Dream Team, “a collection of experts and friends who have joined with me to remake Interface into a leader of sustainability,” as Anderson wrote in the company’s 1997 sustainability report.The original team included Sierra Club executive director David Brower; Buckminster Fuller devotee Bill Browning, then with the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI); community and social activist Bernadette Cozart; author and entrepreneur Hawken; Amory Lovins, RMI co-founder and chief scientist; L. Hunter Lovins, RMI’s other co-founder; architect and designer William McDonough; John Picard, a pioneering consultant in green building and sustainability; Jonathan Porritt, co-founder of Forum for the Future; Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael; Karl-Henrik Robèrt, founder of The Natural Step, a sustainability framework; and Walter Stahel a resource efficiency expert. (Additional members would be added over the years, including Biomimicry author Janine Benyus.)
  • One example is Net-Works. Launched in 2012, it helps turn discarded fishing nets into the raw materials for nylon carpeting in some of the world’s most impoverished communities.
  • But Ray Anderson’s sustainability vision was always about more than just a “green manufacturing plant.” He wanted Interface to be a shining example, an ideal to which other companies could aspire, a test bed for new ideas that stood to upend how business is done — and, not incidentally, an opportunity to stand above the crowd in the world of commercial flooring.Climate Take Back is the noise the company wanted to make.
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  • The mission is that we will demonstrate that we can reverse the impact of climate change by bringing carbon home,” says COO Gould, who is expected to ascend to the company’s CEO role next year, with the current CEO, Hendrix, remaining chairman. “We want to be able to scale that to the point where it actually does reverse the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.”
  • There’s a small but growing movement to use carbon dioxide molecules to build things — plastics and other materials, for example — thereby bringing it “home” to earth as a beneficial ingredient, as opposed to a climate-warming gas in the atmosphere.Interface’s commitment to “bring carbon home and reverse climate change” is a prime example how the company intends to move from “doing less bad” to “doing more good” — in this case, by not merely reducing the company’s contribution to climate change, but actually working to solve the climate crisis.
  • tansfield believes Interface is in a similar position now. “We know now what the biggest issues of our generation — and frankly, our children's generation — are, and that's climate change, poverty and inequality on a planetary scale, on a species scale. We are bold and brave enough, as we did in '94, to stand up there and say, ‘If not us, who? And if not now, when?’”
  • The notion is something Benyus has been talking about, and working on, for a while: to build human development that functions like the ecosystem it replaces. That means providing such ecosystem services to its surroundings as water storage and purification, carbon sequestration, nitrogen cycling, temperature cooling and wildlife habitat. And do so at the same levels as were once provided before humans came along.
  • Specifically, Climate Take Back includes four key commitments:We will bring carbon home and reverse climate change.We will create supply chains that benefit all life.We will make factories that are like forests.We will transform dispersed materials into products and goodness.
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    "Climate Take Back," as the new mission has been named, is the successor to Mission Zero, the name given to a vision articulated in 1997 that, for most outside the company, seemed audacious at the time: "To be the first company that, by its deeds, shows the entire industrial world what sustainability is in all its dimensions: People, process, product, place and profits - by 2020 - and in doing so we will become restorative through the power of influence."
Adriana Trujillo

Green Building News: First BREEAM USA In-Use Awarded, T-Mobile Arena Achieves LEED Gold... - 0 views

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    A shopping center in Thousand Oaks, Calif., has been named the first BREEAM USA In-Use certified building in the country, a designation for sustainability efforts at pre-existing nonresidential structures. The Oaks Shopping Center features 6,000 solar panels, LED lighting, a mixed-materials recycling campaign and more to help minimize the building's environmental impact.
Adriana Trujillo

Revolutionizing the power supply, one smart building at a time | GreenBiz.com - 0 views

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    What used to be a one-way route from the utility to your building is becoming a two-way street.
Adriana Trujillo

Disney Recognized with LEED Awards by the U.S. Green Building Council | Official Disney... - 0 views

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    The Grand Central Creative Campus (GC3) Phase 2 received a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification-the council's highest honor. This award marks the first Platinum building in the Disney portfolio. The King's Mountain Technology Center, a Disney property in North Carolina, also received a LEED Silver certification.
Adriana Trujillo

Legrand's CEO: How we met our energy goal seven years early | GreenBiz.com - 0 views

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    exceeded our Better Buildings, Better Plants goal within the first four years of joining - seven years ahead of schedule. We achieved a 32 percent reduction in energy intensity across 14 U.S. industrial, commercial and mixed-use sites. At our 100-year-old headquarters building in West Hartford, Conn., we were able to reduce our energy use intensity by 10 percent in just two years, leading to a $233,000 savings in 2013. And those savings will show up in every budget going forward, too.
Adriana Trujillo

Will Buildings of the Future Be Cloaked In Algae? | Innovation | Smithsonian - 0 views

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    The Urban Algae Folly gazebo at Expo 2015 in Milan, Italy, is covered in algae-filled ethylene tetrafluoroethylene plastic that may herald the future of green building. The spirulina in the plastic membranes absorbs carbon dioxide and produces oxygen while expanding more as sunlight intensifies to provide shade. 
Adriana Trujillo

Upstart manufacturer turns fiber waste into building materials | GreenBiz - 0 views

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    Looking for a non-structural building material that is as versatile as wood composite, aluminum or fiberboard but far less toxic? That's the promise behind ECOR, a product made from recycled cardboard, wood scraps, even agricultural byproducts such as coffee grounds and corn-stalk fiber.
Adriana Trujillo

Green Buildings Halve GHG Emissions from Water Consumption · Environmental Ma... - 0 views

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    Certified commercial green buildings on average cut greenhouse gas emissions from water consumption by 50 percent, reduced solid waste management-related GHG emissions by 48 percent and lowered transportation-related GHG emissions by 5 percent, when compared to their traditional California counterparts, according to a study.
Adriana Trujillo

LEED Proven Provider: New Designation to Streamline the LEED Review Process | U.S. Gree... - 0 views

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    Today, the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) launched LEED Proven Provider, a new designation that streamlines the LEED project review process for experienced organizations that demonstrate consistent excellence in administering LEED projects. "LEED Proven Provider makes the LEED review process faster and more seamless," said Doug Gatlin, vice president of program delivery, U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and GBCI. "It allows GBCI to deliver faster reviews of LEED projects while still maintaining the integrity of the LEED certification process."
Adriana Trujillo

Architects Pledge Zero Carbon Emissions by Buildings · Environmental Manageme... - 0 views

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    The International Union of Architects (UIA), representing about 1.3 million architects worldwide, has pledged to phase out carbon emissions by buildings by 2050.
Adriana Trujillo

Cox Media Group Meets Atlanta's Better Buildings Challenge Six... | Cox Media Group - 0 views

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    Cox Media Group (CMG) announced that the facility housing its Atlanta TV and radio stations (Channel 2 WSB-TV, News/Talk Radio WSB, B98.5, 97.1 The River and KISS 104.1) has met Atlanta's Better Buildings Challenge nearly six years ahead of the 2020 goal. The facility reduced its energy and water consumption by more than 20 percent and is annually saving nearly 650,000 gallons of water and 1,400,000 kWh of electricity through its conservation projects.
Adriana Trujillo

Net Zero-Energy Building Technologies Gain Government Support | CleanTechnica - 0 views

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    A report by Frost & Sullivan found that government funding is making zero-energy buildings possible, but the idea is not widely known. "While governmental or regional funding are the main drivers of NZEB technologies, public-private funding is the most effective in sustaining the application of the NZEB concept and advancing its development globally," said Technical Insights industry analyst Jennifer Tan.
Adriana Trujillo

Building on Chicago's Reputation as a Green Building Leader - 0 views

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    The USGBC recently released its 2015 Top Ten States for LEED list, naming the U.S. states that lead the nation in sustainable building design, construction, and transformation. For the third year in a row, Illinois topped the list of total square feet of LEED-certified space per resident. 
Adriana Trujillo

Apple Building Another 100% Renewable-Powered Data Center - Energy Manager Today - 0 views

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    Apple announced plans to build a new $921 million data center in Denmark that runs on 100% renewable energy.
Adriana Trujillo

Mainstream Renewable Power Wins Seven Government Contracts in Chile to Build One Gigawa... - 0 views

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    Cleantech company Mainstream Renewable Power will reportedly build and operate nearly 1 GW of wind power capacity in Chile by 2021. The 7 wind power projects have a combined investment value of more than $1.5 billion.
Adriana Trujillo

Construction Principles Document Released · Environmental Management & Energy... - 0 views

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    The Green Building Initiative (GBI) launched its Guiding Principles Compliance for New Construction (GPC NC) of federal buildings.
Adriana Trujillo

Nike's Newest Concept Store in Shanghai Built with 100% Trash · Environmental... - 0 views

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    Miniwiz Sustainable Development Ltd., a Taiwanese architectural firm, completed a building in Shanghai, China, at the end of July, built with 100% trash. The building, Nike's newest concept store, used 5,500 soda cans, 2,000 PET water bottles and 50,000 old CDs and DVDs, the company says.
Brett Rohring

6 ways Apple's new mothership will be ultra green | GreenBiz.com - 1 views

  • 6 ways Apple's new mothership will be ultra green
  • 1. Fruit trees
  • The new plan will transform an existing site almost entirely covered with buildings and asphalt into a landscape featuring almost 7,000 trees – including the apple, apricot, cherry and plum fruit trees that made San Jose's orchards thrive long before silicon was invented.
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  • When Apple Campus 2 is finished, 80 percent of the site will be green space
  • 2. Renewables
  • the campus will run entirely on renewable energy. The plan calls for about 8 megawatts of solar panels to be installed on the roof of the main, spaceship-shaped building as well as the parking structures. An unspecified number of fuel cells also will be installed, with the rest of the electricity needed for operations sourced through grid-purchased renewable energy.
  • Primary opposition to the site has centered on its transportation plan. To combat those criticisms, Apple has expanded its Transportation Demand Management program, emphasizing the use of bicycles, shuttles and buses that will link employees with regional public transit networks.
  • 3. Net-zero building design
  • the structure itself is being designed to create as much energy as it uses. There is a strong emphasis on energy-efficiency: the passive heating and cooling systems will use 30 percent less than a comparable campus. A central site will contain fuel cells, back-up generators, chillers, condenser water storage, hot water storage, an electrical substation and water and fire pumps.
  • 4. Attention to water conservation
  • Attention has been paid to reducing the number of impermeable surfaces on the site. (Up to 9,240 of the parking spots, for example, will be underground so that Apple can invest in landscaping that absorbs water. A recycled water main is under consideration, and other steps have been taken to minimize water consumption by about 30 percent below a typical Silicon Valley development. Those measures include low-flow fixtures, the use of native plans and roof rainwater capture.
  • 5. An expanded waste management program
  • Apple already diverts about 78 percent of the waste associated with its existing headquarters from landfills. The proposal calls for the company to recycle or reuse any construction waste; from an operations perspective, it will step up recycling from solid waste sources as well as the use of composting.
  • 6. A sharpened focus on commuting alternatives
  • As part of its transportation program, the plan calls for buffered bike lanes on streets adjacent to the campus that are segregated from vehicular lanes and that also allow for bikes to pass each other. The focus will be on encouraging all employees that live within 15 minutes of the campus to use sustainable or public transportation alternatives. The site will start with 300 electric vehicle charging stations, with the built-in capacity to expand.
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    The iPhone maker's master plan features extensive green space, aggressive water conservation and one of the largest corporate solar arrays in the world.
Adriana Trujillo

Cut Energy Waste By Running Buildings Better | Philip Henderson's Blog | Switchboard, f... - 0 views

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    Tower Companies saved $220,000 in 1 year and reduced electricity consumption by an average of 13% across 3 office buildings in Washington, DC, by implementing systems for managing energy in real time.
Adriana Trujillo

Method and Gotham Greens Partner to Build World's Largest Rooftop Farm in Chicago -- CH... - 0 views

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    Sustainable cleaning products company Method intends to build the world's largest rooftop farm at its Chicago manufacturing plant. The plant was designed by William McDonough + Partners and is expected to achieve LEED-platinum certification.
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