Prolonged applause, two standing ovations, a full crowd erupting in inspired conversation. The closing keynote of the Green Jobs Summit provoked meaningful conversations on the role of green jobs for both economic and social prosperity. The former White House green jobs advisor, Van Jones, was a fitting cap to the third annual Green Jobs Summit at Greenbuild, hosted in partnership with the Center for American Progress and the BlueGreen Alliance. The Summit featured experts from all sectors of...

It’s Greenbuild 2012 and the Moscone Center in San Francisco is teeming with people who clearly got the memo about sustainability. And even though thousands here have seen the light and understand what we’re doing is essential to the long-term health of the planet, not to mention our children and theirs, I realize there are many more out there who remain in the dark. But what excites me – truly excites me – and what occurred to me as I was about to set foot on the main stage to deliver the...

Join us at the Greenbuild Film Festival to view “Silent Snow.” Last month marked 50 years since marine biologist and conservationist Rachel Carson released “Silent Spring” an unsettling insight in to how our environment has become increasingly polluted by the use of pesticides like DDT. "The choice, after all, is ours to make,” Carson stated. “If, having endured much, we have at last asserted our 'right to know,' and if, knowing, we have concluded that we are being asked to take senseless and...

San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center has been a hallmark of San Francisco's tourist infrastructure since the first of its three buildings opened in 1981, but a recent renovation and LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance (LEED EB: O&M) Gold certification show off the Center’s new vision and approach to sustainability – just in time to host the estimated 35,000+ attendees of Greenbuild 2012. The original 700,000 square foot building was designed by HOK to help...

Over lunch, the U.S. Green Building Council honored with our 2012 President’s Award, one of the most remarkable men you’d ever want to meet, Dr. Arthur H. Rosenfeld, award-winning physicist and former Commissioner of the California. These days, Art – who is in his mid-eighties yet who still has more energy than I have on my best days, who studied under the legendary Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago, and who is the most-honored expert on (and proponent of) energy efficiency in the...

The following session is part of USGBC’s Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, an annual gathering of ~35,000 professionals, students and stakeholders in the green building movement. This year’s conference will take place Nov. 14-16 in San Francisco, Calif. For more information or to register, please visit GreenbuildExpo.org. How do we create biophilic cities? Ones that are in tune with ecological systems, foster place-based relationships, and embody the attributes of nature in their...

From the warmth and comfort of my brownstone apartment, about 30 feet above the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, it has been shockingly easy to forget the calamity that Hurricane Sandy has brought to my favorite city. This reality is more difficult to block out – impossible, really – once you drive out to the peninsula of Far Rockaway or walk down to the Red Hook waterfront. It took only a day for elected officials and others to connect the dots: the storm and its...

The following session is part of USGBC’s Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, an annual gathering of ~35,000 professionals, students and stakeholders in the green building movement. This year’s conference will take place Nov. 14-16 in San Francisco, Calif. For more information or to register, please visit GreenbuildExpo.org. Is your building operating efficiency? What about the people in your building? Dive deeper in to how building occupants and stakeholders help realize the true...

Of all those speakers during the opening plenary session, I’m not sure I can pick out one who was clearly more compelling than the others. They all brought some amazing insights to the table. What’s more, I’m writing this as the session is playing out in real time, so someone may still knock my socks off (and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, clearly a maverick in every sense of the word, currently has me on the edge of my seat, wondering what he’s going to say next). But the speaker who...

I’ve been both attending Greenbuild and distributing San Francisco visitor info for over ten years, so this blog post feels like it’s been a decade in the making. As both a long-time resident and a member of the USGBC Northern California Chapter’s Host Committee, let me be the first to welcome you to the city by the Bay (just please don’t call it Frisco). Here’s my two cents on how to live like a local and make the best of your visit: TIP # 1: Bring layers and an umbrella. This time of year...

Join our postcard campaign to tell legislators about the important economic and environmental benefits of green building. Greenbuild is a time to learn and reflect, to reunite and reenergize, and…to drop a postcard in the mail. Too few policymakers get to see and experience Greenbuild, our annual gathering where industry rallies for green buildings, economy and jobs. And if they can’t be there, let’s make sure they know what they’re missing. When you get to Greenbuild, come by the Advocacy Pod...

Join us at the Greenbuild Film Festival to view “The Greenest Building.” While not always recognized as a consumer product, buildings are in fact one of our most significant manufactured goods. And, like all manufacturing, construction of buildings requires a complex combination of natural resources and energy in order to produce a finished product. Everyday, all across America, decisions are made on how to build them, where to build them and when to throw them away. At current rates,...