USGBC’s California Best Buildings Challenge More than Doubles to 13 Companies

Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO and Founding Chairman of the U.S. Green Building Council unveils new participants on-stage at the W Hotel, San Francisco, during executive lead-up event to Greenbuild International Conference and Expo

Representatives from 13 companies committing to the California Best Buildings Challenge

San Francisco, Calif. – (Sept. 20, 2012) – The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and USGBC’s Northern California Chapter (USGBC-NCC) announced that 13 companies in California have committed to the California Best Buildings Challenge, totaling more than six million square feet of collective building space. Bayer, Integral Group, Lockheed Martin, Method, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Webcor Builders, and XL Construction join existing Challenge participants Adobe, Genentech, Google, Prudential Real Estate Investors, SAP, and Zynga.

Inspired by the White House’s Better Buildings Challenge that seeks 20 percent energy reductions by 2020, participating companies of the California Best Buildings Challenge commit to pursue 20 percent reductions in energy, water, and waste in their existing commercial buildings in just two years.
“California companies have always been trail blazers,” said Dan Geiger, Executive Director, USGBC-NCC. “When President Obama initiated the Better Buildings Challenge, we thought California firms could go further with the California Best Buildings Challenge. In the lead up to Greenbuild coming to its birthplace San Francisco, these firms are stepping up to pursue aggressive environmental goals in a landmark accelerated time frame - and most importantly, to inspire others to do the same.”

USGBC-NCC initiated and developed the Challenge, which was launched by USGBC and USGBC-NCC with President Clinton at the closing plenary event of the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative America (CGI America), a meeting focused on finding solutions for economic recovery in the United States. The California Best Buildings Challenge was selected by CGI America as an exemplary approach to addressing challenges in the clean electricity and efficiency space. Watch the launch; watch Rick Fedrizzi’s pre-launch announcement.

UC System Hits Major Green Building Milestone

By Harry Mok, Principal Editor, UC Office of the President

A new lab on the UCLA campus is more than just a place for cutting-edge research into paraplegia and cancer: It is the 100th green-certified facility in the UC system, a milestone in sustainability that puts it far ahead of other universities around the nation.

UCLA's new Clinical and Translational Research Center — a former hospital emergency room that was transformed with environmental concerns in mind — was ranked LEED Gold in August by the U.S. Green Building Council.

LEED is a ranking system that rates facilities for their environmental impact in areas like water savings, energy efficiency, waste reduction, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.

The UC system is the first American university to have 100 LEED-certified facilities, followed by Harvard, which had 75 as of May 2012.

Greenbuild 2012 Tours: A Taste of Bay Area Green

By Kira Gould, Director of Communications, William McDonough + Partners

From redwood trees to adaptive reuse, San Francisco is chock full of incredible sights – green buildings and beyond. At USGBC’s annual Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, located in San Francisco this year, you can sample from two dozen tours of buildings (and much more), specially curated by San Fran insiders.

Every year, the Greenbuild “host committee,” made of volunteers from USGBC’s regional chapters, organizes a series of tours to help visitors learn more about the community and the buildings and the culture of the host locale. This year’s lineup is really impressive. The tour committee, led by Lindsay Baker (Green Team Consultant at Mary Davidge Associates) and Mark Palmer (Green Building Coordinator at City and County of San Francisco), has hand-picked 12 half-day tours on Friday and Saturday, plus 12 full-day tours on Saturday.

How did they do it? The criteria for setting up the tours included a focus on educational content, the operational issues, showcasing the Bay Area, showing off unique approaches to green building issues, and making sure that the tours would be fun and interactive. The 25-person committee received a whopping 170 submissions and then scored and grouped them.