ALL Chapter members are encouraged to attend this great event!

Check out the amazing, robust agenda!

Learn more and register!

leedhomedepot.com offers information on products that may contribute to the requirements of the LEED® for Homes program

Read the press release at https://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=18629.

We are sharing this letter produced and these resources assembled by our friends at the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM) with the hope that you will ACT TODAY to oppose LD 1864. 

Thank you for the work that you and your company do to increase energy efficiency in Maine. Because of your business activities and your support of green building, you understand as well as any how energy efficiency can help reduce energy costs for Maine businesses and homeowners. I am writing you today because Maine’s efforts to achieve energy efficiency are under attack in the Legislature—and needs support from the business community.

Unfortunately, despite the overwhelming support for Efficiency Maine from Maine people and businesses, Governor LePage has proposed to strip Efficiency Maine of its independence and increase bureaucracy. His new bill (LD 1864) will prevent Efficiency Maine from operating effectively and independent from political pressures and budget raids, all of which puts maximizing energy savings at risk. The bill would divert money from cost-effective core efficiency programs (lighting, for example) to increase profits at electric utilities like Central Maine Power.

Join other businesses to oppose this rollback.
Act Fast! This bill was introduced late in the session and will be fast-tracked over the coming few days.

What you can do:

• Sign your business onto this statement to the Legislature (http://www.nrcm.org/governors_energy_bill_2012.asp#form)
• Forward this email to your business colleagues and urge them to sign-on
• Call your legislators and urge them to OPPOSE LD 1864
• Share your energy efficiency success story: attend the public hearing—which may be scheduled with only a few days notice. Email emmie@nrcm.org  or call (207) 430-0105 if you might attend or would like to submit written testimony.

As you know, Efficiency Maine is working extremely well to help consumers reduce their energy costs. Its first year as an independent Trust (not part of the PUC, utilities, nor a state agency) was the best year ever by any metric, saving more oil, electricity, and money ($450 million) than any previous year—and doing so at a lower cost per unit of energy saved than ever before. Clearly we are on the right track.

Despite this success, the Governor does not seem support energy efficiency investments and Efficiency Maine. After multiple public statements belittling energy efficiency, he is proposing legislation that will: impose bureaucratic barriers to energy efficiency investments; open the door for efficiency funds to be raided; divert RGGI and rate-payer funding from their best uses for consumers; reduce flexibility in programs design; and generally bring Efficiency Maine’s programs and funding into a politicized arena. Join other businesses to oppose this rollback.

In 2009, the Maine Legislature moved Efficiency Maine out of a state agency so that it could better achieve its goals of reducing energy costs for consumers. The Governor and his legislative allies claim that they want more “oversight,” but current oversight by the Public Utilities Commission and Efficiency Maine Trust Board has made Efficiency Maine nimble, responsive, and performance-oriented, resulting in its success. The effectiveness of an independent trust is obvious: saving Maine people and businesses tens of millions of dollars every year and putting that money back in our state’s economy.

Please, tell your legislators to OPPOSE LD 1864, which would increase bureaucracy and reduce funding for to investing in cost-effective energy efficiency.

- Scot Horst, USGBC

By reviewing, commenting and voting on LEED 2012 drafts, YOU contribute to that beautiful instrument of collective expression.  Dive into LEED 2012!

The LEED 2012 third public comment period will be open from March 1-20, 2012 which marks the start of the LEED 2012 program delivery process. This third draft of the rating system is focused on providing a simple-to-use, technically advanced and more robust system. Once the comment period process concludes, LEED 2012 will be balloted this June and launch in November.

Along with the updated draft, resources will be posted to the LEED 2012 Development page at USGBC.org including technical refinements, scorecards, and responses to comments from the previous public comment period. Members of the public can comment on any substantive changes made since the second public comment period, which ran from August 1 through September 14, 2011.

Important Dates

• March 1-20: Third Public Comment period is open
• March 1: Eligibility deadline to bring membership to “good-standing” status to vote in LEED 2012 ballot, per USGBC Membership Policies and Procedures (see page 10).
• April 2-May 1: LEED 2012 Ballot Opt-In Period
• June 1-30: LEED 2012 Ballot Voting Period

LEEDUser: LEED 2012 Guide to Key Changes and Forum

Environmental Building News has published a guide to the LEED 2012 draft.  Read on: Your Guide to the New Draft of LEED

Frequently Asked Questions about LEED 2012: LEED 2012 FAQ

USGBC Blog Post by Doug Gatlin: How Will You Impact LEED?

The EBie Awards™ are a juried competition for people working in Existing Buildings (hence the EBies) who have made great strides in improving their environmental performance but who may otherwise go unheralded. Their work is likely to have been done on a shoestring budget and needed great tenacity and conviction.

Who are these unsung heroes? The EBies™ will recognize significant and measurable environmental performance improvements in existing buildings among building owners and operators, engineers, consultants, retro-commissioning agents, lighting designers, landscape architects, and tenant groups. Be sure to review the complete Award list and EBie rules.

The EBie Awards will be given to both commercial and residential projects, with a special award for work in the public sector.

The EBies were created by Urban Green Council, USGBC New York, but are open to projects in the continental United States.

The submission period is now open – February 1 – March 31!  Visit www.ebies.org today to learn more and to submit an entry. 

Press Release

Letter

Advocacy Alert: Background and Resources

From Preservation Green Lab/National Trust for Historic Preservation (www.preservationnation.org):

A report produced by the Preservation Green Lab of the National Trust for Historic Preservation provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the potential environmental benefit of building reuse.

This groundbreaking study, The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse, concludes that, when comparing buildings of equivalent size and function, building reuse almost always offers environmental savings over demolition and new construction.

The report’s key findings offer policy-makers, building owners, developers, architects and engineers compelling evidence of the merits of reusing existing buildings as opposed to tearing them down and building new.

Those findings include:

• Reuse Matters. Building reuse typically offers greater environmental savings than demolition and new construction. It can take between 10 to 80 years for a new energy efficient building to overcome, through efficient operations, the climate change impacts created by its construction. The study finds that the majority of building types in different climates will take between 20-30 years to compensate for the initial carbon impacts from construction.
• Scale Matters. Collectively, building reuse and retrofits substantially reduce climate change impacts. Retrofitting, rather than demolishing and replacing, just 1% of the city of Portland’s office buildings and single family homes over the next ten years would help to meet 15% of their county’s total CO2 reduction targets over the next decade.
• Design Matters. The environmental benefits of reuse are maximized by minimizing the input of new construction materials. Renovation projects that require many new materials can reduce or even negate the benefits of reuse.

The Bottom Line: Reusing existing buildings is good for the economy, the community and the environment. At a time when our country’s foreclosure and unemployment rates remain high, communities would be wise to reinvest in their existing building stock. Historic rehabilitation has a thirty-two year track record of creating 2 million jobs and generating $90 billion in private investment. Studies show residential rehabilitation creates 50% more jobs than new construction.

Learn more and download the report at: http://www.preservationnation.org/issues/sustainability/green-lab/valuing-building-reuse.html

From Environmental Building News (www.buildinggreen.com):

Is the greenest building the one you don’t build? The answer is a resounding “usually.” Conventional wisdom about building reuse is questioned and quantified in a much-anticipated report released today by Preservation Green Lab, part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Using a life-cycle assessment (LCA) approach that takes both operational and embodied impacts into account, the report compares the environmental impact of retrofitting an existing building for high performance vs. tearing down the building and replacing it with a high-performance one. It also looks at a more common real-world scenario—pitting high-performance new construction against continued use of a building that has only average energy performance.

While reuse generally has less impact, the advantages of retrofitting vary greatly depending on building type, climate, and materials used. In one notable exception to the overall results, adaptive reuse of warehouses for multifamily housing can actually have a greater environmental impact than demolition and new construction—highlighting the fact that decisions about retrofit vs. demolition will still need to be made on a case-by-case basis.

Read the entire article.