Green building

Los Angeles Convention Center wins Sustainable Innovation Award

The Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC) received a Sustainable Innovation Award in the Materials & Resources category at the United States Green Building Council (USGBC)-LA’s 11th Annual Green Gala in November 2015. The Sustainable Innovation Awards recognize projects across seven categories that exceed Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) credit satisfaction and exemplify innovation, multitier collaboration, and positive community impact.

The AEG-managed facility became the largest convention center in the U.S. to earn LEED EB+OM (Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance) Gold recertification in September 2015, and receiving the Sustainable Innovation Award further demonstrates the LACC’s exceptional achievement in the Materials & Resources category.

The LACC Facilities and Operations Department collaborated with Houston-based Waste Management to develop the construction & demolition (C&D) waste management program, which includes collection and hauling of the waste as well as establishing guidelines for event producers and organizers to follow in disposing of their C&D waste. Within the past 12 months, the C&D program has diverted more than 1 million pounds of waste from the landfill.

Moreover, the LACC has implemented a waste management program for compostable kitchen waste, ongoing consumables, and durable goods that engages event attendees, staff and community nonprofits.

USGBC commits to expanding green building

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), Washington, has announced that it will commit to scaling green buildings to more than 5 billion square feet over the next five years through the green building rating systems Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies (EDGE). USGBC declared its commitment at Buildings Day, an official event at the United Nations climate negotiations conference, COP21, in Paris.

“As we gather around the imperatives to address climate change at COP21, we know that buildings must continue to be a key focus area for countries to reach carbon emissions reduction goals,” says Roger Platt, president, USGBC. “By encouraging the use of green building rating systems like LEED and EDGE in both the public and private sectors, countries can log immediate and measurable reductions of these emissions as their building stock uses less energy and water, creates less waste, saves money and creates a healthier environment for everyone.”

LEED is the world’s most widely used green building rating system, says USGBC, which manages the certification program. LEED projects can be found in more than 150 countries and territories throughout the world, with more than 1.85 million square feet of space being certified every day.

Designed for emerging economies, EDGE is a green building certification system for new residential and commercial buildings that enables design teams and project owners in developing countries to assess the most cost-effective ways to incorporate energy and water saving options into their buildings, according to USGBC.

USGBC’s sister organization Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) is the exclusive certification body for LEED globally and EDGE in India and also certifies EDGE projects in other countries throughout the world. GBCI oversees a portfolio of additional rating systems and programs that support carbon reductions as a way to mitigate climate change.

As part of USGBC’s commitment, over the next five years the organization says it is working to expand in several areas, including:

• green certified buildings: scale up to support certification of a projected 5 billion square feet (478 million square meters) of green building with LEED and EDGE;
• workforce capacity: expand platform worldwide for green building education, and, with educational partners, double the non-English offerings;
• finance: advance building performance transparency metrics for the financial community, including tools for investors, lenders and underwriters through USGBC’s involvement with GRESB and other initiatives to recognize and reward green attributes in building portfolios;
• government policy and strategy: continue to advocate for and assist with the development of policies and strategies for public and private sector green building at all levels of government throughout the world; and
• measurement and accountability: support key tools that enable and encourage building performance transparency: the LEED Dynamic Plaque, which looks at performance feedback at the building scale; the Green Building Information Gateway (GBIG.org), which consolidates building achievement information; and benchmarking ordinances, which create accountability and incentive for improvement.