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In the weeks leading up to the Net Zero 2017: Energy + Water + Waste conference – now in its fourth year – the excitement is mounting. This year will be the first full-day conference hosted by Verdical Group, and the conference will be hosted at IBEW NECA’s Net Zero Plus facility. World class presenters […]

This week, USGBC-LA is celebrating 15 years. So, it’s a teenager. And like most teens, we can still remember its birth, we see much hope for the future, and in the present, there can be a lot going on and the choices made can set the path for adulthood. I learned about USGBC like I […]

LOS ANGELES (July 11, 2017) The U.S. Green Building Council-Los Angeles (USGBC-LA) Chapter is busy working on its summer endeavor, the Veggie Bus Classroom Project. Proposed by Community Services Unlimited Inc. (CSU), the Veggie Bus was selected by the USGBC-LA as its 2017 Legacy Project due to its reuse, recycle-&-upcycle and additional sustainability goals. USGBC-LA […]

As the July 4th weekend draws near, thoughts of BBQs and fireworks fill my mind and I wonder (maybe a little too often) why the smell of a BBQ makes me hungry, no matter how long ago I ate. I remember past fireworks shows and how my eyes ache for the spectacle while my body […]

LOS ANGELES (June 15, 2017) The U.S. Green Building Council-Los Angeles chapter  (USGBC-LA), along with Building Skills Partnership (BSP), is proud to share a new report “Analyzing and Expanding the Green Janitor Education Program (GJEP)”. The report,  which found multiple benefits to the three year old program, was produced by SeedLA,  which undertook a 10-week […]

The idea that a city or a neighborhood has a vocation may sound strange as the concept is usually applied to humans, not places. Yet, the notion of a place’s vocation begins to make sense when you think of a place as a socio-ecological system that has the properties of a living system. All living […]

USGBC-Los Angeles stands proudly together with Governor Brown, Mayor Garcetti, and the over 200 other Governors and Mayors across the country representing 54 million Americans who are committed to upholding the Paris Climate Agreement. Although we strongly disagree with the President’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, USGBC-LA is more committed than ever in accelerating […]

Many of the ideas for advancing urban sustainability entail “smart” technologies. That is, setting up networks of cameras, detectors, or other sensors that can be useful for more efficiently and effectively managing traffic (including public transit), landscape management, public safety, and public security. Implicit in these kinds of “smart” initiatives is that they rely on […]

In the middle of Cologne, Germany, along a bustling street near City Hall and the Mayor’s Office, there is a doorway with stairs that lead to the past. The Praetorium is the palace of the Roman governor, and lies relatively intact below existing government buildings. Like much of this city, the Romans and all of […]

I believe people think of environmentalism as something like tree-hugging, veganism, or even being extremely frugal. Yet, many of us forget to look at our individual contributions that don’t fit into our perception of an environmentalist. This last year as a master’s degree candidate at Loyola Marymount University has helped me connect the dots between […]

I’m reading Philip Langdon’s new book, Within Walking Distance: Creating Livable Communities for All and I’m thinking about neighborhoods. In the back of my mind is the song “Walking in LA” by Missing Persons. But first, I used to go to Kemah, TX to give workshops on grant writing. I’d get dropped off at the […]

Against the backdrop of recent awareness-building events designed to bolster against the political sludge oozing out of Washington DC, I spent Friday, April 28th at the 11th Annual Summit on Sustainability at the Getty Center, put together by the Los Angeles Business Council. There was no shortage of powerful rhetoric, but there was a new flavor of […]