Blog

In 1990 my family took a road trip from our hometown in rural Washington down the west coast to Disneyland. The road trip was fantastic, stopping along the way to see beautiful redwoods and rugged coastlines – that is until we drove into Los Angeles. There we were, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the largest […]

The building and construction sector is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for an astonishing 37% of global emissions. For those of us who work in the industry, this is a sobering and often discouraging fact. Although it is easy to succumb to the feelings of doom and helplessness evoked by the environmental […]

The construction industry has long been a significant contributor to global carbon emissions. While significant strides have been made in reducing operational carbon—the emissions produced during the use phase of a building’s life—embodied carbon, which includes the emissions from manufacturing and transporting construction materials, is now receiving the attention it deserves. To address this, California […]

The climate crisis has become part of our reality as we experience extreme heat, flooding, fires, rising insurance and energy costs. We mourn over the human loss of entire countries reduced to rubble and may not even comprehend the carbon cost to rebuild them. It may feel discouraging to think, as a single person, that […]

If concrete were a country, it would be the third highest in climate emissions globally — that’s how pervasive concrete is as a source of carbon emissions. Large amounts of carbon are emitted in the breaking up of limestone to make cement (a process known as calcination) and the heating up of cement kilns to […]

Over the last decade, Environmental, Social and Governance or “ESG” has become a key area of focus for many firms’ business priorities, with a particular emphasis on the “E.” While the environmental piece of ESG is critical, the “S” is sometimes overlooked. Los Angeles-based CIM Group, a community-focused real estate and infrastructure owner, operator, lender […]

I was born here. Raised by rocky beaches, winter deserts, and towering trees. I’ve swam in fields of golden poppies, danced in streams with golden trout, looked down from the top of our tallest mountain to the depths of our driest desert, and choked on the smoke of fires and the exhaust of trucks. I’ve […]

In Hollywood’s films and TV shows, the images presented are often superior to the realities they depict. However in the case of Los Angeles and EVs, the image actually lags behind reality. Despite its international reputation as a sprawling metropolis long associated with automobiles, traffic jams, and endless freeways, Los Angeles has been a standard […]

This is the first in a two-part series. If you were to visit Woodbury University’s campus today, you would find a futuristic, single-family micro-house, seemingly out of place among Spanish-style dorms and buildings from the 1980s. The micro-house is, in fact, right at home on the Burbank campus, serving as an indicator of the larger […]

Social enterprises like ArtLifting are transforming blank walls into powerful agents of positive social impact by connecting artists impacted by disabilities and housing insecurity with building owners and operators seeking to invest in measurable and scalable solutions. In the world of ESG (Environment, Social, Governance), social initiatives have taken a backseat to environmental and governance […]

A Green Building Corps Mentor Spotlight: Exclusive interview with Nurit Katz (PhD student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of California, Los Angeles, first Chief Sustainability Officer appointed at UCLA and 2023 GBC mentor at US Green Building Council Los Angeles) USGBC-LA Green Building Corps (GBC) mentor Nurit Katz recently connected with 2023 GBC […]

Hello there! I know it feels like this year has yet to figure out who it really is and that summer sort of came in one door and headed right out the other, but all is not lost! We still have plenty of 2023 left to make some good ol’ fashioned green building community noise […]