Blog

We all know water is essential for life and economic growth, but the truth is we often treat it like it’s limitless. This “undervaluation” of water for so long has created a bigger and bigger problem that is now coming home. We have not been doing enough to save it, not encouraging enough innovation, and […]

The climate crisis isn’t arriving quietly. In 2024, the U.S. experienced 27 billion-dollar climate and weather disasters, just behind the record-setting 28 in 2023. Over the past three years, the annual average number of billion-dollar disasters has surged to 24.3, nearly triple the long-term average of 9 per year since 1980. Beyond reshaping how we […]

Energy efficiency, water conservation, and green building materials have long been at the forefront of corporate attempts to reduce environmental impact; however, sustainable foodservice is also a critical factor in reducing emissions—and addressing it is easier than you think. Globally, food is estimated to account for about 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, with the […]

I recently attended the Sustainability Delivery Summit in Chicago, and one theme came up again and again: language. As policies shift and public discourse evolves, we are compelled to revise the words we use to describe sustainability. Attendees asked interesting questions like: What terminology is appropriate now? What language resonates—or alienates—in today’s landscape? How should […]

Business as Usual Is Costing You: Why It’s Time to Audit Your Waste With rising disposal costs and tightening regulations, maintaining a “business as usual” approach to waste management can be a costly oversight. For property managers and business owners, waste is often an untapped area for improving operational efficiency and cost savings. A waste […]

The arrival of the 2025 spring season includes a new chapter for 2024 USGBC California Environmental Justice grant winner RootDown LA. Thanks to the RootDown LA team and volunteers spending their Saturday mornings at the George Washington Carver Middle School Garden constructing the KitchenPOD funded by the USGBC California (USGBC-CA) award, the culinary space built […]

As the construction industry transitions toward a more sustainable future, contractors and builders are uniquely positioned to play a pivotal role in reducing embodied carbon and operational impacts. While much attention is given to the roles of architects and engineers in decarbonization at the design stage, contractors bring unmatched expertise in material procurement, logistics, and […]

The introduction of LEED v5, the latest update to the world’s most popular green building certification program, marks a shift in decarbonization priorities. With a legacy spanning over three decades, the US Green Building Council (USGBC) continues to lead the charge in transforming the construction industry through LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). This […]

Project Background Starting in 2019, Salesforce, a cloud-based software company, wanted to better understand the total embodied carbon impacts of their growing real estate portfolio, inclusive of these often-missed emissions. At the direction of their Real Estate and Sustainability teams, Brightworks Sustainability and WAP Sustainability began developing a methodology to determine uncertainty and define a […]

The Challenges of Recycling Commercial Carpet When managing construction projects, lots of attention is paid to what is being constructed…less attention goes to what is being deconstructed or torn out. And yet, for the project to be successful,  deconstruction/recycling must be part of any project’s plan from the very beginning. Upon tear-out at a commercial […]

California can fast-track a guideline that reliably reduces heating and cooling energy demand up to 70% below the current Title-24 baseline: Passive House. Together, we can put this climate resilience standard onto builders’ and owners’ radar, simply by adding a voluntary Passive House alternate pathway into California’s Title-24. Without this extension, few will know that Passive […]

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 […]