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Table of Contents

Introduction

Key Takeaways

The Big Picture

Messaging and Storytelling

Collaborative Process, Modeling, and Decarbonization

Products and Materials

Community & Resilience

Organizational Development and Leadership

Reflections and Appreciations

Growing and Strengthening These Networks

What We Shared

Additional 5-Minute Presentations

Bookshelf

Who Attended

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How to Use this Report

Corner Tags = Participation Indicators

Each section of this report is marked with a small tag in the corner. These tags identify which peer network(s) contributed insights, feedback, or analysis to that section.

How to Read Them:

Color Bar / Logo → represents a specific network

Sustainable Design Leaders
Sages
Sustainable Construction Leaders
Building Performance Leaders

Multiple tags → more than one network participated

No tag → general content compiled during all-network segments

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Introduction

Sustainable Design Leaders, Sustainable Construction Leaders, Building Performance Leaders, and Sages gathered for the sixteenth Peer Networks Summer Summit

2025 Super Summit

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Meeting the Moment

The 2025 Super Summit marked a series of firsts:

It was the first summit that brought together all the networks.
It was the first Peer Networks event since the networks moved from BuildingGreen to Green Commons.
It was the first in-person event for the Sages and Building Performance Leaders (following one summit, in 2019 under the group’s previous incarnation as Sustainable MEP Leaders).
It was the first event with Ashley Muse as co-organizer, with Clark Brockman and Laurel Chadzynski as facilitators.
And it was the first event with the country under a regime that is actively and effectively dismantling everything within its reach related to sustainability, decarbonization, resilience, and equity.

“Our intention was to lean into the challenges of this moment, to give each network space to connect internally AND to connect with the other networks. Despite a few hiccups along the way — including an extended power outage that validated our commitment to natural light — we achieved all those goals. The sharing was rich and meaningful, driven as always by the passion and generosity of this community. Thank you all for coming, and for all that you do to keep moving us forward.”

– Nadav and Ashley

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Why do we come together?

To be with ‘Our People’

Recharge Our Batteries

Collective Action

Connection

Inspiration

To Dream Big

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Pre-Summit Workshop:

From Transactional to Transformative: Building Relationships for Change

David Jay, author of Relationality, led a practical, interactive session exploring how grassroots organizing can inform purposeful relationship-building in the field of sustainability. Participants used reflection and roleplay to craft personal stories that connect around shared purpose, then strategized ways to build trust and generate buy-in for change.

The transactional versus the transformational awareness. I hadn't thought about it in that way, but it makes a lot of sense. I'm aware of it now, and that's the first step. The next step is understanding how to engage in the transformational.

…this workshop was a god-

send for engagement tactics and leading in a contentious topic area.

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Key Takeaways

The Big Picture
Messaging and Storytelling
Collaborative Process, Modeling, and Decarbonization
Products and Materials
Community & Resilience
Organizational Development and Leadership
Reflections and Appreciations
Growing and Strengthening these Networks

2025 Super Summit

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The Big Picture

Mapping the Moment
Climate Grief → Building Emotional Capacity and Culture
Redefining Collective Goals
Project Omaha
Baby Steps or a Revolution?

Key Takeaways

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Mapping the Moment: Self

What’s changing in my own experience and approach?

Greater sense of urgency. I’m done with excuses. Let’s just do it.
I’m no longer interested in ROI of sustainability. I just want impact.
Heavier sense of responsibility,
I’m having to separate personal beliefs from business priority.
Protecting my mental health.
Burnout.
Keeping a closer look on immediate next steps to help mitigate long-term uncertainties.
I’m coming up with ways to do sustainability without saying “sustainability.”
Tension between progress, ambition, and risk tolerance.
Practicing mindfulness and more listening, but also being stubborn when needed.

“Everyone says there’s a team, but it’s always just me. This ‘we’ thing — is me.”

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Mapping the Moment: Company

What’s changing at my company?

More focus on:

Client demands
Embodied carbon tracking
Material vetting
Anything driven legislatively

Less focus on:

DEI (current climate makes it too easy to sideline and/or ignore, for those who are so inclined)
Goals for reporting due to net-zero policies

Current administration is an excuse to stop progress.
More is being asked without being higher pay.
Slower market -> reducing workforce, shifting project focus, adding new (unrelated) responsibilities.
Public reporting is changing.

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Mapping the Moment: AEC Industry

What’s changing in the industry?

Tighter schedules and less trust.
Less ground-up construction, more TI, smaller budgets.
Stagnant on sustainability.
Some clients are still pushing us.
Reporting and transparency demands increasing.
Procurement decisions incorporating “ESG” attributes.
More uncertainty, less confidence in the future.

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Climate Grief → Building Emotional Capacity and Culture

New mission for the Climate Grief Working Group:

Building capacity to sit with the hard stuff and find our way through it. This is leadership, facilitation, and listening skills.
How do we build a reciprocal culture where we can practice and receive new practices?

Next steps:

Open the working group to new members
Poll on Circle to gauge interest in workshop before or after Greenbuild
Map ideas and choose one concept per quarter to experiment with; then make an offer to the larger network
Maybe: expand into group coaching

The Spiral of the Work that Reconnects

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The Spiral of the Great Turning

Megumi Hironaka, Associate Principal, HED

Link to Slides

Five-minute presentation:

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The Three Stories of Our Time

Ariane Laxo, Director of Sustainability, HGA

Link to Slides

Business as Usual

The Great Unraveling

The Great Turning

Five-minute presentation:

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Redefining Collective Goals

2030 Challenge was a jumping-off point, but between DDx and Materials Pledge it’s too much reporting! Too onerous.

Beyond 2030, what are we talking about? Operational carbon was clear, fossil fuel-free was clear under the challenge, but there’s lots more in the bucket…

Carbon Stuff:

Internally we can talk about carbon, but externally we need to talk about impacts.
We need a single metric (like EUI) to rule them all for operational and embodied carbon and all the other stuff so we can talk about it in simple terms and engage firm leaders with clear goals and targets.
We may need to look at different time scales: 15–20 years instead of 60 years
Do we need a working group to figure this out?

Other Stuff:

We want a better story than just “getting to zero carbon.”
Climate justice: not all carbon “costs” the same or has the same impact.

See forthcoming AIA has climate justice framework.

Circular economy, incorporating carbon into the economic models.
Wood at PDX Airport: ¼ of it sourced from tribal operations. How do you get well-stewarded resources that don’t fit into traditional (FSC) metrics or boxes that have impact beyond carbon?
Can we develop compound metrics? For every ton of carbon, how much economic value does this project bring to the local economy? Today? 50 years from now?

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Project Omaha

Sketching out a plan for when progressives return to power…

What are the basic rights we want protected?

Environmental health
Clean air/water/land
Access to open space
Open space, mobility
Environmental justice
Nontoxic food and products
Cultural heritage
Science-based policies
The ability for future generations to thrive

Redefining “liberty” — use the buzzwords that have been used against us in ways that are logical.

Liberty = health, safety, and prosperity
For whole communities, for future generations
This is in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights

These have been the goals of the country since its founding, we just need to return to those.
“Reinvent” instead of “restore.”

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Baby Steps or a Revolution?

How to fix a broken industry / society?

Objective

Baby Steps

Revolution

All buildings are high performing

Every project in our offices is high performing; improve local codes

LEVEL UP! Bring all codes up (or a single national code)?

Green infrastructure

More district energy focus

Amend the Constitution to include rights for nature

Representation in our government

Elect better representatives

New political party; repeal Citizens United; and reinstate truth in reporting

Resiliency & decarbonization & income disparity

Improve regulations

Design a new New Deal: make the sustainable choice the obvious choice

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Messaging and Storytelling

Storytelling
Messaging: Within the Firm
Messaging: External
How to Talk to Clients

Key Takeaways

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Storytelling

As technical people, we tend to make graphics and expound narratives that are really comprehensive, as if we’re talking to each other.
External audiences aren’t oriented that way. How to filter it down and use terms that will resonate with them?
Pull in info from the past, such as post occupancy info from past projects.
Get to know who you’re talking to and what will resonate. Focus on one thing. If you have a galvanizing story that is repeated it helps people get behind it.
Find a pain point — what went wrong before — turn that into a positive to start your new story.
Balance quantitative and qualitative — don’t greenwash by only telling a qualitative story, but don’t rely on metrics so much you lose your audience.

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Messaging: Within the Firm

“Talk Like a Human”

(resource from Potential Energy Coalition for learning to communicate less technically and more engagingly)

Learn from it and train others in the firm to do this too (we set the tone).
Normalize talking about sustainability (where it’s not too taboo) “make it weird to NOT have sustainability brought up.”
Demonstrate on our own facilities (e.g. with EV chargers, bird-safe glass).
Use Just label, WELL Equity Rating as internal communication tools.

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Messaging: External

To get to a larger audience, lean into the power of the value we provide.

Ask me about embodied carbon
Ask me about healthy buildings

It takes work to strip away buzzwords, but it pays off.
Reframe goals — it’s not just word substitution. Know your audience. If necessary, channel your mother-in-law.
Banning words is silly — but good discipline!
Avoid emotional triggers.
Useful concepts:

Quality
Risk
Value

We can all reach out to a broader audience (at your kids’ baseball game).

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How to Talk to Clients

What type of client? Get to know them. Tell a story that resonates. Example: dollars = operational carbon.
What NOT to tell your client? What can you just DO? (Many firms have internal baselines.)
Watch your language; if you can’t talk about climate change, maybe talk about resiliency, etc.
Many firms work globally; you might have to code-switch based on the local appetite.
Go to your market leaders — they will have the language that resonates with those clients.

Cross reference: Messaging (Internal & External)

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One Project’s Graphic Design Journey To Zero Carbon

Andrea Love, Principal & Building Scientist, Payette

Five-minute presentation:

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Collaborative Process, Modeling, & Decarbonization

Integrative Process
Architects + Engineers Setting Scope and Fee
Leveraging Design-Build for High Performance
Design Process
Existing Building Decarb
Right-Sizing Analysis
Making Design Teams Yearn for Analysis
Tools + Tech Stack

Key Takeaways

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Integrative Process

We know that we need to have early conversations. We even know what they need to be. Why aren’t they happening?
Define the participants, sequence the conversations.
Identify internal team design goals.
“We know we have to meet our client goals, but what are OUR goals?”
Make the discussions scalable (don’t just solve for the BIG and forget the small).
To get early leadership buy-in: make it predictable, make it accountable.
Document expectations!

OPR
Basis of Design
Division 1 Specs

See Integrative Process Diagram from 2024 All Networks Workshop

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Architects + Engineers Setting Scope and Fee

75% of success comes from setting the right scope.

Consider a template based on ASHRAE 209.

Architecture firms can have a roster of prequalified engineers already on IDIQ contract.

25% of success comes from schedule, so can meet goals and mitigate risk of non-compliance.

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Leveraging Design-Build for High Performance

Establish sustainability goals from the beginning, with everyone on the team.

Keep re-establishing the goals (“those people don’t work here anymore…”)

Project delivery model really matters. Success is easier with some. Have to bring entire team along the whole way.

Relationship-building is key. After doing it once with a partner, it’s easier the second time.

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Design Process

Some firms are focused on defining process vs. outcomes.
A few firms do outside critiques, including an annual review of all work
Phase out use of the word “sustainability.” Reference the Framework for Design Excellence, identify story and narrative to guide process + outcomes.
Integrated design charrettes are important, but we need to focus on what happens a year out.

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Existing Building Decarb

Requires comprehensive decarb planning:

MEP Systems
Envelope

Break it into sub-projects and sequence them.
Coordinate it with other capital plan/upgrade/renovation needs and opportunities.
Explain how it’s different from energy efficiency.
Tie it to leasing, marketability, tenant repositioning, enhanced value.

“It’s not a design problem, it’s about getting our clients to see the value.”

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Challenges with Multifamily Energy Retrofits

Crystal Ng, Director of Sustainability, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects

Link to Slides

Five-minute presentation:

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Right-Sizing Analysis

Predicted energy use and installed heating/cooling capacity are NOT the same thing. Peak loads determine system size.
Need a reduction-first mindset, with or without data. Reduces need for granular data.
Early in the process when EUI or energy goals are discussed, get specific about scenarios and their energy analysis inputs.
How much redundancy is required? That defines how much stuff you’re going to have in your mechanical system.
Load calcs and energy modelers are not integrated and must be. There are methods to to model peak load and energy consumption together — it takes more work but it pays off.
We need to have sub meter level installation + verification to set better benchmarks.

“Energy models are cheaper than heat pumps!”

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Making Design Teams Yearn for Analysis

Start with: Why aren’t they using analysis? Why don’t they give a shit? That helps understand what the opportunities are.
Focus more on the questions than the tools.
What’s the gateway drug? Sexy graphics — we have them now and they are yearning for them — but how do we go past greenwashing?
Connect analysis to personal goals (win work, profit, etc).

Young people want to use analysis tools, but aren’t doing it well — need to establish process support.
Artists: data cramps their design process. Consider quiet side coaching to help them increase their relevance (in many cases their influence is waning compared to data driven process).

Why might they care about analysis?

Story of when and why of impact.
Awards.
Make it into a game, invite competition.

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Tools + Tech Stack

There are many different tools for different functions and different phases of design.
Who uses the tools? We’re constantly training and retraining staff on how to use tools.
Different levels of comfort with different tools — how do we engage and inspire teams to use and grow with tools?
Challenges: changing tools, uncertain reliability, lack of confidence in the results.
Costs of software impacts viability of tools.
Can we crowdsource a Consumer Reports-style summary of all the tools and when/where to use them?

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Products and Materials

Low Carbon Concrete and Steel
Materials Pledge
Better Products
Circularity: Design for Deconstruction
Circularity: Policy

Key Takeaways

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Materials Pledge

There’s a lot of movement in this space. How to keep abreast with what’s going on and make the most of it?

What is the goal (of reporting?)

Optimism around greening certain categories that are ripe for getting optimized (carpet, ACT).
Opportunity to see gaps and push the industry.
Awareness building — the process of doing this makes people think: what ARE we choosing for our projects?

What is the tool landscape?

Coming later this year: toolkits from mindful. Materials and from LFRT.
Acelab, Sustainable Minds, Building Ease, Habitable
mM is getting built into the back end of most of those tools.

Sharing tips (education and adoption right now).

Materials charette for all projects — gamifying — setting goals specific to project. Make that a storytelling process.
Accept limitations — no one wants to be limited, but can we make reasonably good decisions and let go of perfection?

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Better Products

Setting a clear plan of what we are trying to accomplish; keep it as a north star for duration of project.

Quantification and closing the loop — do we know what actually got into that building?

How to talk together and build a tool to facilitate that collaboration and disseminate more consistently as project progresses and new people are brought on.
Contractors want to develop their own internal green list.
How do we find the other people on the project that we need to talk to? Finding a peer network on a project.
Trust but verify — use tools that provide APIs.

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The Specification Dance: Revamping our specs to prioritize healthier, lower-embodied carbon materials

Rebecca Riss, Performance Director, OPN Architects

Link to Slides

Five-minute presentation:

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Circularity: Design for Deconstruction

None of us knows how to do this. We’re all new.
How we can target the most impactful materials (e.g. walls/doors, easy mechanical fastening, sectors with high changeover).
Life cycle carbon/cost ROI for demountable systems vs. stud wall systems.
Be ok with some aesthetic compromises.
Bring in Doors Unhinged to help.
Owners with fast interior changeovers need to take ownership (hospitality, government kit of reusable parts).

Deconstruction Specs

Contractors are willing and able to do this stuff — need integrated specs, scratch the word “new.”
Specify salvaged materials and create a market for them (need to be on both sides of demand/supply).
It comes down to design side to bring materials back into projects .

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Circularity: Policy

No great policies YET. Lots of proposals.
This is a rebirth of circular economy because everything used to be inherently circular; we are now the least circular we will ever be.
Take-back policy with Executive Order.
Tax holiday for reused material (example: drop 10% sales tax in Seattle).
Mandate a Reuse survey before any demolition.
All for Reuse is collecting stories of reuse.
The LEED v5 Material Procurement credit will help.

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Low Carbon Concrete and Steel

The world of concrete feels promising, there seems to be a roadmap:

Moving from setting mixes to setting EPDs.
From pozzolans replacing some cement to whole new chemistries.

Challenges:

We’re so risk-averse we’re over-designing (reaching required 56-day strength at day 7).
Structural engineers aren’t on board: can we invite them into this conversation?

Actions:

Ask for more EPDs for products where they are not so readily available.
Be early and direct. Many seeing embodied carbon targets either too soft or added too late.
We need a space to talk about the difference between what we designed and what happened in the field.
Should we be verifying mixes on site to know what we’re really getting?

Steel is more opaque, it can be nationally sourced but it’s a confusing time.
We can get to low carbon 100% electric steel, but we can jump to circularity much faster if we’re recycling more steel (e.g. rebar).
Substitutions like fiberglass rebar will free up recycled content in order to accelerate the path to full circularity.
Value in as-builts, disassembly plans, and certification for salvaged steel.

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The BSA & Embodied Carbon

Andrea Love, Principal & Building Scientist, Payette

Link to Slides

Five-minute presentation:

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Community & Resilience

Community Building Comes Before Community Engagement
Resilience
Designing for the Climate of the Future
Contractors on Resilience

Key Takeaways

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Community Building Comes Before Community Engagement

Making sure no one gets left behind

Which is worse: not to engage communities around projects or to do it without integrity?

Both are pretty awful. At least be honest about the intent. What influence will community input have?

Allies and mediators are key. Building those relationships is a job in itself.
Kevin Bacon game — how far do you have to go to get outside your bubble? Do you have that seven layers of network to reach people with different political views? Social priorities? Expertise?
Ask more questions and say less; let those in the community share expertise about their own lives.
Who is writing things down? That matters a lot.
We wish we had classes in facilitation and negotiation.

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Community Resilience Building

Juliette Grummon-Beale, Sustainability Director, Scott Edwards Architecture

Link to Slides

Five-minute presentation:

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Resilience

This is real; we’re dealing with this in our buildings.
Looking at the role of Architect as facilitator in navigating these conversations.
How do we help everyone do their job better in that facilitation role?

Challenges we’re facing:
Timelines — the immediacy of disaster and urgent response vs. time for research.
Land use — should we be building here? How do we build back more resilient and not the same?
Building partnerships and connections outside of AEC.
Engaging clients, resources to do that.
As we collect things — how to make them accessible within Green Commons/Circle?

To-Do List:

Don’t reinvent the wheel — lots of effort, momentum, noise.
Connect to efforts that are already going on that we can build on, point people to.
Figure out gaps, make info more accessible.
How do we pull lessons learned from people working in disaster areas and share those out, switch those into proactive tools for people and communities that share that risk?
Crowdsource materials, case studies.
Deep dive about a particular hazard — bringing together people who might all be at risk for similar disaster.
Tools for navigating process — AIA National may be working on that — simple “start here.”
Cost benefit analysis — talk to clients about why to make the upfront investment.
AIA Design Framework – expand “Design for Change.” It’s light now, can be much stronger.

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Designing for the Climate of the Future

Only ~30% of this group are using projected weather files, an issue in our standard of care.
Data set changes by location and scenario — do we need some type of standard?
How do we intelligently, universally bring this into our projects? (Right now driven by specific clients or risk-focused regions.)
Shape strategies by discerning long term climate change from short term stressors, pull the right data set for the right question.
Passive survivability helps in all conditions — climate shocks and long term stressors.
Focus on risk as a conversation starter for clients.
Follow-up steps:

Confirm datasets folks are pulling from, what’s free, what’s behind paywall.
Create easy guide for how to get started with applying good, available data.
Check out Working Group resources, webinar recordings on Green Commons.

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Telling Climate Stories with Future Weather Data

Jiewei Li, Building Science Specialist, Goody Clancy

Link to Slides

Five-minute presentation:

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Contractors on Resilience

Contractor roles:

Protecting people against climate impacts on job sites.
Being available for community disaster response.
Iterative energy modeling with the contractor during design will help balance out first costs (anticipated life length of building does influence cost/quality of materials).

Possible follow-up:

Could more resilience focus be added to the Contractor’s Commitment?
We need a how-to guide on talking about risk.
Research insurance distinctions: property vs. liability insurance.
Create a downtime cost calculator (example: LGA Airport lost $54m/day during Sandy).
Contractor webinar for Resilience webinar series.

“Contractors might fall out of their seats if this ever happens.”

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Organizational Development and Leadership

Firm Structures to Support Sustainability Outcomes
Sandwich Generation Moving into Leadership
Leadership Buy-In
Role Clarity and Burnout
BPL Team Organization
Succession Planning
Succession Planning: What Sages Can Offer

Key Takeaways

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Firm Structures to Support Sustainability Outcomes

Who’s responsible for building relationships?

How do we think about accountability?

Start by understanding how decisions get made at the firm.

Then work to to structure sustainability within decision making, bringing clarity to how it happens.

Don’t conflate day-to-day tactics with strategic decisions.

Embed sustainability into strategic plans, visions, and mission statements.

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Sandwich Generation Moving into Leadership

What is our vision for this generation of leadership?

Intentional investment in junior talent.
Sustainability = viable business venture (not add-on).
Leaders who care and have clear principles.
Leverage project champions to reduce SDL load.

We’re struggling with:

Autonomy and agency to define role vs. ending up wearing too many hats.
Next generation has so much promise but disheartened by current established leadership.

Strategies:

Ask forgiveness not permission.
Long view in identifying future leaders.
Recruit people with knowledge and passion, figure out how to keep them.
Brag through marketing.
Seek new talent from outside building sector.

“From supportive sidekick to main dish.”

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Leadership Buy-In

How to be in the room where it happens?
What to do when you get there?

Do you really need to be there or do you need a trusted relationship with someone who is there who will be a champion when you’re not?

Dig into the “why not” as well as the “why.”
Know your audience:

Example: PM wouldn’t hold a sustainability charrette because they’re an introvert and afraid to be in front of a crowd.

Abuse of power can look like you having the power and not using it.
Stratification at firms — entry-level/mid career/leadership — everyone can influence project outcomes or firm culture.
Don’t forget the trunk of the tree! (If you have the canopy and the roots but not the trunk, you’re missing the middle, and that is what grows the tree.)

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Role Clarity and Burnout

We struggle to do it all — coaching, teaching, and delegating:

What is our highest and best use?
How to delegate effectively?
How to set boundaries?

Strategies:

Sustainability team mapping (past summits, Living Future, LFRT).
Scaling with firm size + expanding capacity.
Resource management and integration.
Retreats: connection, meaning, recharge.
Celebrate wins!
Sustainable Good design.

Culture is huge: human connection can go a long way in building trust.

“‘Sustainability is everyone’s job’ – if everyone believes that we can go a long way.”

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BPL Team Organization

There are some similarities between our firms, but we’re actually all over the place:

Big A/E firms
MEP firms
Sustainability consultants

People who have evolved from mechanical design to BPL have more context that folks just out of school.
Teams feeding themselves are different.
Sustainability seems to be a side project.

Unpack this culturally.

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Succession Planning

How to create life over time? Look for the healthy situation; grab that rudder and guide it.

Applies to any stage of staff development: owners, but also subject matter experts, other staff.

What are we teaching?

It’s not about motivation or techniques. It’s about critical thinking, and a desire to own one’s work.

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Succession Planning: What Sages Can Offer

Start by asking what the other Peer Networks want or need.

Cultural ethnographers will start by asking someone to explain how they experience something (questions, not statements).

Sages could be available for firm leaders to talk to about succession planning and why sustainability leadership is important.

Firms may welcome outside input — coming from people who are in the industry and who are demonstrably agnostic.

Develop a framework approach to succession planning that could be offered up to firms

1-1 replacement of a retiring SDL is not necessarily possible or desirable → a needs assessment is more important.

Consider developing “Habits of highly successful firms” V2.

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Reflections and Appreciations

Love Letters
SCL Origin Stories
We Showed Up Looking For… (BPL)
BPL Reflections
Inspirations in Our World
What We’re Taking With Us
Closing Reflections

Key Takeaways

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Love Letters

SDL: Bringing the heat! I admire your energy + passion to make things right

SDL: Thank you for your insights into the codes, policies & external drivers of sustainability, when it all seems to be going away.

SDL: Thank you for including & asking for contribution from the contractors. We want to help!

Sages: Your guidance and perspective are a valuable foundation throughout these challenging times -SDL

Sages: Thank you for staying engaged in the fight, & for lifting the next generation up. We need you -SDL

Sages = always inspiring. The supportive words make me excited for my own future potential.

SCL: O construction leaders. You know how things are actually built and what things actually cost! Please be our friends. Love, the Sages

SCL: We’ve so needed you in this movement! We appreciate the work you do to deliver the design to this world

SCL: Challenging your industry’s “business-as-usual” from within - making systems change more possible.

BPL: Dear Building Performance Leaders – Your combination of analytical skill, thoughtfulness, patience, and perseverance is key to saving the world. Keep up the great work!

BPL: Thank you for helping us see the bigger picture, for keeping us honest, & for pushing us farther <3 SDL

BPL: I appreciate your enthusiasm to help us tell the story and back it up, while also grounding it in data

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SCL Origin Stories

What got us started on this Sustainable Construction path?

Got to work on pioneering LEED project as an intern.
CLF embodied carbon event.
Inspired in college: Global Sustainability Program/Atmospheric Science/exposure to a parabolic solar collector.
Composting project in high school woodworking class.
Family always recycled (reusing plastic bags).
Lived in off-the-grid house.
Engineers without Borders.
I would trade my life for a tree.
Freaked out by the amount of waste in construction.
Efficiency by necessity growing up.
“Why would you do that??” (seeing mindless stupidity)
Lived on a houseboat.
Started in bio, but didn’t want to be stuck in a lab.
Common sense.

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We Showed Up Looking For… (BPL)

A conversation topic I can use to propel change of direction with a client or project team

Insights on how to manage my team and business in line with our sustainable design values

Help navigating the ethics of designing yet another data center

How to make marketing part of the solution?

A vision for how we can serve each other in this group (BPL purpose)

Help orienting to this era when all our current systems are called into question

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BPL Reflections

Tech keeps changing…but the people issues are the same as 30 years ago.
SDL and BPL are both asking, “how can we work together better?”
The SDLers are our peeps. We need to conspire with them to get to project managers.
Get (and keep) the full-team buy-in
Early involvement can extract savings. It needs clear definition.
Legacy engineers aren’t helping.

Don’t start until DD.
May not have the communication skills.

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Inspirations in Our World

Prototype office building shifted from pre-engineered metal to mass timber.
Carbon capture and reduced cooling for a mission critical facility.
Time-of-day pricing incentivizing behavior change and batteries.
New huge urban forest in the works.
BPS’ proliferating.

Data centers joining thermal energy networks.
MEP 2040 address whole-building carbon at scale.
Car-free lifestyle.
Governor standing up to the feds.
Carbon payback informing facade choices.

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What We’re Taking With Us

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Connecting with people who get it and who are willing to collaborate to move the needle.

Renewal. The summits are a reminder that we are not alone. This is just a few months from

our firm's strategic planning efforts, so re-energizing was important. It was a very timely dialogue.

Keep on working towards the goals, even if it seems like we are working against the current.

Progress is being made. We can learn how to make it meaningful to others by finding different

ways to connect.

The succession planning, mentorship discussions made me start to think more intentionally about my role. I'm in position of influence with a set of unique skills, but it's more like a stewardship role than a temporal position. There are those who came before and will come after. We are participating in a continuum of action. Consciously engaging in a continuum is very different than limiting your perspective to your role in the present and the immediate future.

I learned where my firm sits among this peer group on many topics. In some areas we are

doing great, are further along a change management spectrum, and are making a real impact in areas others are struggling. And in other areas I can look to some of my peers as examples as I try to accelerate my firm's progress.

Some great thoughts on storytelling and ideas on how to approach pitching the "why" to folks that may not share my passion.

We are in this together - the grief, the challenge, AND the adventure.

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Closing Reflections

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It felt both completely wild and appropriate to spend a whole morning talking about the Moment we are in. I'm so accustomed to these Summits being focused exclusively on the technical - and yet, what holds us back right now is not the technique, tools, or technology, but the political willpower (or motivation? energy? strength?).

To share knowledge and motivation from others across the industry — the opportunity to connect across the peer networks made it impossible to pass up.

It is always a balance between sharing and actionable outcomes. I default to action. I would have liked more of that. There are a range of participants. Technical project focused folks and those more focused on firm change and culture. It might be useful to think about how to meet the needs of these differently.

Having so many different conversations and the ability to connect with so many different people. It was logistically difficult, I know, but it was worth it.

Chance to connect with others, share ideas, and find positive ways to stay engaged in current political climate.

Best event of the year! Would hate to miss it!

The people! Met some really wonderful new people. And had space to spend quality time with

new and old.

This is a great environment to continuing growing my leadership capacity.

This convening was a powerful cross-section of generations, disciplines, regions, and perspectives.

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Growing and Strengthening these Networks

How Can We Better Support the Next Generation of Leaders?
Sages Supporting SDL
SCL Action Planning
SCL Proposed Projects
Sages want to help!
How to Help Everyone See/Expand Discussions on Shared Concerns?
Radical Sharing/Local Best Practices
Mentoring /Sounding Board

Key Takeaways

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How Can We Better Support the Next Generation of Leaders?

Might we add a new Peer Network for “Rising Leaders”?

Professionals with less than 10 years of industry experience

Counter-proposal: Disregard age/length of career, focus on <10 yrs of sustainability work.

Cross-discipline: not just from one network.
Will firms make the investment?

Create a buddy system to make it easier for firms to send both senior and rising leaders.

Lean into in-person events (before or after Greenbuild?).
Include organized educational opportunities.
Side benefit: Gives the other networks more focus on mid-career and firm leaders.

Current PN members who fit that definition would be allowed to stay in their current network AND and would also be expected to join this group.

Start with a Working Group of people in the networks currently to develop a vision and pilot some possible actions. (Let them tell us what they need.)

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Sages Supporting SDL

Multiple ways for networks to query the Sages:

Some will be blasts to the group, others will be like sending out a bat signal — briefly state problem and help me know who I should talk to.

Tap Sages as speakers for your firm.
No energy code in Missouri: could we bring in folks who come from similar places to talk about their experience?
Retired Sages are potentially able to speak more freely because they aren’t currently employed by a design firm.
Things that fail → “what not to wear” → the things we thought were great ideas BUT…
Coaching, helping make the case of how to speak with, or even join, leadership.
“Why is that my job?” Sustainability folks get to cut across the firm (and be organizational “hackers”). How to get better at this? How can folks reinvent their role?
How do we share experience of working through a recession? — “We’ve seen this before… you think we’re in ‘unprecedented times’ but we’re really not.”

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SCL Action Planning

What do we control?

Where do we have influence?

What should we monitor?

Tools and templates for our work

Sub engagement & training

Government legislation, regulation, policy

Waste tracking and reporting

Our role in Precon

SCL growth and awareness

AGC

Other Peer Networks

Project teams

Sustainability groups in the industry

Our own companies

Owner initiatives

Major risk factors

Emerging tech

Jobsite sustainability requirements

How to build a voice for Sustainability within AGC?

What changes would be catastrophic?

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SCL Proposed Projects

Optimize Precon sustainability workflow

Consider creating a Contractor’s Commitment-aligned contract exhibit.

Policy Hub to track policy/legislation/updates/ incentives

Include SCL first-hand experiences, point of view.
Don’t duplicate existing resources.

Tools and templates for LEED v5

Leverage these to recruit new SCL members.

Engage on waste with CDRA & RCI

Let them know what the industry needs.

Organizational change: leading with wellness

Make sure that wellness is addressed in all these projects.

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Sages want to help!

We can:

Listen

What do you (the Peer Networks) want and need from us?

…to leap forward

Be an active resource

Sounding board/mentoring
“Sage Counsel”

Effect change

Advocacy
Connections/connective tissue
Pathways

DRAFT Mission Statement:

The Sages share experience, capacity, and knowledge, to propel our peers (Peer Network members, firms, and communities) beyond where we’re at today.

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How to Help Everyone See/Expand Discussions on Shared Concerns?

Sages can be a sounding board for the Peer Networks to test ideas/let them bounce ideas off us/to reframe ideas.

Sages can be connective tissue - collectively we have a big rolodex (once we explain what a rolodex is) … both within our network and beyond.

How can we use our connections to leverage the work of the group and be a lot more intentional about it?
There are lots of topics being discussed by lots of NGOs, nationally and regionally, many being redundant. Can we use our experience and connections to help cut through the redundancy, bringing the right people together to have shared convos? (ex. ECHO, Shift Zero)

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Radical Sharing/Local Best Practices

Best-practice sharing is a common approach to effective policy change — can the Sages help make it happen?
Sages can share the “story of now” — help with a global perspective.

Example: how folks in other places got things done/changed things.

We might ask the Peer Networks (crowdsourcing) to provide relevant support from firms to make the best case for XYZ (provide examples, give testimonials).
We are uniquely positioned to make asks of firms, different than AIA or even the Peer Networks as a whole.
We can share ideas on how to make and grow key relationships in the industry.

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Mentoring /Sounding Board

Mentorship — talk to 3-4 people once (see how it goes) — declaring availability.

Make this an offering on Circle?

Help good technical people understand that leadership is more about communications, team relationships, etc.
Help non-technical younger staff learn leadership skills (which aren’t necessarily the same as collaboration skills)
One hour free consultation — firms can explain how they got there, why they did it, why it was important, etc.

Storytelling on video — on Zoom, answering questions.

Need to share info that enables people coming up behind us to leapfrog way ahead of where we currently are. We need to give them whatever fuel they need to do way better than us.

Lessons learned; pointing out our own failings.

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Additional 5-Minute Presentations
Bookshelf

What We Shared

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Additional 5-Minute Presentations

What We Shared

Some five-minute presentations that relate directly to breakout conversations are interspersed with the Key Takeaways. Others are featured here.

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Bookshelf

12 Building Performance Leaders

From 11 Firms

25 Sustainable Construction Leaders

From 19 Companies

16 Sages

Who We Are

Note: Some people participated in more than one summit, especially SDLs who are also Sages, so the total number of participants is less than the sum of these participant numbers.

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Building Performance Leaders

Chris Colasanti, Jaros Baum & Bolles (JB&B)

Chris Schaffner, The Green Engineer, Inc.

Erica Weeks, Paladin, Inc.

Kim Cowman, LEO A DALY

Kristy Walson, BranchPattern

Nathan Vader, PAE

Patrick Murphy, Vanderweil Engineers

Rajat Wadhwa, HED

Sam Margolis, DLR Group

Sarah Gudeman, BranchPattern

Stet Sanborn, SmithGroup

Wyatt Ross, CMTA

Sages

Andrea Love, Payette

Ashley Mulhall, GHC Orcutt Winslow

Betsy del Monte, Cameron MacAllister

Brad Jacobson, EHDD / C.Scale

Brian Feagans, Ratcliff

Chris Schaffner, The Green Engineer, Inc.

Clark Brockman, Brockman Climate Strategies

Jean Carroon, Goody Clancy

Jim Hanford, The Miller Hull Partnership

Kira Gould, Kira Gould CONNECT

Kjell Anderson, LMN Architects

Mark Ginsberg, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects

Mary Ann Lazarus, Cameron MacAllister Group

Pauline Souza, WRNS Studio

Rand Ekman, HKS Inc.

Z Smith, EskewDumezRipple

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Sustainable Construction Leaders

Amanda Atkinson, Holder Construction

Angi Rivera, Sellen Construction

Avery Canna, The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company

Christina Riggs, Swinerton

Erin Kirkpatrick, Swinerton

Geoff Brock, IPS - Integrated Project Services

Geoffrey Yamasaki, Hensel Phelps

Jackie Mustakas, Robins & Morton

Jenn Taranto, STO Building Group

Jessie Buckmaster, Hathaway Dinwiddie Construction

John Hyde, Chapman Construction / Design

John Mlade, Wight & Company

Julianne Laue, JE Dunn

Kevin Bright, Kraus-Anderson

Kim Ilardi, The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company

Kimberly Martin, Keller

Leslie Weaver, IPS - Integrated Project Services

Mark Rothman, Hensel Phelps

Max Driscoll, AECOM Construction Management

Michael Orbank, STO Building Group

Monica Wentz, Turner Construction

Patty Lloyd, Leopardo Construction

Rachel Gesik, Fortis Construction

Ryan Hughes, Structure Tone

Stephanie Gowing, Absher Construction

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Sustainable Design Leaders

Aida Ayuk, EskewDumezRipple

Aley Wilson, Ayers Saint Gross

Amber Wirth, HKS

Andrea Love, Payette

Arathi Gowda, ZGF Architects

Ariane Laxo, HGA

Ashley Mulhall, GHC Orcutt Winslow

Brad Jacobson, EHDD / C.Scale

Brian Feagans, Ratcliff

Bryna Dunn, Moseley

Crystal Ng, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects

Daniel Jaconetti, HED

Emily Purcell, CannonDesign

Erin Feeney, David Baker Architects

Heather Hughes, DLR Group

Heather Jauregui, Perkins Eastman

Hilary Noll, Mithun

Jana Silsby, DLR Group

Jared Silliker, NBBJ

Jason Hainline, Dake Wells Architecture

Jay Hindmarsh, The Miller Hull Partnership

Jeremy Shiman, WRNS Studio

Jiewei Li, Goody Clancy

Jill Pedro, LPA

Jim Hanford, The Miller Hull Partnership

John Mlade, Wight & Company

Julia Siple, Quinn Evans

Juliette Grummon-Beale, Scott Edwards Architecture

Kaitlin Veenstra, Ryan Companies US

Kate Bubriski, Arrowstreet

Kevin Eronimous, SAR + Architects

Kjell Anderson, LMN Architects

Kristen Fritsch, Elkus Manfredi Architects

Kristian Kicinski, Bassetti Architects

Kritika Kharbanda, Henning Larsen Architects

Laurel Chadzynski, Dyer Brown Associates.

Lauren Günther, DiMella Shaffer

Margaret Sledge, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson

Marilyn Specht, SmithGroup

Mark Ginsberg, Curtis + Ginsberg Architects

Mark Maddalina, SWBR

Megan Zack, Wight & Company

Megumi Hironaka, HED

Michelle Amt, VMDO

Mickey Chapa, Payette

Nancy Malone, Siegel & Strain Architects

Nicholas Lassek, LEO A DALY

Nicole Voss, isgenuity

Pauline Souza, WRNS Studio

Rachael Spires, BWBR

Rand Ekman, HKS

Rebecca Riss, OPN Architects

Seonhee Kim, Design Collective

Stephen Endy, Mahlum Architects

Stet Sanborn, SmithGroup

Thuy Le, Bora Architecture & Interiors

Tiombe Parrish, Jacobs

William Smarzewski, EwingCole

Z Smith, EskewDumezRipple

Summit On-Site Team

Ashley Muse, Green Commons

Clark Brockman, Brockman Climate Strategies

David Jay, Relationality Lab

Janice Malin, Green Commons

Laurel Chadzynski, Parallel Sustainability

Nadav Malin, Green Commons