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Upcoming Events
Oct 12: Monthly Lunch And Learn
Oct 13: Green Drinks: Paul Young
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The US Green Building Council (USGBC) Memphis Regional Chapter is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization formed with a mission to transform the way
buildings and communities
are designed, built, and
operated, enabling an
environmentally and socially
responsible, healthy, and
prosperous environment that
improves the quality of life.
For more info, visit our website.
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Letter from the Chair
by Regina Hunt, Central Sales Company
 Greetings Y'all, Welcome to our innaugural newsletter! There are great things happening to Memphis buildings: They're going green! And we're going to keep you up to date on all the green building news and events in our chapter and all across the Memphis Metro region. We'll start this issues with an update on the exciting new green schools program at MCS; followed by a seismic retrofit and historic conservation demonstration project planned for South Main; a very special feature from one of our sister chapters- Letter from Mississippi, and more!.
So read on, get involved, come out to our events this week, and help us carry the green torch forward to a brighter future for our beautiful city. And if you like the newsletter, forward it on to a friend! Cheers!
Memphis City Schools: Green Schools Update
by Anthony Wright, Memphis City Schools
As fall arrives and leaves begin to turn, our schools are preparing to be greener. In partnership with the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Alliance To Save Energy, Memphis City Schools is implementing its Green Schools Program across the District. It is recognized that we must be better stewards of our energy today; and perhaps more important, to teach our children to be smarter consumers for tomorrow. The Green Schools Program does both. It is an intersection of the expertise of academics and operations. Piloted in four schools beginning in the 2009-2010 school year, it emphasizes savings generated through behavioral change. At the end of the first year, one small elementary school reduced its electricity usage by 9.14 percent and the participating high school used 5.9 percent less. Full Story >>>
South Main: Seismic Retrofit and Historic Conservation Demonstration Project
by Dmitry Ozeryansky, Ozeryansky Engineering
The National Earthquake Conference is coming to the Peabody next April on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the great earthquakes that shook the region and created Reelfoot lake.
As a tie in to this event, a coalition of community partners is organizing a seismic retrofit demonstration project of a historic storefront building on South Main. Once a building is selected and construction is complete, we will have an event space open for several months with workshops and displays on how to maintain and retrofit these buildings.
We want to call attention to these culturally important buildings that are also fragile and need to be properly maintained and retrofit so they can last into the future. We want to emphasize not just seismic, but also best-practices conservation technology. Full Story >>>
update from our sister chapters:
Letter from Mississippi
We’re advocates of green building. We want to spread the word and sell our message. And we want people to pay attention and do what’s in their own best interest: for their bottom line, for their health, and for the environment. How do we make our case? Jeff Seabold has an answer:
by Jeff Seabold, Seabold Studio, USGBC Mississippi Chapter
When I was young I had a fear of vegetables. In fact, I hated them—or at least I thought I did. My mother, being a good mother, would serve them to me every night only to have me slide the plate across the table or spread them out on the plate and say, “I’m done. Can I have dessert now?” She taught school for many years and was a pretty smart woman. One night she served me something called “casserole.” I asked what it was.
“It’s casserole. You like it,” she said. Being young, I trusted Mom and would devour these casseroles without much protest. Full Story >>>
Update from Greenbuild
by Chris Mueller, Mueller Industries
During the first week of October, a couple of our Board members attended the USGBC’s annual conference and expo, Greenbuild 2011, in Toronto. This was the first Greenbuild outside of the US, and organizers made a specific effort to involve the international green building community as much as possible. Attendees were said to represent 129 countries at this international event. Affiliated Green Building Councils have now been established in 20 countries, from Finland to Turkey to Argentina. LEED projects span across all 50 states and 91 countries.
One theme of this conference was resiliency. Natural disasters have devastated the built environment in a number of communities here in the US in recent years, and many more places have faced similar destruction across the globe. Sustainable building should include aspects for safety and longevity to protect the inhabitants and the structure as much as possible. Doing so in affordable ways is a challenge for architects and engineers across the world to address.
On Wednesday evening, the Opening Plenary session included guest speaker Tom Friedman, famed New York Times columnist and author of Hot, Flat, and Crowded and many other best sellers. However, the night was pretty much stolen by the evening’s entertainment, which was an electrifying set by Maroon 5. Who ever knew they had so many hits! There was also an update on Project Haiti, where the USGBC is building an orphanage and children’s center – the organization’s first major charitable construction project. For more information on Project Haiti or to make donations to support this wonderful cause, visit www.usgbc.org/haiti.
and more to come:
Annual Zero Energy Home Tours a Success
On Saturday, Oct 1, about 50 people came out to tour two of our regions Zero Energy Homes (ZEH). As part of the National Solar Tour, these two homes in Atwood, some of the first in western Tennessee to be ZEH, are examples of two different technologies: a 2 yr old, working wood frame ZEH and an insulated concrete form ZEH that is in the process of completion.
These homes, both built by Cowanhouse, are about as green as you can get. With a super insulated and air tight building shell, and utility grid-tied solar panels on the roof, the owner have not only never paid a utility bill, but get checks for hundreds of dollars each year from their local utility for electricity they sell back to the grid.
In fact, saving money was the driving force behind the project, not any preoccupation with trying to save the environment or make the building more healthy.
These homes were chock full of innovations, all in the name of reducing energy and resource consumption. From geothermal heat pumps to energy recovery ventilation. In coming Newsletters Jack Cowan will talk about the various technologies chosen for these homes.
Project Ginkgo: A deep green remodel in CY
Josh Somes is no ordinary design-build contractor. The historic Cooper-Young home renovation that has been a labor of love for several past months is almost complete. When finished it may very well be not only the most energy efficient home in the neighborhood, but a prototype for deep green remodels of older homes for the entire city. The CA featured it in an article last week. In next month's Newsletter, Josh will describe some of the innovative energy saving features he has implemented.
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