Blockchain holds key to reinventing energy grid

Blockchain holds key to reinventing energy grid

In the near future, billions of smart devices will be able to sense, respond, communicate and share data as well as the ability to generate, buy and sell their own electricity back into the grid at the market rate. We need a power grid that is decentralized, full of smart devices and where everyone can contribute power.

Toronto Star

Data integration technologies for buildings soars

Buildings have become data-rich environments, thanks to the proliferation of lower-cost sensing devices with greater computational power and data storage capacity. As buildings get “smarter,” property owners and managers are looking for ways to organize data sets that derive from myriad formats, naming conventions, and syntaxes within buildings Navigant Research has found.

BDC Network

10-Year study shows green building strategies pay off

In the past five years there have been various studies which present evidence on the linkage between green building certification and financial performance. While the results of these studies are remarkably consistent; skepticism still exists among property owners and managers. A new study by Bentall Kennedy was designed to address this skepticism. 

CP Executive

Wildfires may release carbon locked in permafrost

The effects may extend far beyond Canada and Alaska, because of the frozen organic matter under the forest permafrost. Wildfires can strip away the protective vegetative blanket and release all that stockpiled carbon into the atmosphere, says Merritt Turetsky, an ecosystem ecologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario. The thawing soil could also trigger microbial activity, releasing more carbon dioxide and methane.

New Scientist – Yale 360

LEED gold for U of T research building

The Environmental Science and Chemistry Building (ESCB) at the University of Toronto Scarborough has been recognized with one of the highest levels of achievement in sustainable building design.   The 10,220-square-metre building, which officially opened in January 2016, has received a gold certification from the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED).

University of Toronto – Daily Commercial News – UrbanToronto.ca

Will utilities lease CRE rooftops for solar generation?

Third-party leasing of rooftops or other spaces for solar arrays is a growing trend.  Soltage, LLC is providing Quinsigamond Community College in West Brookfield, MA with about 2.4 MWh of energy. The 5,800 photovoltaic panels generating the energy are 25 miles away in Worcester, MA.

Energy Manager Today – Energy Manager Today

Community solar: An unlikely utility savior?

It’s no mystery that utility animosity for rooftop solar is as deeply entrenched as the animosity consumers often have toward their utilities.  Most utilities around the United States are looking at ways to stop or at least slow down the adoption of rooftop solar through regulatory changes, but this might not be the smart way to address the spread of the technology.

Green Biz – Green Biz

Making data centres more energy-efficient with solar power

With rising concerns about climate change, countries around the globe are looking to alternative energy sources to sustain their future energy needs. In Southeast Asia alone, energy consumption is expected to grow by 80 per cent from 2014 to 2040, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). 

Eco-business

Zero energy buildings a closer thin-film solar technology

Buildings with roofs, facades and windows swathed in solar are a step closer following news that the University of NSW has broken efficiency records for CZTS thin-film solar.  While traditional thin-film solar is made from scarce, expensive and toxic materials, CZTS thin-film technology uses the benign and abundant materials copper, zinc, tin and sulphur/

Eco-Business

A 2015 bird census on the Javits Center’s green roof

New York Convention Center Operating Corp. President and CEO Alan Steel announced the results of a new study that shows more than 1,100 cumulative bird observations on the Javits Center’s green roof in 2015. Of the 1,124 bird sightings during the ecological study, 17 bird species were found, six more compared to the previous year demonstrating the importance of the building’s 6.75-acre green roof to the community’s ecosystem.

Green Lodging News

Perkins + Will’s Seattle office is designed to be toxin-free

What began as a published list of items that had already proven to have negative environmental and/or human health effects has gradually become a cornerstone of Perkins + Will practice.  The firm offers it up as an information source to concerned architects, engineers and interior designers who want to take precautions to protect people’s health.

TreeHugger

Ecodistricts launches protocol framework

EcoDistricts announced today the global launch of the EcoDistricts Protocol, a process-based framework and performance standard that empowers sustainable neighborhood – and district-scale urban development, according to EcoDistricts CEO Rob Bennett.  The launch is the culmination of more than five years of research, development and advisement from more than 100 diverse industry experts and 16 district-scale projects worldwide.

Canada Green Building Council

Guide helps reduce GHG impact of construction projects

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) has a new guide on how to lower the environmental impact and cost of construction projects, Improving Green Building Construction in North America: Guide to Integrated Design and Delivery, which promotes better green building practices.

Renew Canada

U.S. cities taking lead in green building

U.S. cities are leading the way on climate and energy policies, especially policies targeting commercial and residential buildings, which can account for up to 75 percent of total energy use in cities.  Fifteen cities now have benchmarking and disclosure laws, which require building owners to report their buildings’ annual energy use to the local government. These include Washington, D.C., Austin, Texas, and New York.

Proud Green Building

Corporate clean energy boosters RE100, RMI join forces

The Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center (BRC) is working together with RE100, led by The Climate Group in partnership with CDP, to accelerate the procurement of renewable energy by some of the world’s most influential companies.  The partnership aims to increase renewable demand (buyers), find renewable opportunities (developers and intermediaries), and provide the means to bridge the two through tools and knowledge.

Green Biz

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Market trends and research

Abrupt sea level rise an increasingly realistic threat

Last month in Greenland, more than a tenth of the ice sheet’s surface was melting in the unseasonably warm spring sun, smashing 2010’s record for a thaw so early in the year. In the Antarctic, warm water licking at the base of the continent’s western ice sheet is, in effect, dissolving the cork that holds back the flow of glaciers into the sea; ice is now seeping like wine from a toppled bottle.

Yale 360

Our water systems are a disaster — how can we change that?

People in developed countries turn on the tap and safe drinking water flows, a dramatic health benefit they tend to take for granted.  That complacency dramatically was disrupted last year when children in Flint, Michigan, started testing positive for lead poisoning and the source was traced to tap water.

Green Biz

Commercial real estate

Game-changing business models for green buildings

Air conditioning contributes to a significant chunk of a building’s energy consumption. As building owners are increasingly pressured to be more energy efficient, one company’s unique model is helping to take that responsibility off their hands.  Kaer, pronounced “care” is looking to change the way building owners and the C-suite view air conditioning.

Eco-business

Sustainable products & materials

CEMEX to stay out of World Heritage sites

Building materials company CEMEX has committed to staying out of World Heritage sites and to building awareness of the need to protect them, following a collaboration with UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre and IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature. The commitment, confirmed in the firm’s 2015 Sustainable Development Report issued this week, is in line with the globally accepted principle that listed sites are off limits for the extractive industry.

UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre

Government Programs and Incentives

Connecticut to develop new code standards for resiliency

Connecticut’s Governor Dannel Malloy has directed state agencies to develop new building code standards that will better protect residential and commercial structures from damage caused by flooding and high winds. The governor’s office said in a statement that the action is being taken due to the expectation of more frequent and severe weather events as a result of global warming.

BDC Network

The world is moving on the Paris Accord — but not fast enough

Five months after reaching the Paris Agreement on stemming climate change, many individuals from international agencies, government, business and cities who forged that historic deal met in Washington Thursday to assess what’s been done so far.  Their conclusion? Extraordinary numbers of commitments have been made, yet they are not rolling out at nearly the pace of action needed to keep global warming in check.

Green Biz

Corporate Sustainability

Transparency drives sustainability

There are several motivations for companies to make sustainability a business priority.  In some instances, it is a fundamental part of a company’s business model. In others, companies are driven by economic imperatives, or are reacting to adverse events that have already affected the firm negatively, such as allegations of child labour or toxic spills.

Eco-Business.com

Transit, bikes and transportation

Modern traffic circles invade France’s hexagon

In France, few aspects of life escape philosophical investigation. Now it is the turn of the roundabout, a humble road-junction improvement which is invading the French landscape and unsettling the order of things. Uncommon in France a generation ago, they number some 30,000 today—more than in Britain.

The Economist

Waste Management

NYC business to cut waste 50% by June

Thirty-one New York City businesses, including ABC Disney, Whole Foods and Anheuser-Busch, have committed to divert at least 50 percent of their waste from landfill and incineration by mid-June, as part of mayor Bill de Blasio’s Zero Waste Challenge.  The challenge is part of New York City’s plan to send zero waste to landfill by 2030.

Environmental Leader – Environmental Leader

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