Last week delegates from all over the world attended the China edition of one the world’s leading conferences on sustainable construction: Greenbuild. This is USGBC’s second time running the show in China and we saw tremendous improvement since last year. With over 600 attendees entering the halls of the LEED Platinum Certified Shanghai Tower (the tallest building in China and second tallest in the world), the event showcased some of the leading minds in the green building industry. None of it could have been possible without the visionary leadership of Mahesh Ramanujam (CEO of USGBC and GBCI) and the tireless hours put forth by Andy To and Jing Wang of GBCI China, whose hard work and dedication truly paid off.
The BEE team was front and center at the event with three speeches delivered by our team. Here is a short summary of the sessions and photos.
Alessandro Bisagni
• Speaking together with RESET’s Nitin Dani and Starbucks’ John Harrison, Alessandro’s session showcased the work done to make the Starbucks Shanghai Roastery the first project to ever certify under both LEED and RESET. The trio looked in-depth at the store’s air quality data and highlighted some key failing’s in the Swire Properties’ Taikoo Hui filtration system. The team also looked at the LEED v4.1 O+M certification that currently in process using USGBC’s new data aggregator called ARC, and even some live IAQ data from the conference room!
Shawn Jang
- Shawn teamed up with Josh Jacobs (Director of Environmental Codes & Standards from UL Environment) to discuss the crosswalk between LEEDv4 and WELL requirements. The primary objective of their session was to identify WELL features that align with LEED v4 that focus on human health & wellbeing.
Mika Kania
- Mika spoke together with Corey Enck (Director of Technical Development at USGBC) about BEE’s work on the Shimizu Corporation’s Shanghai office, certified under both LEEDv4 and WELL, in addition to providing a training session on how to implement the new LEEDv4.1 O+M standard that has recently been released.
In addition to above, there was a major announcement made by BEE’s close partners GIGA that will align the incredible work done by the RESET certification team with the WELL Building Standard, the world’s leading certification of health and wellness within the built environment. Here are some key points from the announcement:
Projects using RESET™ Air version 2.0 will be able to leverage that involvement for the benefit of the following WELL v2 features within the Air concept:
- Projects that have successfully passed their on-site audit as evidenced by an Approved Site Audit Checklist submitted by their RESET Air Auditor will be able use this toward the “Monitor Fundamental Air Parameters” part in Feature A01: Fundamental Air Quality as well as Feature A08: Air Quality Monitoring and Awareness.
- Projects which have an active RESET Air certification status will be able to use this toward meeting Parts 1-3 in Feature A01: Fundamental Air Quality for recertification purposes, taking the place of the project having a performance testing agent validate compliance to this feature.
- Projects having deployed a RESET Air accredited outdoor air monitor will be able to use this toward meeting the “Manage Window Use” part in Feature A07: Operable Windows.
The whole BEE team would like to thank everyone that came out to support us at Greenbuild China and we look forward to seeing more friends at Greenbuild USA in Chicago next month!
#gblittlewonders #leed
