Last week, at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, Microsoft announced it is the first large corporate user of a new tool to track the carbon emissions of raw building materials. Microsoft is piloting the tool, called the Embodied Carbon Calculator for Construction or EC3, in the remodel of its 72-acre Seattle campus.
Now a tropical depression with heavy rainfall, storm slows to a crawl and builds significant flood risk across Carolinas and SW Virginia; power still out for 450,000 Duke Energy customers.
Saint-Gobain, one of the world's largest building materials makers, decided to prove the performance of its products in a real work setting by creating a high-performance environment in its North American headquarters in Malvern, Pa., and using the 289,000-sq-ft retrofit expansion of a 1960s building as a guinea pig for an occupant comfort study. The three-year research program went further than most occupant comfort studies by including a survey of staff in the former headquarters in Valley Forge, Pa., with its more traditional, rather than open-plan, office layout.
The East Valley Water District has received approval and funding for a $126-million wastewater treatment plant that will produce high quality recycled water in Highland, Calif.
Cities, states and regions are taking steps to prepare their buildings, infrastructure and homes for the impacts of climate change as bad news continues to mount about rising sea levels.