Jessica Woolliams - Guest Expert on the Pharos Project & Green Building Materials Selection

"Pharos Project + Green Building Materials Selection"

Jessica Woolliams, British Columbia Co-Director, Cascadia Region Green Building Council

The Province of BC has committed to having its operations "carbon neutral" by 2010. It has announced that all new public buildings must be minimum LEED Gold or equivalent and that the target GHG reduction for the province of at least 33 per cent below 2007 levels by 2020. 

This is the most aggressive legislation in North America, but many believe even this will not be enough. According to a recent report by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, green building is the fastest and cheapest way to lower North America’s contribution to global climate change.  However, we may need to adopt even more aggressive targets than LEED Gold. Seattle LEED Gold Library famously uses more energy than the Library it replaced. 

The Living Building Challenge is the Cascadia Region Green Building Council's call to the design and construction community to pursue true sustainability in the built environment. Imagine a building that  generates all of its own energy with renewable non-toxic resources, captures and treats all of its water, and operates efficiently and for maximum beauty. Now imagine an industry ready to design and construct such buildings: these are Living Buildings! The Living Building Challenge is endorsed by the US Green BUilding Council and the Canada Green Building Council.  Right now we have at least six building in BC alone that are aiming for the Living Building Challenge. There are currently more than 50 Living Building projects in the design or construction phase throughout North America. 

Jessica will also discuss Pharos. The missing "nutrition label" for building materials, the Pharos Project aims to accelerate the transformation of the building materials industry. Using a transparent web-based model, the overarching goal of the project is to harness the power of consumer choice to generate a materials economy that is open, fair, efficient, renewable, non-toxic, and self-reporting. The Pharos Project is a collaborative initiative of organizations including the Healthy Building Network, the University of Tennessee Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies, and Cascadia. Visit www.pharosproject.net to learn more.

Click for:
-An audio recording of the presentation

Bio - Jessica Woolliams has been working to mainstream sustainable buildings through advancing policy, programs and training for a decade. Jessica comes to Cascadia from Light House Sustainable Building Centre, where she was a founding director. Jessica brings extensive green building consulting experience in both the public and non-profit realms. Through her work at Harvard University she managed the design and implementation of Harvard’s first GHG Inventory, Harvard’s first LEED certification and Harvard's first renewable energy purchases that brought Harvard to being the 2nd largest higher-educational purchaser of green power in North America. As a consultant, Jessica was helped establish Green Buildings BC, Canada's first green building program in 2000. Jessica has published both academically and professionally and has lectured at Harvard, BCIT, SFU and UBC.

PLEASE RSVP to info@sustainablebuildingcentre.com.
This is a free event but a donation of $2-$5 is suggested.

LOCATION
Light House: Sustainable Building Centre is located at 1575 Johnston Street, just East of the Public Market in the heart of Granville Island. Our centre is on the second floor and accessible via the glass door and staircase on the Southwest corner of the building. This event is sponsored by Light House Sustainable Building Centre and Cascadia Green Building Council, the local chapter of the CaGBC. Funding comes from Environment Canada and the Real Estate Foundation of BC.

Guest Expert seminars are intended to provide general information about green building products and technologies. Light House Sustainable Building Centre does not endorse any of the services or products discussed by guest expert speakers.