Joseph Allen
Associate Professor
Harvard School of Public Health
The Covid pandemic upended many established principles of science and architecture. In the case of healthy buildings, however, the opposite happened: what made sense for buildings with respect to cognition and health before the pandemic has become even more important in the face of an airborne pathogen.
When Dr. Joseph G. Allen first began presenting healthy buildings research at conferences around the world, he was surprised by how little business leaders, real estate developers, and other influential decision makers knew about the issue. Now, there’s more buy-in than ever. In the post-Covid world, in which health is the primary focus of a population newly attuned to the importance of the built environment, landlords, investors, executives, and other stakeholders know they cannot afford downside costs of operating a lower-grade building.
In this keynote presentation, Dr. Allen will share how the pandemic led to an explosion of interest in healthy buildings, and how his work and communication with the business community has subsequently evolved.
This course is approved for .5 General GBCI CE hour and for .5 AIA LU.
Learning Objectives:
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Cite key findings from Dr. Allen’s research that make an airtight case for investment in healthy buildings.
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List cost-effective improvements that can be made to any indoor environment – for any purpose, old construction or new – to prioritize the health of its occupants.
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State recommendations for healthy building strategies in new construction.
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Discuss the role healthy buildings will play in the climate resilience of infrastructure.
Melanie Colburn
WELCOME
Director, U.S. Market Transformation & Development, USGBC
Adhishesh Sood
SPONSOR WELCOME
Strategic Partnerships Manager, Sustainable Building Technologies, Honeywell
10:40 am-11:55 am PST
Pioneering the Role of a Health and Sustainability Leader in Real Estate
There has been a growing recognition of the importance of managing human and planetary health in tandem. The trend was accelerated by the covid-19 pandemic. In this session we will hear from leaders who don't just populate an existing role & area of expertise in our industry, but have actively carved out and created the nascent field of health within sustainability.
They’ll share their stories on how they got to where they are, and how they leverage their unique experiences and expertise to connect and influence across public health, architecture, engineering, operations, sustainability, and technology in the service of better occupant and community health outcomes.
Join us to discuss: What does this role look like? What skills are needed to be successful at it? Where does the role fit in your organization, what gap does it fill? How can those of us in these roles find professional development, community, and support?
This course is approved for 1.5 General GBCI CE hour and submitted for 1.5 AIA LU/HSW.
Learning Objectives:
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Describe the existing gaps in professional training and scope for roles that connect sustainability and health within commercial real estate.
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Identify the skills needed to be successful as a health and sustainability leader through hearing about the lived experiences of professionals pioneering this role within our industry.
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Discuss how your role impacts the health and sustainability of building occupants and the community.
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Discover avenues for building a network, and community of professional support, to grow your expertise and impact in the nascent field of 'health and wellbeing' within Sustainability.
Panelists
Kathleen Hetrick, LEED AP BD+C; EcoDistricts AP
Sustainability Engineer, Buro Happold
Piers MacNaughton
VP of Product, View, Inc
Kelly Worden
VP, ESG and Investing for Health, International WELL Building Institute
Victoria Michalchuk
MODERATOR
Occupational Health Manager, Apple
11:55 am-12:25 Pm PST
Breakout Session
Seema Bhangar
CO-HOST
Senior Indoor Air Quality Manager, WeWork
Liam Bates
CO-HOST
CEO and WELL Air Concept Advisor, Kaiterra
This will be an engaging continuation of the conversation about Pioneering the Role of a Health and Sustainability Leader in Real Estate.
This will be part of the continuing education credit and will need to be attended for credit.
12:25 pm-12:35 pm PST
Wellness break
This will be a short break from the program.
12:35 pm-1:50 pm PST
Contextualizing the Value of Technology Enabled Building Health
Learning Objectives:
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Discuss the challenges and opportunities with the use of low-cost air quality sensor technology.
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Identify the types of sensor technology that is currently available for air quality measurement -and which can be used for LEED v4 requirements.
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Demonstrate how to use air quality sensor technology to support LEED v4 and WELL certification.
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Explain the value of this technology in delivering buildings that meet LEED v4 energy goals while also delivering environments that support improved human health.
Panelists
Katherine H. Walsh
Sustainability, Energy, and Environment Program Director, Boston Public Schools
Brian Gilligan
High Performance Building Design Expert, GSA
Brett Singer
Staff Scientist/Principal Investigator (PI), Energy Technologies Area, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Chris Pyke
MODERATOR
SVP, Product, Arc Skoru
Ever thought that smart technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can improve health and wellness?
Significant technology is now available to measure and provide data on both indoor and outdoor environmental and air quality, and there is the potential to use this data to manage the indoor environment to achieve both energy efficiency and high quality, healthy, and safe indoor environments. The panel will discuss the value of “low cost” sensor technology, reference air quality testing, and the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to manage building systems. LEED credits and WELL Buildings standard features that support the use of this technology will be identified.
This course is approved for 1.5 LEED Specific, LEED AP BD+C, LEED AP O+M, WELL AP, LEED Green Associate GBCI CE hour and 1.5 AIA LU/HSW.
1:50 Pm-2:20 pm PST
Breakout Session
Anthony Bernheim
CO-HOST
Healthy & Resilient Buildings Program Manager
San Francisco International Airport
Pooja Sannamani
CO-HOST
Associate Sustainability Consultant, AECOM
This will be an engaging continuation of the conversation about Contextualizing the Value of Technology Enabled Building Health.
This will be part of the continuing education credit and will need to be attended for credit.
2:20 pm-2:45 pm PST - closing keynote
How Urban Smart Surfaces Create Healthy Cities
Greg Kats
Founder and CEO,
Smart Surfaces
Smart Surfaces are surfaces that better manage sun and rain. When woven appropriately into the fabric that is our cities’ built environment, smart surfaces provide a very effective and cost-effective way to reduce extreme summer heat, cut air and water pollution, stem flooding, advance equity, and improve public health. This long list of benefits encapsulates what a holistic definition of a healthy city should include. Heat inequality overlaps with health inequality in our cities due to years of underinvestment. The only way to cool cities is through Smart Surfaces, and one of the largest sets of benefits from these strategies relates to health.
This course is approved for .5 General GBCI CE hour and .5 AIA LU/HSW.
Learning Objectives:
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List ways that Smart Surfaces in construction contribute to reducing problems related to extreme heat and weather conditions.
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Discuss how structural inequalities as a result of underinvestment in Smart Surfaces has led to hotter, less livable minority and low-income communities.
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Tell how equity, public health and healthy cities can be effectively addressed through the use of Smart Surfaces.
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Explain how Smart Surfaces are a cost-effective tool that can cool our cities at scale.