BuildingEnergy Boston 2022 Conference Sessions


Monday

Monday, February 28, 2022 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Session Title Speakers Room Areas of Focus
Monday Keynote - Making Ourselves Heard: The Building Sector as Leaders in Carbon Neutrality

As the nation strives for carbon neutrality by 2050, the role of the building sector is both critical and often overlooked. As clients, manufacturers, designers, engineers, constructors and operators, we know that the most cost-effective carbon... Full Description

Harbor 1-2

Justice and Equity

Design Process

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Climate Change and Resilience

Monday, February 28, 2022 - 10:30am to 12:00pm
Session Title Speakers Room Areas of Focus
At the Finish Line: How Two Affordable Passive Projects Crossed the Hardest Hurdles

Multifamily Passive House new construction can be built today for low incremental cost and dramatic energy reduction. Join us for a review of eight affordable passive house projects, demonstrating that Passive House buildings in the Northeast are... Full Description

Harbor 1-2

Design Process

Construction Process

Building Envelope

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Hiring to Diversify

Diverse teams are more efficient, more creative and make more money. Our field is dominated by cis-white-male-led companies, and our best intentions haven’t changed that yet. This session will guide participants to identify innate biases that... Full Description

Harbor 3

Justice and Equity

Business and Finance

Going Deep and Going Broad: The Next Generation of Multifamily Energy Programs

A large number of effective multifamily energy programs have supported retrofits at thousands of properties in the last decade. The next generation of multifamily programs, however, must catalyze the decarbonization of almost all existing... Full Description

Marina 1

Design Process

Mechanical Systems and Lighting

Health and Comfort

Business and Finance

Indoor Air Quality in Affordable Housing: Issues, Occupant Perceptions and Solutions

Ventilation-system design and occupant behavior both significantly impact indoor air quality and consequently the health of occupants in affordable multi-family housing, that is increasingly being sited adjacent to highways and busy roadways in... Full Description

Marina 2

Justice and Equity

Building Envelope

Health and Comfort

Daylight Quality in Net Zero Buildings: A Pathway to High Performance Learning Environments

Throughout our experience in the K12 Practice Area, we have seen and measured how daylight can positively affect students’ performance and general wellbeing, but how can we keep good daylight levels under the pressure of a tight schedule and the... Full Description

Marina 3

Design Process

Building Envelope

Mechanical Systems and Lighting

Health and Comfort

Monday, February 28, 2022 - 1:00pm to 2:00pm
Session Title Speakers Room Areas of Focus
Design with a Carbon Conscience: Estimating Embodied Carbon at the Planning Level

Transform your practice by taking responsibility for the carbon footprint of your work. This session reviews existing tools and frameworks, from planning scale to site and garden design, integrating metrics from both architecture and landscape... Full Description

Harbor 1-2

Design Process

Materials

Climate Change and Resilience

Planning for Carbon Neutrality: Preparing Affordable Housing for an Equitable Transition

While Massachusetts  and many communities have made commitments to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, Boston and Cambridge specifically are on the leading edge of implementing requirements around existing building emission reductions. Emissions... Full Description

Harbor 3

Justice and Equity

Design Process

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Climate Change and Resilience

Advancing All-Wood Design and Carbon Storage in the Built Environment

Wood-insulated panels (WIPs) combine CLT with rigid exterior wood fiber insulation (WFI) to create a consistent, uniform panel with continuous exterior insulation. These panels can be used to fabricate shell systems, delivering a structural/... Full Description

Marina 1

Design Process

Construction Process

Building Envelope

Materials

NHPUC Low-Moderate Income (LMI) Community Solar Projects

By law, the NHPUC is required to develop a program using a portion of the Renewable Energy Fund (REF) to directly benefit LMI residential customers. The Low-Income Community Solar Act of 2019 provides an additional 2.5 cents per kwh for the... Full Description

Marina 2

Justice and Equity

Energy Production and Storage

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Climate Change and Resilience

Indoor Air Quality: Monitoring Strategies and Results for a Multifamily Passive House Project

We will present the IAQ monitoring program at the Finch Cambridge passive house development, first year results, and lessons learned at Finch and in attempting an IAQ monitoring program at another site.  IAQ monitoring in all common spaces and... Full Description

Marina 3

Mechanical Systems and Lighting

Materials

Health and Comfort

Operations and Maintenance

Monday, February 28, 2022 - 2:30pm to 3:30pm
Session Title Speakers Room Areas of Focus
Local Mass Timber: A Paradox

Bowdoin College is currently constructing a pair of connected campus buildings, both with mass timber structures. Located in the Pine Tree State, the project is ironically using timber sourced overseas. This session will use the example of the... Full Description

Harbor 1-2

Design Process

Construction Process

Materials

Climate Change and Resilience

Positive Energy from Positive Change: Achieving High Performance in Affordable Housing

Affordable housing is key to bringing equity to disadvantaged communities. In Boston, the Department of Neighborhood Development (DND) design guidelines are pushing affordable housing with strict requirements that are equal to Passive House... Full Description

Harbor 3

Design Process

Building Envelope

Mechanical Systems and Lighting

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Overcoming Barriers to Heat Pumps in Multifamily Buildings

While more residential customers have turned to heat pumps as an efficient alternative to electric resistance heating, to shift away from delivered fuels, or to add cooling to their home, the modest gains in heat pump penetration have largely... Full Description

Marina 1

Mechanical Systems and Lighting

Climate Change and Resilience

Retrofit, Restore, or Replace: Understanding the Whole Life Carbon of Windows

Windows and glazing play a disproportionate role in a building's performance compared to other parts of the assembly.  As we strive to meet our 2030 and 2050 climate goals the design strategies for both our new and existing buildings must be... Full Description

Marina 2

Design Process

Building Envelope

Materials

C-PACE as a Financing Tool to Comply with Regional Building Energy Performance Standards

Building Energy Performance Standards are being introduced throughout the Northeast, including Boston’s BERDO 2.0. Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE), already adopted by several states, can act as a ‘carrot’ for property owners to... Full Description

Marina 3

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Business and Finance

Climate Change and Resilience

Monday, February 28, 2022 - 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Session Title Speakers Room Areas of Focus
Your Building as Workforce Training: Integrating Students into High Performance Projects

The Lloyd Center for the Environment is an environmental education building on a coastal nature preserve. This building is pursuing the most stringent environmental certification – LBC – and it is being constructed by students from Greater New... Full Description

Harbor 1-2

Justice and Equity

Design Process

Construction Process

Climate Change and Resilience

Collaborating for Community Decarbonization: An Interactive Workshop

How can the residents of “Energy Town, USA” meet their carbon emissions reduction goal in a way that lifts up their entire community? Working interactively and collaboratively in small breakout groups, participants in this workshop will develop... Full Description

Harbor 3

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Operations and Maintenance

Climate Change and Resilience

Fun with Monitoring: Using Data to Solve Problems From Design Through Occupancy

We learn much of what we know about how buildings really perform from doing measurements and monitoring. This session presents five case studies in which targeted data monitoring led to understanding and resolutions of apparently vexing issues.... Full Description

Marina 1

Design Process

Mechanical Systems and Lighting

Operations and Maintenance

Affordable Housing: Saving Energy & Money While Addressing Climate & Equity Goals

What lessons can you learn from completed new construction passive and net zero affordable projects? How can we bring costs down with further experience and tools? Learn from a design build firm experienced in passive and net zero affordable... Full Description

Marina 2

Justice and Equity

Design Process

Building Envelope

Health and Comfort


Tuesday

Tuesday, March 1, 2022 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Session Title Speakers Room Areas of Focus
Tuesday Keynote - A Framework for Action: What's Our Role?

Global change requires local action! While the climate crisis has been well articulated at the global level by the United Nations, national governments, and scientific consensus, climate solutions still require community-scale responses. Ancient... Full Description

Harbor 1-2

Justice and Equity

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Climate Change and Resilience

Tuesday, March 1, 2022 - 10:30am to 12:00pm
Session Title Speakers Room Areas of Focus
Take Charge and Electrify That Building!

Most of our existing buildings are already constructed with fossil fuels as the heat source. In this session, BEC will demonstrate the successes of retrofitting high performance electrification, through real projects in various phases from design... Full Description

Harbor 1-2

Mechanical Systems and Lighting

Why Do Startups Innovate Better than Design Firms, and What Can We Learn from Them?

Integrative design and lean PM have the potential to mimic agile development; benefitting from fast iterations and innovation, but often don’t in practice. Owners are demanding increasingly high performance and firms won’t be competitive if they... Full Description

Harbor 3

Design Process

Construction Process

Business and Finance

Climate Change and Resilience

How Forests and Biogenic Carbon Can Convert Buildings into Carbon Sinks

Buildings and deforestation together produce 50% of global carbon emissions. This session will address how climate-smart forestry and sustainable agriculture can store carbon in ecological landscapes and generate wood and plant-based building... Full Description

Marina 1

Justice and Equity

Design Process

Materials

Climate Change and Resilience

ReVision Energy Training Center: An Innovative Workforce Development Program

In response to the increasing demand for certified electricians to meet the challenges of transitioning to a clean energy future, ReVision Energy launched a state-certified training education program in 2018. This innovative program is the first... Full Description

Marina 2

Justice and Equity

Construction Process

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Business and Finance

Goals That Stick: Rallying Project Teams around Building Performance

While project teams typically establish quantifiable performance targets for their projects, there is no magic bullet for defining the right energy consumption goal for each project. This panel of high-performance experts and architects will... Full Description

Marina 3

Design Process

Building Envelope

Mechanical Systems and Lighting

Climate Change and Resilience

Tuesday, March 1, 2022 - 1:00pm to 2:00pm
Session Title Speakers Room Areas of Focus
The Climate Impact of Retrofits: Embodied and Operational Emissions in Weatherization

As buildings become part of the climate change solution, more building professionals and their customers want to know how they can reduce carbon emissions in home retrofits. The presenters conducted a research study to answer this question by... Full Description

Harbor 1-2

Construction Process

Building Envelope

Materials

Climate Change and Resilience

Racism Has Always Been a Public Health Crisis: Equity and Health in the Built Environment

In recent years both Boston and New York City have officially declared racism to be a public health crisis. In this moderated panel discussion, you'll hear from a group of diverse speakers that represent various aspects of the building industry.... Full Description

Harbor 3

Justice and Equity

Materials

Health and Comfort

Policies, Codes, and Standards

How Passive Buildings Support Resiliency & Grid Flexibility

The electric grid is changing rapidly - with more intermittent, renewable energy resources contributing to the power generation supply, more dispatchable baseload retiring, and more extreme weather events causing outages. Providing... Full Description

Marina 1

Building Envelope

Energy Production and Storage

Health and Comfort

Climate Change and Resilience

Retro-Cx: Achieving Carbon Reduction Goals through Training and Collaboration

Even the most successful Retro-Commissioning projects encounter some level of conflict. Fostering a culture of collaboration, trust, and engagement with the building’s operating staff can help overcome these challenges and prove to be valuable to... Full Description

Marina 2

Health and Comfort

Operations and Maintenance

Watt It Will Take to Decarbonize: Boston’s New Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance

The City of Boston is on the cutting edge of emissions performance standards for existing buildings. Staff from the City’s Environment Department will present on Boston’s new Building Emissions Reduction Ordinance (BERDO 2.0). The purpose of this... Full Description

Marina 3

Justice and Equity

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Climate Change and Resilience

Tuesday, March 1, 2022 - 2:30pm to 3:30pm
Session Title Speakers Room Areas of Focus
Design for Freedom: Eliminating Modern Slavery in the Building Material Supply Chain

The Design for Freedom Initiative is raising awareness about the pervasiveness of forced and child labor in the construction supply chain. The materials that go into our buildings are heavily reliant on slave labor.  We’ll explore the risks and... Full Description

Harbor 1-2

Justice and Equity

Design Process

Materials

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Stretch Code… It’s Electrifying!

Over the past two years, Massachusetts and its consultant team has studied cost-effective commercial building approaches aligned with climate goals. This session will present a building-level review of the analysis done to inform Massachusetts’s... Full Description

Harbor 3

Building Envelope

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Climate Change and Resilience

The New Face of Energy Efficiency

Residential Energy Efficiency programs are poised to see a shift in scope from weatherization to decarbonization that will include deeper retrofits and strategies to eliminate fossil fuels in and outside the home.  This panel will discuss the... Full Description

Marina 1

Justice and Equity

Building Envelope

Health and Comfort

Business and Finance

How to Scale Up High Impact Embodied Carbon Reductions through Projects and Policies

Take a deep dive into what three projects in the Northeast have done to minimize embodied carbon. The example projects have each taken different approaches: one project focused on concrete in an ICF building, one focused on envelope choices and... Full Description

Marina 2

Design Process

Materials

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Climate Change and Resilience

Decarbonizing Affordable Multifamily Housing: All-in REALIZE Retrofits & Zero Over Time

With so many ways to retrofit a building, how can owners identify the right scope of work? What about the right timing? Even the most well-intentioned building owner may leave carbon savings on the table, choose the wrong ECM or retrofit solution... Full Description

Marina 3

Design Process

Construction Process

Building Envelope

Business and Finance

Tuesday, March 1, 2022 - 4:00pm to 5:00pm
Session Title Speakers Room Areas of Focus
Care & Feeding of Brick: Interior Insulation Retrofits of Mass Masonry Buildings

Solid mass masonry buildings are a significant fraction of the existing building stock, and many contribute to the historic fabric of neighborhoods. However, with wall R-values of R-3 to R-5, they do not meet modern standards for energy... Full Description

Harbor 1-2

Building Envelope

Who's NOT In (And How We Can Reach Them)

What would it take for us in the green building movement to get the owners and builders who are still building to code minimums to join us? This interactive discussion will focus on incentives, the true overall cost add to make a building more... Full Description

Harbor 3

Mechanical Systems and Lighting

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Business and Finance

Climate Change and Resilience

Lighting the Way: Strategies for Achieving Life Cycle Goals

Sustainability in lighting is usually linked to energy use only, but it is time to face the real challenges of quantifying the impact of design decisions made throughout the product life cycle. While we may not have complete information on life... Full Description

Marina 1

Mechanical Systems and Lighting

Materials

Policies, Codes, and Standards

Climate Change and Resilience

Building and Diversifying the Trades Workforce

Many businesses are struggling to find, hire, and retain the next generation of workers. This session will help employers connect with training programs, understand barriers to employment, and learn how they can support new hires. Learn from... Full Description

Marina 2

Justice and Equity

Construction Process

Business and Finance