Welcome to the U.S. Green Building Council
Northern California Chapter

USGBC's Natural Talent Design Competition (NTDC) is a nationwide design challenge that was started in 2003 by the USGBC's Emerging Green Builders program as a vehicle for young designers to gain applied learning experience in the principles of integrated design, sustainability, and innovation. This year, the Salvation Army joins the U.S. Green Building Council in hosting the 2010 Natural Talent Design Competition. Entrants will design an affordable, 800 square foot green home for an elderly client in the Broadmoor, New Orleans neighborhood as part of Salvation Army's EnviRenew Project.

Competitors will be divided into students and young professionals categories. Chapters will select winning teams from both categories, and nationally, two winning teams from each category will be selected, and those four teams will be brought to Greenbuild 2010.

For the first time, the top four winning teams will see their designs built! Once the homes are built, they will enter a measurement and verification phase in which they will be graded on energy efficiency, water reuse, and indoor air quality among other categories. The design team whose home performs best during measurement and verification will be awarded the final grand prize.

Learn more about the Chapter Competition or visit OpenArchitectureNetwork.org to view competition guidelines and register.

Mayor Newsom, Empire State Building Owner, USGBC Founder
Hold Summit on Deep Green Retrofitting of Existing Buildings at USGBC - Northern California Chapter Headquarters 

Mayor Gavin Newsom, Empire State Building owner Tony Malkin, and U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) & World Green Building Council Founder David Gottfried spoke at a special luncheon on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at USGBC – Northern California Chapter (USGBC-NCC) headquarters. USGBC-NCC and Mayor Newsom convened the event to inspire real estate executives’ commitment to improving energy efficiency in existing commercial buildings and to challenge the San Francisco Bay Area to replicate the integration, depth, and transparency of the Empire State Building green retrofit project.

Mayor Newsom opened the event by discussing San Francisco's successes and future plans for greening commercial existing buildings. He challenged the building owners in attendance to push the envelope and reach for higher sustainability goals. Newsom emphasized the compelling financial benefits of green building, and the critical importance of building retrofits, saying, "We are not serious about climate change until we are serious about building efficiency . . . San Francisco is a leader in green building - we have more LEED buildings than cities four to eight times larger, such as New York and Los Angeles." He noted that in San Francisco, existing buildings are responsible for more than 45% of carbon emissions.  The Mayor’s Task Force on Existing Commercial Buildings recommends several innovative measures to dramatically increase energy efficiency in San Francisco’s building stock.

The retrofits of the architectural icons Transamerica Pyramid - which just received LEED Gold Certification - and the Empire State Building, serve as coast to coast prototypes for the profitability and importance of greening existing commercial buildings nationwide.

Tony Malkin, President of Malkin Holdings LLC and owner of the Empire State Building, made a strong business case for the building’s green renovation.  “I’m doing this to make money. Investments in existing building energy efficiency have a much higher return on investment than investments in renewable energy – and we can do it now. If the Empire State Building can do it, anyone can do it,” said Mr. Malkin. The Empire State Building project team - Johnson Controls Inc., Jones Lang LaSalle, and Rocky Mountain Institute joined forces for a modeling and analysis project which will save 38 percent of the building's energy and $4.4 million on an annual basis. This project team described how performance based contracting, transparency, and a fresh, integrated approach to retrofits produced a dramatic decrease in operating costs and carbon emissions, while enhancing property value and providing a handsome return on investment. View the Empire State Building Case Study.

Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials and Inc. Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year described the pioneering upgrade of the building’s windows. Serious Materials is recycling and remanufacturing 6,500 windows onsite – on the 5^th floor of the building - using revolutionary technology and techniques which will save 5% on energy consumption.

U.S. Green Building Council and World Green Building Council founder David Gottfried closed the luncheon by stressing the importance of making money on green building while securing a healthy and secure future for the planet, our children and generations to come.  “We can’t afford to live the way we’ve been living.  One hundred years ago we had 1 billion people on the planet; now there are 7 billion – we need to redefine how we think about business.  At the same time we achieve a superior return on investment, we must take the most effective measures to reduce dependence on energy, create jobs, provide a healthy environment for our families and preserve the health of the planet.”

View the Empire State Building Case Study.

USGBC-NCC Executive Director Dan Geiger presented the LEED Gold plaque to Christoph Gabler of AEGON Insurange Group. The iconic Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco received LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance (EBOM) Gold, symbolizing the city's efforts to go green.

"This award demonstrates a serious commitment to the environment and should be an example to other properties on how they can help us create a sustainable future through green building techniques," Mayor Newsom said. "The Transamerica Pyramid is synonymous with San Francisco's skyline, and it is now an even more fitting emblem for the city by reflecting our core green values." The Transamerica Pyramid achieved a LEED rating ahead of two other iconic buildings that are currently seeking LEED ratings: the Empire State Building and Chicago's Willis Tower. The rating was based on a longstanding effort to increase energy efficiency, encourage use of alternative transportation by tenants, a 50% water usage reduction in the past year, a high-efficiency co-generation plant, the purchase of renewable energy credits, recycling and composting to reduce the building's wastestream, and the use of green cleaning products.