True sustainability cannot exist without equity. Communities are like flourishing forests, diversity is key to survival. Buildings are the trees that root the foundation for community, and the teams that design and construct those buildings need to have those ingredients of diversity that will make that community flourish. This event will bring together minority business [...]

Decarbonization of the domestic water heating system using heat pump technology. Learn about this emerging technology from the design engineer’s perspective and from two manufacturers and their approach to implementing the technology.  These heat pump water heaters use the same operating principle as an air-conditioner or domestic refrigerator. The heat pump gathers heat from the [...]

You’ve hiked our local dense forests plenty, and want to know more about the trees around you – how these trees grow and interact in the forest. Join the Build Local Alliance for a guided walk in Forest Park. Where Michael Ahr, Forest Conservationist at West Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District, will lead a [...]

Come learn the innovative ways in which academia in Portland is advancing sustainability from design thinking, scientific investigation and on-the ground construction! This event will showcase how academia is addressing sustainability by connecting research with course curriculum, preparing the next generation of leaders and laying the foundation for moving research into built projects. Event speakers [...]

Portland has many small firms that contribute crucial services to many successful sustainably focused projects. The “Small but Mighty Happy Hour” is a social gathering of a few of the Portland area's small firms that are doing great work in the realm of sustainability. The purpose of this collaborative event is to encourage connections and [...]

Home Efficiency Forum gives Northwest building experts a chance to break new ground in high-efficiency building practices. Our 2019 theme is Expanding Opportunities. Join us October, 17-18 for two days of trainings, networking and inspiring conversation on the future of residential new construction. Early Bird Rate: $375 (by August 30), Standard Rate: $475 (August 31-October [...]

Feeling a little weighed down from all of the great snacks at the SBW events? Join the 2019 SBW crew for a run/walk highlighting some of Portlands greatest architectural marvels - new and old! Pace will be dependent on group. We will weave our way through downtown to see some of Portland's newest construction projects [...]

Big moves and new technology get a lot of attention in the practice of sustainable design, but the careful detailing of the building envelope—walls, windows, roofs, and where they come together—can have an even larger impact on a building’s energy efficiency. Come hear about Holst’s approach to the careful design, detailing, and execution of the [...]

In this event, hosted by Zero Energy Ready Oregon for Sustainable Building Week, participants will gain a better understanding for how designing to meet zero energy standards at the community level can make neighborhoods more resilient during extreme weather events, natural disasters and in the face of climate change. At The Oaks Zero Energy Community [...]

Join the Portland Green Schools Committee for the last panel of our 2019 discussion series: GROWING A GREEN SCHOOL. Following the panel will be a reception to kick off Portland as the host of the 2020 Green Schools Conference and Expo (GSCE). Beer, wine and great snacks will be provided.   Growing Green Schools: Making the Green Schools [...]

Please join TallWood Design Institute (TDI) alongside Karen Joslin and Rachel Wrublik of PAE Engineers, as well as Lee Glassford of KPFF Engineers as they discuss the carbon story behind mass timber—material selection, carbon accounting and green certifications through the lens of their recent project, the PAE Living Building in Portland. Once completed, the PAE [...]

For Sustainable Building Week 2019 we're hosting a denim drive dance party. We'll provide the DJ & drinks, you provide the denim donations.  

Come learn about the world's most energy efficient building certification! This presentation will cover the basics of Passive House design and construction and will cover the history of Passive House, outline it's benefits, show examples of Passive House buildings, explain how it works, describe strategies, and show why Passive House certification is so impactful in [...]

Join us for the 5th Annual ABC Craft Championships! While college debt is rising, the construction industry in Oregon and SW Washington is booming! Apprenticeship allows recent graduates to enter a career right out of high school. Graduates from our program earn upwards of $60,000 and leave campus debt free. This is why we are [...]

In 2015 the Paris Agreement forged a world-wide consensus on an ambitious but achievable target: limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Since then, IPCC scientists, local governments and businesses of all scales have grappled with the paths to a carbon-free future, but one thing is clear: the building industry must radically accelerate ACTION [...]

Join Green Empowerment for a night out, for good celebrating sustainable development in Portland and beyond! Dance, dine and make meaningful connections with others who believe that together, we can achieve a more sustainable and equitable future. Enjoy small bites and spirit tastings, live cumbia by Oleada, a silent auction, a mystery wine wall and [...]

The Portland Green Building Slam showcases cutting-edge projects and technologies aimed at bringing about substantial change in our regional building practices. This fun, educational event features ten fast-paced, mind-blowing talks about remarkable and innovative green building projects. Get ready to be inspired as ten innovators present sustainable and high performance projects in 10-minute segments. Join [...]

What is it like to live in a net zero home? Join Solar Oregon, Passive House Northwest, Earth Advantage, Green Hammer, and the Home Performance Council of the HBA for this finale event of Sustainable Building Week 2019. Explore over a dozen ultra-efficient homes and learn all the surprisingly simple, accessible, and innovate strategies that [...]

This session has passed. You can find a recording of the event here This session will use the recently completed Concourse E Extension at Portland International Airport (registered LEED Gold) as a case study for centering occupant experience and sustainability in aviation design. We will provide a brief overview of project sustainability and occupant comfort [...]

The annual Oregon Committee on The Environment (COTE) Green Champion Summit brings to you the sustainability leaders from around the country and the region. This year the summit will focus on creating space for inclusive and sustainable communities by highlighting some of the plans and funding in place within the City of Portland to ensure [...]

This event has passed. You can find a recording of the event here. Join Bora’s Green Team as we discuss how Bora’s sustainable vision for the future includes a balanced approach to Health, Equity, and Carbon through our work and practices as a firm. Discussions will touch upon this summer's OASE/DEQ research internship focusing on [...]

“Sustainability and Cultural Placemaking - the Lyllye Reynolds-Parker Black Cultural Center at the University of Oregon” - presented by Brian Cavanaugh, AIA Tuesday*, October 13, 2020 | 5:00 – 6:00 | 1 AIA LU|HSW Available * Note – the DDS this week will occur on Tuesday to allow participation in Sustainable Building Week events. This presentation [...]

Transition Projects’ Argyle Gardens, designed by Holst and built by ModsPDX and Walsh Construction, is the first buildout of a flexible, affordable, low-cost housing prototype called LISAH (Low Income Single Adult Housing). Argyle Gardens opened in April 2020, welcoming formerly homeless and very low-income Portlanders in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The project has [...]

This event has passed. You can view the recording here. Sustainable Buildings for All (SB4A) is an effort to create an incentive policy to accelerate climate action in the building industry in Portland while centering equity and racial justice. This effort has been in progress for several years, has a continuously growing coalition of stakeholders, [...]

This event has passed. You can view the recording here. As part of Sustainable Building Week 2020, Manufacturers for Transparency (MfT) is hosting an event focused on the experience of general and sub-contractors in this industry as it moves toward more transparency building products. General contractors and sub-contractors operate in the space between architects/designers and [...]

This event has passed. You can view the recording here. Please Join the TallWood Design Institute along Dr. Mark Fretz and Dr. Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg of University of Oregon’s College of Design as they discuss their research investigating wood as a modern building material, and specifically, its impacts on environmental and human health and [...]

Portland Materials Transparency Collaborative (PMTC) invites you to the “2020 Materials Summit”. This discussion is part of the 3rd Annual Portland Sustainable Building Week, October 12-23, 2020. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, our event will be virtual this year. Join this discussion via Zoom from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. PDT on October 16. As designers, [...]

The AIA Oregon Virtual Happy Hour is open to all who wish to get together and share experiences, ask questions, and connect with and support each other, focusing on various topics. The events will run an hour or more - feel free to drop in and out at any time during the event. You do [...]

SALVAGE SHOWDOWN 101   It’s a competition! It’s a party! It’s a fundraiser! It’s a builder’s dream! The Salvage Showdown is a friendly competition to showcase creative reuse. Here’s what you can expect: First, THE BUILD: During the Salvage Showdown, up to 8 individuals or teams will compete to build the most interesting/beautiful/creative/weird piece of [...]

This event has passed. You can find the recording here. Master of Ceremonies Eric Corey Freed, RA, LEED Fellow A recognized and inspirational voice, Eric has authored 11 books on sustainable building design, has been featured in media ranging from the New York Times and CNN to HGTV, Good Morning America and Sundance Channel, and [...]

While considering embodied carbon is critical to making climate-smart buildings, it can also distance and abstract the impact of our choices. We'll study how our wood selection and specifying shapes local forests – for better and worse. The Pacific Northwest is the nation's 'wood basket' with 28 percent of the nation’s softwood lumber supplied from [...]

This event has passed. You can view the recording here. The ZERO Coalition has developed a streamlined infographic tool for builders, designers, and others in the sustainable building industry to be able to easily see how to achieve zero energy building without breaking the bank...or the budget. Each step has its own purpose, strategies, and resources to [...]

This event has passed. You can find the recording here. Natural gas accounts for over 50% of the recent carbon dioxide growth in the past few years, leading some policymakers to look at building decarbonization to meet local climate goals. Designers are seeking new technologies to reduce carbon and meet these policies through all-electric and [...]

This event has passed. You can find the recording here. Join the Electrification Coalition for a presentation as part of Sustainable Building Week! Electrification is emerging as a powerful new trend in high performance home building. Exciting technologies such as heat pumps and induction stoves combined with a dramatically cleaner electrical grid are convincing many [...]

This event has passed. You can find the recording here. Join Forth and Nuvve for a webinar on how Electric Vehicles interact with buildings as part of Electrification Day at Sustainable Building Week. For this webinar, Forth will present on the best practices for EV-ready building codes, plus an introduction to the early learnings from a [...]

This event has passed. You can view the recording here. Please join us for a virtual tour of the Mahlum Portland Studio and live discussion with Mahlum Architects, Perlo Construction and Sustainable Northwest Wood. Completed November 2019, the 7,500 square foot tenant improvement project located in the historic 1950’s Custom Blocks Building is the first [...]

This course will provide attendees with foundational knowledge of embodied carbon in building materials. We will begin by reviewing the global environmental impact of embodied carbon in construction, and then discuss strategies for how it can be measured, compared, and reduced. The course will identify key impact areas and building systems, and describe best practices [...]

This course will provide attendees with in-depth examples of how project teams are calculating, analyzing, and reducing the embodied carbon of their buildings and portfolios. The first case study will explore the tradeoffs between upfront embodied carbon “costs” and long-term operational energy savings on an historic high school modernization project. The project team will share [...]

Note: this was a two-part event. You can find recordings here for Part 1 and Part 2. Residential buildings account for ​almost a quarter of all energy usage​ in the state of Oregon, and zero energy home design is an important strategy in climate adaptation. Join Solar Oregon for two premier virtual explorations of zero [...]

This event has passed. You can view the recording here. As part of Sustainable Building Week, please join Sustainable Northwest Wood for our next Sustainable Wood Story which will focus on Women in the Sustainable Building Industry. Women represent a very small percentage of the overall workforce in the construction industry, but their numbers are [...]

This event has passed. You can find the recording here. The Salvage Showdown is a friendly competition to showcase creative reuse. Eight builders will compete to construct the most interesting/beautiful/creative/weird piece of furniture using only reclaimed materials from the ReBuilding Center. Builders work in their own spaces over the course of one month. Anything (really, [...]

ZERO is proud to present a two-session series of workshops focused on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the sustainable building industry. The first workshop will cover basic definitions and the concepts of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, uncovering implicit biases, and actions to implement immediate change. The second workshop will take a deeper look at [...]

This event has passed. You can find the recording here. Sustainability used to be voluntary for restaurant operators but, that approach did not produce results fast enough. Now, many local and state governments, including California, Colorado, Illinois, Washington, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Hawaii are enacting laws that mandate major carbon reductions by 2030 and call [...]