Embodied Carbon 101: Certifications + Commitments—Overview

2020-BSA09

Included in subscription

1.00 LU|HSW

4.38

Course expires on: 11/15/2026

$30

Architect$30

Member Price

$45

Non-member Price

Description

Our built environment is not as sustainable, healthy, safe, equitable or inclusive as it needs to be. As design professionals we have the ability to address the global climate crisis and influence health and well-being. Health is a growing concern for homebuyers, designers, and builders alike. Building professionals are not health professionals, but we have more influence on people’s health than we may realize. We also have tools to help influence building systems and components which impact not only health, but embodied carbon and operation carbon outputs. The course includes comparisons of Indoor airPLUS, Enterprise Green Communities, LEED for Homes, Passive House, Living Building Challenge, WELL Building Standard, Fitwel, and the Active Design Guidelines. The course explores the benefits and drawbacks to using certification programs, looks at the influence they’ve had on code, and discusses their impact on our built environment—including the ways that embodied carbon considerations do or don’t factor into each program.

Course expires 11/14/2026

Learning Objectives

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Discover the degree to which human health and the environment are influenced by different components the built environment based on current research.

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Summarize how the new energy code addresses occupant health and explain how to meet these new requirements.

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Select the relevant tool(s) from those available to implement design of healthier buildings with lower embodied and operational carbon.

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Plan the inclusion of one new health or environmental intervention in your next design or construction project.

Instructors

Maureen Mahle

Maureen Mahle is an engineer and specialist in high performance homes. As Managing Director of SWA’s Sustainable Housing Services, Maureen has spent the past dozen years at SWA encouraging developers, designers, and builders to think holistically and build meticulously. She has certified tens of thousands of green dwelling units in 10 states under LEED for Homes, Enterprise Green Communities, ENERGY STAR and other programs. Maureen works to tie human health to energy efficiency and green building, and her projects have been early adopters of Active Design Guidelines and the Fitwel standards for healthy buildings.

Maureen participates in market transformation at both the local and national scales through numerous committees and research initiatives. She initiated the development of the LEED for Homes Multifamily Midrise rating system adaptation and served as a member of the USGBC LEED v4 task force, and co-chaired the national LEED Technical Committee and New York City’s post-Hurricane Sandy Building Resiliency Task Force Special Committee on Homes. Maureen is also a contributor to several publications and is a former board member of Home Energy magazine – she has co-published research papers for SWA’s Consortium for Advanced Residential Building (CARB) and the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) Residential Green Building background paper for NAFTA. Maureen has provided support to the Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing (PATH) funded by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development with inspections, testing, analysis, and information dissemination of hurricane resistant housing, panelized construction technologies, high performance HVAC, domestic hot water, and ventilation systems.

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