Track 4: Advocacy and Public Policy

Presenter | Bartczak, Lohmiller & London
Session Title | Young and Emerging Professionals Panel
Session Description

No Session Description Available.
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Presenter | Josie Plaut and April Wackerman
Session Title | A Team We Can Live With: Using LENSES to Build an Inspired Project Team
Session Description:

Forming a project team capable of producing transformative ideas and results is an essential step in building living, locally-appropriate built environments. People with diverse interests, concerns, and areas of expertise must be included in the process of development in order to reach high goals of regenerative design. This session focuses on developing a diverse and integrated team using a process and metrics guide called LENSES (Living Environments in Natural, Social, and Economic Systems). With LENSES, project teams are encouraged to look at each element of a project design from several vantage points, and to explicitly address elements that are often missing in other green building tools, such as social equity, financing, education and local economies. In this interactive session, participants will first be provided with an overview of LENSES, and then will be challenged to use LENSES to assemble an inspired project team for a specific example project that has high sustainability goals and unique challenges in reaching them. The focus will be on re-valuing “process” and re-valuing “team” for the purpose of developing living communities.
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Presenter | Conor Merrigan
Session Title | Leading by Example: The GEO’s High Performance Building Program
Session Description:

Conor Merrigan is the Commercial Buildings Program Manager at the Colorado Governor’s Energy Office. He has a background in sustainability consulting, especially at the neighborhood development scale. He has managed and worked on projects in most LEED rating systems and has been an active part in Colorado’s green building community for many years. Prior to coming to GEO, Conor’s experience has ranged from working at YRG Sustainability as a consultant, city planning, affordable housing development, and strawbale home construction . He has master’s degrees from CU-Denver in Urban Planning and Urban Design and an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science from Oregon State University.
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Presenter | Mike Lowell
Session Title | Federal Policy Update
Session Description:

An overview of the 2007 Energy Bill and the recent Presidential Executive Order 13514 "Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance. Will detail the components of each piece document that affect the building industry. Will also share how the federal government is complying with these sustainability mandates and what is expected from the private contracting sector. It should be noted that if Congress passes a new Energy Bill subsequent to this application and yet prior to Rocky Mountain Green 2010, it would be prudent to update this presentation to include the latest Energy Bill.
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Presenter | Kelly Crandall
Session Title | How AHRI v. Albuquerque Puts Municipal Green Building Programs at Risk
Session Description:

As increasing numbers of municipalities adopt mandatory green building programs that apply to private construction, the risk of legal challenges from affected parties grows. Green building mandates create numerous potential legal conflicts, among them antitrust and regulatory takings problems. However, the first challenge to a municipal green building code occurred under the preemption doctrine. In 2008, a coalition of HVAC industry representatives sued the City of Albuquerque, alleging that its newly adopted energy code was preempted by federal energy efficiency standards. Although the case has not yet been appealed, the district court judge--who granted an injunction against enforcement of the code--used sweeping language that implicated a range of local government efforts to promote sustainability. This session will break down the case and its ramifications for local governments that attempt to compel private developers to meet LEED, Green Globes, and similar standards. (I would like to invite a Denver attorney who worked on the case, but this is not yet confirmed.
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Presenter | Christian Williss, Scott Morrissey, and Paul Sobiech
Session Title | The Opportunities and Challenges of Municipal Green Building
Session Description:

Like many municipalities, the City and County of Denver has embraced green building techniques to increase energy efficiency, to save resources, to reduce the environmental impacts of demolition, construction and operation of buildings, and to create healthy, productive workplaces for employees and visitors. City projects ranging from the remodeling of existing libraries to the construction of a new a state-of-the-art crime lab have come under its new green building umbrella. Sustainable design and construction has further fueled the continuous improvement of day-to-day operations. This session will cover the opportunities and challenges faced by Denver in rolling out its approach from a municipal perspective. Policy development, education, training, and technical assistance to project teams will be discussed as well as how efforts are planned, monitored, evaluated, and reported out.
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