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Build It Green recognized California’s green building leaders in its 2nd Annual Green Building Awards Ceremony last week. Held at the David Brower Center in Berkeley on December 9th, the awards recognized a diverse group of thought leaders who have been instrumental in raising the bar for residential green building across the state of California.
Award recipients represented the diverse stakeholders of the building industry, from individuals to businesses, public sector and private. Two individuals were selected for the Green Building Visionary Award: Donald Simon, attorney at Wendel, Rosen, Black and Dean; and Panama Bartholomy, the new Deputy Director for the Efficiency and Renewables Division of the California Energy Commission.
Donald Simon successfully defended the integrity of USGBC and the LEED rating system at the national level against challenges from hostile groups including the Vinyl Institute and the American Chemical Society, and helped to found the Green Resource Center in Berkeley. Panama Bartholomy has served for the past four years as the advisor to Commissioners of the California Energy Commission on topics including green building, land use, climate change, renewable energy, transmission and biofuels policy.
The awards also recognized supporters from the private sector, who are critical to the growth of the market for green homes. GreenPoint Rated is the standard used by builders, remodelers, and auditors to give homeowners the proof a green home with a recognizable, trustworthy seal of approval. The following private sector companies were given awards for their work in delivering GreenPoint Rated homes: KB Homes (Single Family homes), BRIDGE Housing (Multi-family Homes), Jetton Construction (Custom Home Builder), and Energy Inspectors (Raters).
In the public sector, these leaders were recognized for their instrumental work in piloting and promoting residential green building programs. The Bay Area Climate Collaborative, an initiative of the cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland created to develop regionally consistent climate actions and to accelerate climate progress, was recognized as Green Building Leader in the Public Sector. Nancy Skinner, the elected California Assembly member for District 14, was awarded the Legislative Advocate of the Year. She was a prime sponsor of AB 758, which is summarized as the Energy Efficiency: Equity, Jobs and Green Buildings Bill.
Build It Green has developed one the most respected training programs for residential green building within the state of California, and is currently training professionals to participate in the Energy Upgrade California program. This work wouldn’t be possible without our valued training partners. In acknowledgement of those partners, Shayna Hirshfield, of the Silicon Valley Energy Watch Program in the City of San Jose, received the Professional Training Partner award. John Morton, who manages Southern California Edison’s CA New Homes Program, was awarded Utility Partner of the year.
As a nonprofit organization, Build It Green is member driven. The members elected Mint Condition Homes as Green Building Champion, for their work to use an integrative green design process to transform bank owned properties into quality, updated homes.
It is only through the persistence and dedication of these award recipients that residential green building is becoming standard practice across the state of California.
About Build It Green
Established in 2004 in the San Francisco Bay Area, Build It Green (builditgreen.org) is a non-profit membership organization with the mission to promote healthy, energy- and resource-efficient residential building practices in California and beyond. Build It Green’s programs offer a comprehensive package of state-level advocacy, local government support, professional training, collaboration forums, consumer education, and green product promotion. Three objectives guide this work: 1) partnering with local and regional governments to establish credible, accessible and consistent green public policies and guidelines that drive private sector innovation; 2) increasing the supply of green homes (including new, existing, single, and multi-family buildings) by providing training and certification programs to broaden professional expertise in the green building realm; and 3) increasing awareness and stimulating consumer demand for green homes through use of the GreenPoint Rated system as a trusted and recognized consumer label for green homes.
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