2024: Off With A Bang!

Check out what’s new at Green Builder Media. I can hardly believe it myself!

Nineteen years into this wild adventure, I can honestly say that I’ve never been more excited about what’s happening at Green Builder Media. Thanks to our team of full-blown superheroes and a delightfully enthusiastic network of colleagues, friends, readers, and supporters, our pace is fast, our evolution is exhilarating, our dedication is unwavering, and our collective impact is undeniable.

Here's a rundown of the initiatives that are keeping us busy:

ESG Defining Principles: Over the past two years, Green Builder Media orchestrated a group of over 65 building industry experts to create a set of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Defining Principles tailored specifically for companies in the North American residential building sector. 

The Defining Principles outline best practices and reporting metrics in the E, S, and G categories, accompanied by recommended tools and calculators for seamless progress monitoring. The Defining Principles also delve into the business case for ESG, investor expectations, consumer demand, compliance requirements, how ESG augments innovation, and effective ESG messaging.  

ESG Consulting Services:  Green Builder Media helps clients understand the ESG-related issues and opportunities that are most relevant to their business, with the goal of increasing revenues, improving transparency, enhancing customer engagement, augmenting corporate resilience, lowering cost of capital, and bolstering competitive positioning.  

Our success has been reflected in the strengthening of our clients’ ESG strategies, brand positioning, and customer approval, as well as their ability to mitigate climate risk, address social justice issues, and develop equitable governance practices.

COGNITION Smart Data is Green Builder Media’s pioneering market intelligence division, which uses cutting-edge cognitive learning technology to generate insights into trade and consumer behavioral patterns, purchase drivers, and sentiment.  COGNITION enables clients to make more informed business decisions, yielding specific deliverables and tangible results. 

COGNITION offers a definitive competitive advantage by empowering companies to stay a step ahead of their competitors.

COGNITION Academy is Green Builder Media’s training, education, and curriculum development division, with courses that cover sustainability, decarbonization, electrification, ESG, circularity, and green building

Specific topics include healthy home essentials, smart home technology must-haves, climate-responsive design, green product deep-dives, sustainable finance options, and green ratings systems and certification programs like ENERGY STAR and Zero Energy Ready Homes.  

Courses are presented in diverse learning formats with videos, interactive content, knowledge quizzes, COGNITION Smart Data insights, and links to supplementary assets.  

Sustainability Symposium 2024: Existential Solutions: Our eighth annual Sustainability Symposium, will be held virtually on April 17 and 18, 2024 from 12:00-3:00 Eastern daily.  The Sustainability Symposium 2024 will transcend climate rhetoric and dive deep into actionable solutions for our planet's most pressing challenges. 

While the Climate Emergency sets the stage, our focus is on the future—a future where resilience, innovation, and community activism pave the way for a sustainable world.  We have curated a world-class lineup of speakers who are not just thought leaders but 'action leaders’. 

We aim to arm attendees with knowledge and actionable steps that they can implement in their communities, businesses, and personal lives.  

Carbon Offsets: Green Builder Media is now selling carbon offsets to our partners in the building industry—builders, developers, manufacturers, retailers, distributors, and other stakeholders. We are only offering high-quality offsets from trackable, accountable, and transparent projects.  

We currently have three portfolios of offsets that represent a blend of avoided emissions, conservation, nature-based carbon removal, and long-term/frontier carbon removal projects. We also help clients calculate the tons of carbon needed to offset building projects, communities, products, transportation, operations, and manufacturing processes.  

Note: We understand the argument that carbon offsets enable companies to greenwash. (For example, if a highly polluting company purchases carbon offsets and claims that it is carbon neutral, that’s greenwashing.) However, that’s not our approach. 

In everything we do, we endeavor to elevate awareness about sustainability solutions, and we tirelessly work with building professionals, manufacturers, and consumers alike to enhance the sustainability of the built environment, their companies, and their lives. 

With that said, there aren’t enough carbon-neutral products, transportation options, manufacturing innovations, or installation practices available to create homes that are net zero embodied carbon at this time, so we must purchase offsets to mitigate our impact. While transformation is happening, we need to be realistic about where we are and utilize all the options available to us.

VISION House projects: We have been building VISION House projects since our inception and have completed more than 20 of these green demonstration homes. We’re poised to launch our next two VISION House projects this spring.  

The first one, VISION House Austin, is a project with famed sustainable architect and AIA Fellow, Peter Pfeiffer, that will highlight climate-responsive design, including energy and water management to address growing grid and drought challenges, as well as net zero carbon, solar + storage, healthy home, and aging in place. 

This beautiful, architect-designed home will showcase the nexus between sustainability and high style, while maintaining a reasonable price point.

We’re not quite ready to talk about the second one, but it will be a big, big deal in conjunction with one of the largest home builders in the country.  Look for the exciting launch announcement soon!

Media, Content Marketing, and Advertising: While Green Builder Media’s business model has expanded significantly over the years, we always have been–and will continue to be–a media company.  

With a comprehensive suite of content marketing, digital, social, and print media options, we offer a blend of visionary and practical information covering a broad spectrum of sustainable living topics like decarbonization, electrification, net zero, smart home technologies, energy efficiency, intelligent water, healthy home, resilient housing, renewables, offsite construction, and clean transportation.  

Our flagship publication, Green Builder magazine, is North America's leading publication focused on high-performance, sustainable housing and technology. Each issue of Green Builder magazine highlights a key topic that is impacting the industry. 

For a weekly roundup of our best blogs, articles, videos, case studies, and opinion pieces, be sure to subscribe to our free Vantage e-newsletter.

Housing 2.0: This training and education program taught by Sam Rashkin (former Chief Architect at the Department of Energy and the father of ENERGY STAR) is designed to educate building professionals about how they can build higher performance, healthier, more sustainable homes at a fraction of the cost and how to communicate the value to consumers. The program consists of a host of live and virtual events throughout the year.

Today’s Homeowner: This program teaches consumers—particularly Millennials and Gen Zs who have seized the top influencer position in the housing market—how to make their homes and lives more sustainable. 

Younger homeowners have a different set of values and purchase drivers than older generations. They want net zero, electric, resilient, smart, healthy homes where they can work, live and play. This comprehensive multi-platform program delivers essential information about the home buying process, sustainable housing, financing options, sustainable products, and green living through a variety of channels, engaging our target audience through ongoing videos, blogs, social media, surveys, and networking sessions. Sign up for our Next Generation Influencer Group!

Want to meet us in person?  If you’re heading to Design & Construction Week in Las Vegas at the end of February, let us know. Our team will be there in force and would love to hear about your green projects, innovative products, ESG initiatives, and sustainable stories.  Shoot me a note and we’ll book a time.

Interested in learning more about any of these initiatives?  Email me at sara.gutterman@greenbuildermedia.com.  

We truly thank you and our entire network for your generous support as well as your efforts to build a better world. We couldn’t do it without you!