Sustainability

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The design team selected an all-mass timber structure, paired with wood infill walls, and wood fiber insulation; an all-wood assembly, sequestering biogenic carbon, at Passive House level energy performance; one of the first of its kind.

Energy efficiency benchmarking alone is no longer sufficient and we recommend evolving the American Institute of Architects' (AIA) primary climate action program to track total carbon intensity by incorporating fuel source reporting, electrification metrics, expanded embodied carbon tracking, and updated baselines.

The U.S. Green Building Council announced the 2026 cohort for its LEED for Cities certification program. The cohort includes 17 cities from across the U.S. that are committed to certification under the LEED v4.1 Existing Cities rating system.

Green Ideas® Building Science Consultants has announced that The Pomeroy, a 293,346-square-foot multifamily development in Mesa, Ariz., has achieved LEED® Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council on March 5, 2026.

Baselines and benchmarks are both valuable. A project's performance narrative should use both deliberately. The baseline grounds the conversation in the specifics of the project. The benchmark situates the project in the larger context.