U.S. Green Building Council Central Texas – Balcones: Taking the LEED for the Future Symposium

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Includes breakfast, lunch and networking happy hour!

Keynote speakers will include Doug Gaitlin, VP LEED and Product Management – USGBC National, Lucia Athens, Director of Sustainability for the City of Austin, Rives Taylor, Director of Sustainable Design at Gensler, Mark Cover, CEO of Hines SW Region and Brewster McCracken, Executive Director of Pecan Street Inc.

Gain a unique perspective about the benefits and challenges of green building from a diverse group of industry professionals and owners. This one-day symposiumprovides straight talk on topics that impact sustainable building design, construction and ownership. Join us for an eye-opening and vibrant Q&A with owners, architects and contractors providing insightful information on topics including:

Life after LEED – EBOM

Measuring energy performance is the most important aspect of a sustainable building, yet a minority of certified buildings measure and recertify performance.  Discussion will include evaluation of appropriate rating systems, stakeholder involvement in sustainability, measurement of post-occupancy performance and operation costs.  Q&A panel will be moderated by Alan Bell of Seton Healthcare and comprised of John Kelley, VP of Property Management for Thomas Properties Group and Truett Seminary @ Baylor University with Bill France, P.E.,NationalOpX Manager for Aramark.

ROI of Certification

A positive return on investment is critical to the success of any building project – does ROI differ on a green or high performance project versus a traditional project?  Learn the appropriate metrics to evaluate costs, account for intangible benefits (comfort, health, productivity and community needs) and identify hard and soft cost impacts.  Q&A panel includes Beau Armstrong, CEO of Stratus Properties.

Future of LEED

Look beyond the building envelope – how can we enlarge the stakeholder pool and make green building accessible to everybody? This discussion is the impetus for ongoing dialogue and includes making the integrative process more mainstream, enhancing collaboration to give contractors a greater voice in the process, learning the future of LEED versus green codes, benchmarking building performance, shifting the scale from buildings to communities, driving a regenerative economy and improving the overall LEED process. Q&A panel will be moderated by Jim Walker of UT-Austin.

For more information or to register for the symposium, please visit www.usgbc-centraltexas.org.