The WELL Building booth is a popular spot.

The WELL Building booth is a popular spot.

It’s a sure bet that each year the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo will inform and inspire. This year’s event in Los Angeles was no exception. Here are three takeaways from this week’s conference:

  • Net zero is a hot topic. An entire education track was dedicated to net zero, including conversations around how to get to net-zero water and net-zero waste. Challenges include how we can create buildings and campuses that treat their own onsite wastewater. For energy, there’s been progress in the availability and special funding options like PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) for renewable energy installations that make net-zero energy possible. Challenges include how to transition from net-zero to net-positive energy, that is, creating more energy than needed in order to give back to the grid for community use.
  • WELL Building is catching on. There’s a lot of interest in the WELL Building Standard, which provides the opportunity to design and build with a human-centered approach. The booth of the International Well Building Institute (IWBI) was packed all week. More than 2,000 people have registered to take the WELL AP exam. (If you’re prepping for this exam, check out our resources.)
  • It’s a year of transition. Rick Fedrizzi, who is moving on from CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), was honored along with cofounder David Gottfried at the USGBC leadership luncheon for their vision, advocacy and tireless work bringing LEED to market and developing it into the transformational force it is to the design, construction and real estate industries. USGBC’s incoming CEO is Mahesh Ramanujam, bringing to the role his experience as USGBC’s COO and as President of Green Business Certification Inc. Rick will become the CEO and Chairman for IWBI 4, continuing his commitment to market transformation towards building that are healthy places to live and work.