Building Tomorrow: Conversations with Climate Solvers

In Dr. Melissa Checker’s 2020 book, The Sustainability Myth , she took a critical look at the hidden costs—and contradictions—of New York City’s ambitious sustainability agenda. Her insights into the dynamics of environmental gentrification shed light on some of the hidden forces driving redevelopment in the city.  Three years after the book was published, Dr. Checker joined Building Tomorrow to c...

Embodied carbon—the emissions resulting from the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of building materials—will play a key role in decarbonizing the built environment.  In this episode of Building Tomorrow, Ellen Honigstock and Prateek Srivastava sit down with Stantec’s Robby Vogel to get a Structural Engineer’s perspective on strategies to reduce embodied carbon...

As New York City transitions away from fossil fuels, it’s imperative that environmental justice be centered in policy making, and that people from historically disadvantaged communities actively benefit from the transition. In this episode of Building Tomorrow, Zakiyah Sayyed and Anushka Maqbool sit down with Sonal Jessel, Director of Policy at WE ACT for Environmental Justice, to talk about Sonal...

In February 2023, Michael Deane, former Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer for Turner Construction and Urban Green Board Member, passed away, leaving behind a legacy as a dedicated sustainability champion and friend to the green building movement.  Today, we’re re-releasing this 2018 conversation between Michael and Urban Green Senior Director of Education Ellen Honigstock: a wide-ran...

As materials and construction account for 11 percent of global carbon emissions, embodied carbon—the emissions arising from the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of building materials—will play a key role in our path to deep decarbonization of our built environment. Join Shruti Narkar and Ellen Honigstock in a conversation with Aurora Jensen where she provides...

Current benchmarking of building performance provides energy consumption data on a monthly basis. Molly Dee-Ramasamy thinks we can do better. Join Taylor Duncan and Ellen Honigstock as they interview Molly about a new cross-collaborative initiative that explores how measuring certain building data on an hourly basis can make benchmarking more precise, fair, and actionable in support of an affordab...

Last year Urban Green published a major research report, Grid Ready, which found that converting building heating and hot water systems from fossil fuels to electric heat pumps does not pose any near-term risk to New York City’s electric grid. Our research and policy team recently expanded this analysis to explore how increasing power demand from building electrification impacts the grid in enviro...

Decarbonization, electrification, and climate adaptation are the topics that are driving decision-making in the public and private sectors today. In this new podcast series by Urban Green Council we break down these complex topics, and introduce you to people who are advancing the reality of a clean, affordable low-carbon future and are helping solve climate change bit by bit.