Buildings
While tragic wildfires in Tennessee rage on this year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has spent over $1 billion to help households recover from natural disasters. But it should be noted that there are no limits on the number of times a household can apply, so the program isn't just a safety net; for some people, it's effectively a subsidy to live in areas that are especially vulnerable to hurricanes, floods and storm surges. This begs the question, if FEMA stops or seriously cuts back funding, will people move away from areas prone to disaster? Shouldn’t they just build more resilient homes and buildings?
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NRMCA has verified a system level Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) program to help members meet new product transparency credits in green building standards. Benefiting from advances in software services, the ability to generate EPDs more efficiently is available to concrete producers. The program meets international standards for EPD verification and streamlines the verification process more efficiently, including reviewing life-cycle assessments (LCA) that is generated from the on-demand EPD software. Various software providers can integrate LCA impacts of mix designs to generate EPDs when desired. The software and underlying life cycle data for each mix is reviewed and verified prior to being published in NRMCA’s EPD program. From this point forward, concrete producers have the opportunity to generate EPDs on-demand from plants that integrate EPD software.
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The Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) is charged with building the next generation of schools for children of military personnel. "DoDEA’s wide-sweeping educational facility reform stems from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ desire to fulfill two major priorities: foster an intelligent, more efficient, lighter, quicker military supported by 21st century soldiers; and attract the best and brightest military personnel by building the best school facilities possible for their children." To accomplish the latter goal, the project team relied on VMDO Architects, reports NRMCA Senior Director, Building Innovations, Gregg Lewis. VMDO recently completed a new Arlington, VA, Discovery Elementary School as the state's first Net Zero Energy School. Discovery Elementary was built using Insulated Concrete Forms and was built for less than the Arlington Country School Board had allocated for its construction.
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