Hybrid Workshop on Roadmap to Low Carbon Emissions Building Materials and Architecture at Portland

FREE workshop organized by IEEE Future Directions in collaboration with the 11th IEEE Conference on Technologies for Sustainability SusTech 2024

Multnomah Meeting Room, University Place Hotel, Portland, OR, USA, 14-17 April 2024 (9:00 AM – 5 PM PST)

Please visit the SusTech conference website for more details about upcoming conferences.

Specifically, through overview presentations and discussion groups, this workshop provide an informative ideas exchange platform among various stakeholders: technologists, engineers, architects, consultants, and researchers in the following areas and more:

Speakers:

• Maike Luiken and Wei-Jen Lee
  • Introduction: Download the charts (PDF, 1 MB)

• Hellen Chen & Lona Rerick
  • Topic: Building Materials

• Webly Bowles & Beth Lavelle
  • Topic: Sustainable future architecture

• Yashima Jain
  • Topic: Innovation in Building Materials: Download the charts (PDF, 9 MB)

• Clinton J. Andrews
  • Topic: Decarbonizing an Older Building Stock

Workshop Goals – According to the United Nations’ Environment Programme, “The buildings and construction sector is by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, accounting for a staggering 37% of global emissions. The production and use of materials such as cement, steel, and aluminum have a significant carbon footprint.”

Therefore, The IEEE’s SusTech Future Directions Initiative, together with the 11th IEEE Conference on Technologies for Sustainability (SusTech2024), will be holding a one-day hybrid workshop titled “Roadmap to Low Carbon Emissions Building Materials and Architecture”.

Speakers

Webly Bowles is a Sustainability Director at WAP Sustainability. She has 20 years of experience in architecture, sustainable building design, advocacy, and code development. Webly leads carbon lifecycle research and develops policy strategies to support a carbon neutral future. As an architect, she brings her systems thinking approach to researching and promoting carbon neutral buildings. Webly writes technical whole-life carbon requirements for jurisdictions and interprets the requirements to provide valuable high performance building guidance to design, construction, and operation professionals through presentations, resources, and tools. Her research includes embodied carbon in codes and extreme heat mitigation policy strategies. She can be reached at [email protected]

Beth Lavelle is a Senior Associate and Sustainability Manager at SERA Architects in Portland, OR. Her 14 years of experience as a registered architect supports her integrated design approach to bridge the gap between sustainability aspirations and practical implementation. She leads SERA’s internal team of sustainability experts who provide deep knowledge in green building practices, technical analysis, certification documentation, and advocacy for policy change. Beth is passionate about discovering synergies between high-performance systems, strategies for improved indoor environmental quality, and climate-responsive resilient design strategies to maximize the positive impacts the built environment can have on individuals, communities, and the environment. She can be reached at [email protected]

Lona Rerick is an Architect and Sustainable Materials Leader at ZGF Architects. Lona guides clients, design teams and contractors through the intricacies of system materials selection, product research for locations and writing specifications to assure that project goals are met during construction. Lona Rerick leads ZGF Architects Project Performance Team’s efforts to select and specify holistically sustainable materials. Lona educates clients, staff, and manufacturers on the importance of building materials that support all five impact areas of the Materials Pledge: Human Health, Climate Health (aka embodied carbon), Ecosystem Health, and Social Health + Equity in a Circular Economy.

Currently, Lona serves on the Health Product Declaration Collaborative’s Board; as a current member of the AIA Materials Pledge Working Group and as 2018 AIA MKWG chair who led creation of the Materials Pledge and; as a member of the ILFI Materials Health TAG; as Chair of the mindful MATERIALS Board; and as a founding co-Chair of the Portland Materials Transparency Collaborative. You can reach her at [email protected]

Hellen Chen is a Research Analyst in the Industry Program at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), a nonprofit research organization that develops policies to reduce energy waste, combat climate change, and help build an equitable clean energy future. Hellen conducts research on industrial decarbonization such as technologies and policies for reducing embodied carbon within the cement and concrete industries and on other emerging technologies including industrial heat pumps. Prior to joining ACEEE, Hellen worked as a graduate research assistant at the Baylor Energy and Renewable Systems lab, where she explored behaviors of and mitigation techniques for bearing currents, a key issue in advanced motor drive systems. Hellen has a master of science in electrical and computer engineering and bachelor of science in engineering, both from Baylor University. You can reach her at [email protected]

Clinton J. Andrews directs the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University. He was educated at Brown and MIT in engineering and planning, and he worked previously in the private sector and at Princeton University. He teaches urban planning and public informatics courses, and he performs research on how people use the built environment. His work addresses climate change mitigation and adaptation, and how technological changes affect urban life. He has current projects on the energy transition, fiscal impacts of coastal hazards, and how low-income urban seniors cope with heat stress and poor indoor air quality. He publishes both scholarly and popular articles and his books include Humble Analysis: The Practice of Joint Fact-finding, Regulating Regional Power Systems, and Industrial Ecology and Global Change. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and a licensed Professional Engineer. Professor Andrews is a Fellow of AAAS and immediate Past President of the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology. You can reach him at [email protected]

Yashima Jain supports the building technology commercialization, early market transformation, and deployment of innovative research and analysis programs. She serves as a Program Manager for the deployment of tech-to-market programs like IMPEL and Cradle2Commerce. She also works on a program that aims at supporting India in accelerating its climate ambition by identifying specific opportunities in decarbonized and clean energy system pathways, accompanying benefits that would be achieved, and facilitating progress with transformative modeling, implementation and investment actions.

Before joining LBNL, Yashima worked as a Research Associate with the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) on data-driven assessment and analysis for the new IIHS Campus being built in Bengaluru and as a Program Manager for Solar Decathlon India. At IIHS, she lead the development of dashboards used for analytics for systems like energy, water, waste, etc, and coordinated with other teams at IIHS to understand their use cases for data collection. She also assisted with developing controls and algorithms. Before joining IIHS, she also worked with GBCI where she was involved in the development of the LEED Residential green rater training program and educational content on LEED Zero and LEED Residential 4.1. You can reach her at [email protected]

Marc Elliott has over 25 years of experience with Eaton Corporation serving in roles of increasing responsibilities including sales engineer, product manager, engineering manager, regional sales manager and plant manager before being appointed to his current role as Marketing Director – Mining, Metals & Minerals and Pulp, Paper & Wood of Eaton’s electrical business. Marc has a broad range of experience with industry solutions related to power distribution, energy management, motor control and factory automation serving the process industries, OEMs, and institutions. He has been involved with both internal Eaton and customer sustainability efforts from zero waste to landfill to distributed energy resource infrastructure planning to electrical power management system implementations. He is involved in a variety of global industry standards and presently serves as an active member of the IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) Cement Industry Committee, the IEEE IAS Pulp and Paper Industry Committee, the Association of Iron & Steel Technology (AIST) Electrical Applications Technical Committee and the AIST Digital Transformation Committee. Marc has been published in various periodicals such as the IEEE Industry Applications Magazine, World Cement and Plant Engineering. He received a B.S.M.E. from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from Seattle University. You can reach him at [email protected]

Workshop Moderators

Maike Luiken, Initiative Co-Chair

Maike Luiken, PhD, SMIEEE, IEEE-HKN, FEIC, chairs Planet Positive 2030 – an initiative of the IEEE Standards Association – as well as the P7800 Standards Working Group: Recommended Practice for Addressing Sustainability, Environmental Stewardship and Climate Change Challenges in Professional Practice. She served as the IEEE VP, Member & Geographic Activities, 2021, as President of IEEE Canada during 2018-19 and, 2018, as Chair, Policy Track, IEEE Internet Initiative. Maike is and has been for more than 15 years a very strong supporter of sustainable development. She is a managing director, R&D, at a start-up company and Adjunct Research Professor, Western University, Canada. Previously, in Sarnia, Canada, she led the Bluewater Sustainability Initiative, 2006 – 2013.

Wei-Jen Lee, Initiative Co-Chair

Professor Wei-Jen Lee received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan., and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Texas, Arlington, in 1978, 1980, and 1985, respectively, all in Electrical Engineering.

In 1986, he joined the University of Texas at Arlington, where he is currently a professor of the Electrical Engineering Department and the director of the Energy Systems Research Center. He has been involved in the revision of IEEE Std. 141, 339, 551, 739, and 1584, and the development of 1584.1, 1584.2, 3002.8, and 3002.9. He is the past President of the IEEE Industry Application Society (IAS), the chair of IEEE TAB (Technical Activity Board) Climate Change Program, co-chair of IEEE Sustainable Development Ad Hoc Committee, member of IEEE Ad Hoc Committee to Coordinate IEEE’s Response to Climate Change (CCIRCC), member of IEEE TAB Hall of Honor Committee, member of Pillar 4 of the Global Power Systems Transformation (G-PST), chair of IEEE Smart Grid program, chair of IEEE Smart Cities Education Committee, member of IEEE Smart Grid Operation and Education Committees, and member of United Nations (UN) Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition (CEET).