LEED for Affordable Housing - LISC & USGBC Collaboration

The Local Initiative Support Corporation (LISC) convened a LEED Workshop for facilities professionals interested in pursuing the LEED GA credential. LISC works to improve the capacity community development corporations and a lot of affordable housing professionals. Part of our USGBC mission is to help more people enter the green building industry, and to improve the capacity of the professional cadre to deliver high quality service. As we build up our crew, we will continue to transform the marketplace toward improved performance. It was great to see all these folks eager to go for the LEED GA!

One of the Chapter's all-star volunteers, Mike Davis, works for LISC and came up with the idea of connecting his facilities-oriented people to our LEED education capacity. A lot of community developers are looking at the LEED EBOM system as a way to help improve facility management in their portfolios, and as a way of enhancing building performance which results in lower costs for low-income residents.

In talking with staff and other volunteers, we realized that a one-day workshop would be the best way to meet the needs of these professionals. We also benefited from the offer of another Chapter all-star, Chris Liston, of CBRE, who volunteered to provide the workshop. He has done this for his firm and has even created an 8-hour curriculum that he was willing to contribute. Chris' contribution cannot be underestimated: it was tremendous. Thank you Chris!

I was especially excited to see such a broad diversity of practitioners, all very engaged with the course. For some it may have been a bit of a review, for others it was quite a good deep delve into the intricacies of LEED points and minutiae. Chris was a great teacher and kept people's attention. As a bonus for the participants, each will be eligible to attend our ongoing LEED Study Groups in Boston or Worcester (whichever is closer) in order to stay "in tune" with other students.

Thank you to LISC for underwriting the program, including the refreshments for the attendees. We will be following up to help ensure everyone proceeds to prep and take the GA exam.

It was a great day for the LEED Workshop in Boston. I was happy for the connections the Chapter made to the over 40 participants coming from a lot of organizations that are doing what we do, but haven't previously been very close to us. We will continue to reach out to support CDCs and the affordable housing sector across Massachusetts. I should note that there were a few folks who are old familiar faces - from National Grid, from ELP, and the Community Builders to name a few, great to see indeed. Finally, thank you to Mike, Chris and also Betsy Glynn, also of LISC, for pulling this together. See you next time!