transparency :: GBIG Insight

The Day After COP21: No-Regret Strategies for Institutional Investors

By Chris Pyke, PhD on 02 Dec 2015 • 2 minute read

Three days into COP21, we can begin to see the broad contours of a global agreement to address the challenges of climate change through reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and preparation for changing climatic conditions. Momentum is building, but details are not yet …

Greenbuild 2014: Strategic Leadership

By Dan Winters on 01 Nov 2014 • 6 minute read

When Greenbuild 2014 arrived in New Orleans, the city known as “The Big Easy” opened its arms to an estimated 20,000 industry leaders eager to showcase the latest in innovative building technologies, products and services. There’s never been a better time to be …

Next Generation of Transparency for Global Real Estate

By Chris Pyke, PhD on 08 Sep 2014 • 3 minute read

Congratulations! Thursday September 4th marked the release of the 2014 GRESB survey. The survey, founded in 2009, benchmarks the portfolio wide sustainability performance of institutional real estate investors around the world. I was fortunate to be able to join a p …

What’s in My Chair? Materials and Health Lessons from the Experts

By David Marcus on 06 Aug 2014 • 2 minute read

Maybe it’s a vestige from grade school, but I’ve always loved watching educational videos. I remember getting a little thrill each time the teacher broke out the VHS player (remember those?) and we got to watch an interesting video about how volcanoes form or “rid …

GBIG Fundamentals: Project Transparency, Market Context, and Timelines

By Mira Panek on 26 Feb 2014 • 4 minute read

GBIG is a global information platform for the real estate industry designed to further accelerate market transformation. It empowers users with relevant market intelligence that highlights companies, products, services and strategies connected to the world’s highest …

Identifying Better Products by Understanding Their Chemistry

By Martin Mulvihill, PhD on 12 Nov 2013 • 3 minute read

Very few people walk into a hardware store and say, “I am looking for a mixture of calcium silicate, magnesium oxide, clay and sand for my driveway, can you tell me how much calcium sulfate to use if I want it to set quickly when I pour it this weekend?” Most peo …

Bunnies and Butterflies: Envisioning the Ideal Future of Building Materials

By Ashley White, PhD on 07 Nov 2013 • 4 minute read

Last month USGBC convened a small group of industry and academic leaders to discuss how to increase information transparency in the building materials supply chain and leverage that transparency to transform the marketplace to remove hazardous ingredients from products. …

VERGE SF: Envisioning the Future of Big Data and Green Building

By Chris Pyke, PhD on 24 Oct 2013 • 4 minute read

So, an engineer, scientist, designer, and an entrepreneur walk into a bar… It could be the beginning of a bad joke, but in San Francisco last week these professionals all agreed on at least one thing: Big Data will transform the design, construction, and operation of …

Envisioning a Perfect Building Material

By Martin Mulvihill, PhD on 14 Oct 2013 • 2 minute read

I am a chemist, not an architect, builder, contractor, or designer. I once built a coat rack out of a 4x4. It wasn’t pretty, but its sheer mass kept it stable in the corner of my college apartment until I moved out 2 years later. I did not build that coat rack arou …