How Do We Build a More Regenerative Southeast?

The June 3-4 Greenprints Conference offers a panorama of the latest in green building science

In a quickly urbanizing world, our cities are increasingly the center of all things—economic development, housing and jobs. Within these cities, our existing buildings are aging fast, and sustainable and high-performance practices for new construction are struggling to proliferate fast enough to keep pace with the degrading building inventory that is producing more than 40% of all carbon emissions, causing direct health problems for many, while contributing to a warming planet for all.

Within and among these buildings that hold residents, businesses, schools and healthcare, there is growing inequity. As real estate prices go up, the challenges of keeping communities knitted together with their rich fabric of cohesion and culture also increase. How do we as a society grow our cities, uplift our neighborhoods and provide opportunities for residents while serving the interests of all stakeholders, including the natural world?

The most promising sustainable economic model to reduce the impact of the built environment is the regenerative economy. In the regenerative economy, actors seek to give back more in social, financial and environmental capital than what was originally put in, creating abundance to meet the needs of the growing wider community while restoring our natural systems.

This change can happen at home, at work or in our communities at large. But it can’t happen without the thought leaders in every community coming together to envision, to plan and to influence others who can make a lasting difference.

Green Building Innovators Gather at Greenprints

On June 3-4, Southface Institute will host its 21st Greenprints Conference at Georgia State University, where architects, engineers, building professionals and members of the policy and education fields can meet trendsetters, learn about the latest developments in urban sustainability and join panel discussions on how regenerative policies and practices can be implemented to create a healthy built environment for all across every scale of development.

Four Subject Tracks Offer a 360-Degree View

The conference features tracks on regenerative practices for homes, workplaces and communities, as well as a technical track and a second day devoted to the Georgia Drawdown initiative. This rich array of panel discussions will provide a panorama of how regenerative policies and practices can positively impact all of society’s sectors, addressing their intersection with policy, planning, design and implementation and discussing the outcomes of real-world applications. Most importantly, the Greenprints curriculum will address the particular challenges and implementation recommendations for the Southeast’s climate and the rapid development of its urban centers including Atlanta.

• At Home: From addressing the policies and strategies to catalyze access to attainable housing in metro Atlanta, to designing homes for more resilience and efficiency, this track features speakers from Atlanta Regional Commission, Atlanta Land Trust, SK Collaborative, Kennesaw State University, Lightroom, LG Squared Inc., Jones Pierce Structures, Tiny House Atlanta and Kronberg Urbanists + Architects.
• At Work: Whether aligning corporate tenants and property managers for corporate sustainability goals, optimizing workplaces for productivity and health, or discussing the impacts of regeneratively designed workplaces, this track includes panelists from WSP, Cherry Street Energy, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Lord Aeck Sargent, Interweave People Place, UL Environment and the Atlanta History Center.
• In Communities: This track highlights the topics of disruptive building codes and zoning to encourage innovation, development without displacement, and discussion of impacts on regeneratively designed communities implemented by municipalities, with speakers from The Zoeckler Firm, Urban Land Institute Atlanta, Chattahoochee Hills, Southface Institute, Park Pride, FCS | The Lupton Center, City of Decatur and Atlanta Regional Commission.
• Technical Track: Each session will include technical professional development from Southface experts on the 2020 Georgia State Minimum Energy Code for both residential and commercial buildings, along with a session about going beyond code for commercial buildings.

Keynote Speaker: K.P. Reddy, Global AEC Authority

K.P. Reddy is the founder of Shadow Ventures, a seed-stage tech investment firm, where Reddy effortlessly combines expertise in advanced technologies with critical, in-the-trenches experience as an entrepreneur. He is a globally recognized authority in AEC environments, AI, robotics and automation, mobile applications and cloud computing. Reddy is the author of two books, BIM for Building Owners and Developers and What You Know About Startups Is Wrong. His passion is in launching game-changing startups, raising substantial investments and leading organizations to meaningful acquisitions and IPO exits.

Cleantech Open Entrepreneur Challenge

Southface has also partnered with Cleantech Open to bring the best and the brightest local talent to the Greenprints 2020. As the world’s largest clean-tech accelerator, Cleantech Open provides entrepreneurs and corporate innovators the resources they need to launch and grow successful clean-tech businesses, and a special session will give stage to four of these nationally known innovators.

• Galina Coada from Uniqa, a Dutch technology that is design-driven and environmentally conscious that offers sustainable, cost-effective, customized wall system solutions for residential and commercial use.
• Elise Strobach from Aeroshield, a firm offering next generation windows in a nano-porous form of glass that is one of the most insulating materials in the world, reaching state-of-the-art thermal performance at a lower cost.
• Talbott Howard from ECT Services and Solutions, Inc., a private Tennessee corporation focused on new R&D and deployment of advanced renewable energy and water innovations that are first-position technologies.
• Marcelo Sandoval of Prosumer Grid, Inc., an award-winning Atlanta clean energy startup company that is developing a novel software platform simulating and optimizing distributed energy resources like PV solar systems.

Carbon Reduction and Climate in Georgia

Leveraging its own 40-plus year work to mitigate the impacts of the built environment, Southface has partnered with Georgia Drawdown on Day Two of the 2020 Greenprints, which will offer building professionals a deeper dive into this important initiative, identifying the most promising solutions for achieving carbon neutrality in the state of Georgia. Speakers from Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University will give an overview of the initiative and guide breakout sessions that discuss opportunities to reduce and reverse carbon emissions in areas like building materials, electricity generation, flood systems, food systems and transportation. The day will be kicked off by the Executive Director of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation, John Lanier, on the importance of Georgia getting to a low carbon future.

Sign Up Today

More information and registration for Greenprints is available at southface.org/greenprints.