Southface Institute: Blog

7 Steps to Better Indoor Air Quality During the COVID-19 Crisis

Building Health

Your home should be your sanctuary—an inviting place where you can rest, rejuvenate and heal from life’s daily stressors. These days, it is where you may be spending most of your waking hours, trying to keep yourself and your loved ones safe and healthy. But creating a haven takes more than investing in trendy decorations and a security system. It also means getting serious about what you allow (and don’t allow) inside your home and saying “no” to harmful pollutants …

Tags: COVID-19, Indoor Air Quality

New Report Summarizes How to Minimize COVID-19 Spread in the Built Environment

Green Building

In early March, researchers published “2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak: A Review of the Current Literature and Built Environment (BE) Considerations to Reduce Transmission,” a paper summarizing how to control COVID-19 and other similar pathogens from spreading throughout the built environment.

Tags: COVID-19

COVID-19 Crisis: 60 Organizations Call on Georgia Governor to Take Immediate Action to Ensure Residents are Protected from Utility Shut-Offs

Blog

ATLANTA – April 1, 2020 – Today, 60 organizations across Georgia called on Governor Brian Kemp to take immediate action pursuant to his authority granted under the state’s emergency management act to ensure utility customers remain connected to essential electric, gas, water, sewer, and telecommunications networks, both during and after the coronavirus emergency. State executive action is needed for several reasons, outlined in a letter from the organizations to Governor Kemp.

Tags: COVID-19

We All Play a Part in Community Health

Building Health
Communities
Events
Green Building

A viral pandemic makes our connections clear, yet the same intertwined network is always part of our community health, though seen (or unseen) in different ways. We hope you find insightful context in this republished summary of our April 2019 Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable panel, featuring local experts speaking on “Healthy Homes, Health Families” and the broad vision of what is needed to improve the health of every member of the community, especially the underserved.

Tags: COVID-19, Indoor Air Quality, SART

Lessons from Sustainability Veterans

Deep listening, selfless systems thinking and resourcefulness are among the list of important attributes to possess for someone who wants to move up in their sustainability career, according to sustainability veterans. These professionals have held leadership roles in the world of corporate sustainability, and they are brainstorming ways and passing along lessons to help the next generation of sustainability leaders be successful.

Tags: Jobs and Careers

Co-Hosted Earth Hour Celebration Goes Virtual!

Blog

ATLANTA, GA – March 20, 2020 – Southface Institute and the Piedmont Park Conservancy are hosting an Earth Hour Virtual Celebration on March 28, 2020, from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. as part of a yearly global appointment when people in over 180 countries turn off their lights for one hour in solidarity for the planet’s future. In a time when we’re being asked to distance ourselves for the sake of community health and safety, Earth Hour gives us an opportunity …

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Social Media Re-imagined: How a Designer Developed a Green Version of Instagram

Green Technology

Phones and communication networks could consume 21% of global energy consumption by 2030. Tom Jarrett, a designer at the U.K. design studio Normally heard this and started researching how to redesign the internet to use less energy. Find out how his version of Instagram limits its energy consumption and carbon footprint.

Tags: Carbon Footprint, Energy Efficiency

Microgrids Ensure a Resilient Future

Policy
Renewable Energy

As natural disasters become more common and destructive, the electric grid will continue to fail and power outages will become a frequent occurrence. Installing microgrids can strengthen the grid at large and prevent power interruptions. Find out about how microgrids distribute energy resources and are able to be both be grid-tied and break from the main grid in times of crisis.

Tags: Microgrid, Natural Disaster

New Date for Southface Institute’s 2020 Greenprints Conference

Blog

Atlanta, GA – March 10, 2020 – Southface Institute is rescheduling its Greenprints Conference, the Southeast’s most respected and thought-provoking forum on sustainability to June 3 – 4 at Georgia State University. Architects, engineers, building professionals and members of the policy and education fields can register now to earn CEUs, learn about the latest developments in urban sustainability and join panel discussions on how regenerative policies and practices can be implemented across every scale of development to improve a healthier …

Tags: Greenprints