Buildings Program

Enabling the transition to smarter, healthier, net-zero buildings, campuses and factories.

To view the full VERGE 22 program click here.

The VERGE 22 Buildings Program explores the solutions enabling commercial and industrial facilities to achieve net-zero emissions and tackle embodied carbon while becoming smarter, more efficient and healthier places. Participants will learn about the technologies as well as the financing models and human resource practices contributing to next-gen buildings, campuses and factories.

Tracks:

Smart Systems
Decarbonized Buildings - sponsored by
Healthy Space
Climate Resiliency - sponsored by

Participants include professionals in:

Facility managers
Real estate professionals
Energy managers
Procurement professionals
Human resources leaders
Financiers
Construction managers

View Buildings Program

“ The built environment has major impacts on human wellbeing and the climate, contributing nearly 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. In this challenge lies an amazing opportunity to leverage buildings to unlock value for the communities and organizations they serve. The all-new Buildings Program at VERGE 22 creates a shared space for the people creating emerging technologies, implementing bold policies and catalyzing multi-sector partnerships that are transforming the future of buildings. ”

Isaac Knipfing

Buildings Analyst

GreenBiz Group

Featured Speakers & Advisors

Sara Neff

Lendlease Americas

Robert Niven

CarbonCure Technologies

Jessica Granderson

White House Council on Environmental Quality, Executive Office of the President

Katie Ross

Microsoft

Claire Bonham-Carter

AECOM

Cynthia Curtis

JLL

Lindsay Baker

International Living Future Institute

Amanda Von Almen

Salesforce

Scott Tew

Trane Technologies

Doug Davenport

Prospect Silicon Valley

Building Program Highlights

Here is a sampling of sessions from the Buildings Program.

Training the Facilities Workforce of the Future

Breakout

Facilities management (FM), a $1.2 trillion global industry, is undergoing a drastic demographic shift, as over 50 percent of facilities managers will retire within the next decade. How will building owners and operators attract a new generation of facilities managers to occupy the vacant positions? Furthermore, how will incoming staff balance the diverging needs of modern and legacy technology systems in their building portfolios?

The built environment is changing rapidly due to tenants' sustainability, public health and occupancy demands. Fortunately, public, private and nonprofit innovators are rising to this challenge by experimenting with new models to attract and train FM talent for the demands of buildings of the future.

Join us to explore challenges and opportunities in attracting and training FM staff to take buildings into the next decade of sustainable operations and how organizations can get ahead of their attrition struggles.

Anatomy of a Healthy Building: Trends to Follow

Breakout

What makes a building healthy, and how do we measure its benefits? Americans spend over 90 percent of their time indoors on average, and as the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated, the built environment has major effects on our physical and mental health. Moreover, healthy buildings can provide major financial benefits to owners.

Attendees will discuss the importance of Indoor Air Quality for the well-being and productivity of building occupants, and how this can be continuously monitored and improved to help deliver a healthier environment. Explore how simple design tweaks can drastically improve the health and performance of building occupants.

The Future of Advanced Construction: Lightning Rounds

Breakout

Building construction has historically been a slow and dirty process. What innovations will allow us to leapfrog the entrenched processes and technologies we currently use to construct buildings? Speakers in this session will showcase promising new construction materials and processes that offer novel ways to reduce waste, embodied carbon emissions and construction timelines.

Attendees will leave with an understanding of the applications, strengths and weaknesses of different building materials. Practitioners will leave better equipped to see around corners when communicating the value of these materials to decision-makers in their organizations.

The Magic of Digital Twins

Breakout

The ability to create a multidimensional digital model of a building and its components is revolutionizing how buildings are operated, breathing life into analog design. Along the way, these models are unlocking new levels of operational efficiency, including energy use and occupant well-being, making buildings more adaptive, resilient and comfortable. While the benefits of digital twins are undeniable, they are uncommon in the built environment.

This session will explore the how and why of digital twins, opportunities to apply them in the context of your own buildings.

Speakers will showcase demos of real-world digital twins, and share the story of how they came to fruition and what impacts they are currently having.

How Policy is Shaping the Built Environment

Breakout

Ambitious policies at all levels of government are crucial levers in catalyzing change in the built environment. However, each jurisdiction faces unique regulatory, climate, technical and workforce challenges. What’s more, ensuring a just and equitable transition to decarbonized, healthy buildings requires frequent and deep collaboration between utilities, nonprofits, government agencies and the private sector.

The Inflation Reduction Act could drive retrofits, upgrades and clean technology installations on top of the projects being driven by policies at the local and state levels in hundreds of millions of square feet of commercial real estate. However, deriving the full intended benefits of these incentives will require careful alignment and coordination.

Attendees will leave this cross-sector panel with a better understanding of how to navigate this exciting new policy environment.

Reports to Results: ESG for Commercial Real Estate

Breakout

Driven by regulatory and stakeholder pressures, the commercial real estate sector is increasingly devoting resources to ESG reporting. Unfortunately, making sense of the jargon, myriad reporting frameworks, and hype surrounding the topic can make it challenging for practitioners to understand how to make sense of ESG and go beyond “checking the box.”

This session will help real estate professionals manage all of the steps of ESG reporting including collection, managing implementation, and reporting of data. Gain a deeper understanding of each component of “ESG,” as well as how regulations are impacting the real estate investment market. Attendees will gain a better understanding of how their current sustainability efforts fit into ESG reporting and where they may need to turn their attention next.

Revisiting the Retrofit: Fresh Approaches to a Classic Measure

Breakout

In 2040, two-thirds of buildings will be ones that are in operation today. So how can we overcome the inconveniences and headaches associated with energy retrofits to ensure our building stock is operating more efficiently in 2040 than it is now?

Retrofitting buildings has historically been expensive and time-consuming — a process with a reputation for being fraught with headaches, hiccups and red tape. However, energy efficiency technology bundles are being employed in existing buildings to fit retrofit projects into regularly scheduled real estate life cycle events, saving time and capital.

In this deep dive on retrofits, attendees will explore the most common adaptive reuse events in commercial real estate events and hear about real-world case studies of their implementation. Attendees will leave with a new perspective on retrofit projects and will have a well-developed sense of the optimal time to propose and implement an energy retrofit.