Browsing: Sustainability

As the concept of circularity becomes increasingly more important in the built environment, the concepts of deconstruction and reuse have met many roadblocks in the commercial sector. The Project Manager’s Guide to Material Reuse in Commercial Buildings highlights how the commercial building sector can shift long held practices to produce more sustainable, circular, and less wasteful construction projects. In this guide, STO BG sustainability manager Michael Orbank contributes construction best practices that are being piloted on jobsites: highlighting material takeback programs, site separation techniques, and reuse pathways for traditionally landfilled products.

With a robust network of over 4,700 construction professionals, the STO Building Group is rich with experts spanning all facets of the construction industry. That means local project teams can readily access that companywide expertise and experience for the benefit of their clients and projects. Here, we highlight just a few of these experts and their areas of specialization.

Columbia University will soon begin construction on New York City’s first all-electric academic research building. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), the 80,700-sf building for the university’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons will provide eight floors of biomedical research and lab facilities as well as symposium and community engagement spaces.

The built environment plays a pivotal role in shaping our wellbeing. Here Jennifer Taranto, vice president of sustainability at STO Building Group and a recently appointed LEED Fellow, discusses what she is seeing—from the influence of workplace design on healthy habits to the evolution of green building motivations over time.

As trends shift within the construction industry, one question is still in the forefront: How do we make our buildings efficient, sustainable, and cost neutral? For this reason, the Passive House Standard has become more prevalent within growing economic markets as well as larger cities pushing to meet demanding carbon reduction goals. Passive House construction significantly contributes to carbon reduction and aligns well with net-zero design ambitions in many ways.