evolveEA » Urban Strategies
sustainability for supermarkets
evolveEA's presence at the 2011 Food Marketing Institute Energy and Store Development conference.
OCT 7 | Marc Mondor
communicating with infographics
A visual lesson on waste management.
NOV 2 | Daniel Klein
the building is complete, now what?
Realizing the value of green operations and corporate culture.
OCT 3 | David Deal
advancing systems and solutions by design
Navigating the Sea of Sustainability Standards (III of III)
Part III of our series, Navigating the Sea of Sustainability Standards, will round out our overview of the complex framework and standard marketplace. While this series may not be fully comprehensive, it presents food for thought concerning leading framework and sustainability evaluation tools across a number of relevant industries and trades. Others continue to compile more complete databases, including very sector specific standards and certifications—one such database can be found at ecolabel index. We prefer to simply illustrate the importance for an organization to evaluate... 
Posted by admin on April 25, 2012
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Transforming our Nation’s Building Stock: The Role of a MPG Rating and Fuel Efficiency Standards
The Era of $1 Gasoline and 7 ¢ kwh Utility Electricity is Over Everywhere we look we’re confronted with the rising costs of energy, whether you’re paying that monthly utility bill, booking a flight, or simply filling up your tank, it’s impossible to ignore the ever increasing cost of energy.  Politically, we’ve seen the latest iteration of the blame game and plenty of associated mud throwing. But in many ways this isn’t anything new—just a bit more global (and thus less ‘controllable’.) What’s more, we’ve watched every President since FDR try to create... 
Posted by David Deal on March 16, 2012
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Roshek Building
The historic Roshek Building, centerpiece of downtown Dubuque, Iowa’s sustainable redevelopment received the US Green Building Council’s highest LEED Platinum Certification. evolveEA coordinated the project team’s approach that combined sustainable development, green building and historic preservation to galvanize redevelopment in historic downtown Dubuque. The project shows how effective public private partnership focused on sustainable redevelopment can dramatically turn around declining small towns and cities… even during a national recession. Over 30 organizations... 
Posted by admin on February 16, 2012
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Navigating the Sea of Sustainability Standards (II of III)
Part one (Places) of our three part series, Navigating the Sea of Sustainability Standards explored the role of standards within an expanding green building market. In summary, certifications and standards have ushered in a new era of green building development, by establishing a set of shared principles, which has led to rapid market uptake. Given the success and widespread expansion of rating systems such as LEED and Energy star into the design, construction and operations industry, we ask next what certifications and standards might best apply to an organization and its... 
Posted by David Deal on January 26, 2012
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Masters of Sustainability Students Engage in A Tale of Two Cities: Sustainable Community Analysis
evolveEA is leading a team of graduate students (MS3) in a semester long inquiry exploring two of our region’s communities as they transition toward a more sustainable and (hopefully) prosperous future. Similar to evolveEA’s approach to Buildings in Operation and benchmarking investigations, evolveEA and the Slippery Rock University team will perform a deep analysis of each community’s demographics and sustainability initiatives; while gauging progress across a number of metrics and indicators. This Community engagement study will explore the potential... 
Posted by admin on January 26, 2012
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Data, Urban Strategies, & Visualization
Strategic Data Use to Stabilize Neighborhoods was a conference I attended December 6-7 in Baltimore. Around 200 were in attendance, all of us connecting with data differently in our work: community leaders, municipal staff from cities across the US, researchers, urban planners, financial and real estate professionals and a healthy variety of folks from other backgrounds. Considering economic trends and the vast technological advances of the past 5-10 years, a significant range of topics within the realm of data and neighborhood stabilization were available for the conference... 
Posted by Daniel Klein on December 29, 2011
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The Scaling of Sustainable Development: Eco-districts
When it comes to making a difference, we’ve all been in a place that gets us feeling like what we are doing isn’t making that big of an impact. Research has shown that when the going gets tough, people change their attitudes, not their behaviors. That is to say: when the barriers to change are seen as too difficult to over come, people are more likely to stop caring as opposed to ramping up their efforts to brake down those obstacles. Yes, this is a bleak realization, but there is hope! While the research tells us that people do give up on things they care about, it also... 
Posted by Cole Williams on November 09, 2011
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evolveEA Receives AIA Pittsburgh’s Honor Award in Urban Design
Praising our Living City Masterplan project, AIA Pittsburgh presented evolveEA with an Urban Design Honor Award at its 2011 Design Pittsburgh Gala. While the masterplan addresses issues that many post-industrial communities are facing, direct community engagement helped us shape the plan in ways that build upon the local culture and uniqueness of the Larimer and Homewood neighborhoods. In collaboration with each community, evolveEA articulated an ecodistrict design method where energy independence, net zero water use, and localized food economies create a new vision for more... 
Posted by admin on October 28, 2011
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Adelaide | Mapping Sustainability
The next frontier in sustainable change is to scale up from individual action to collective actions. Adelaide, South Australia, like many cities around the world, is facing environmental deterioration due to climate change and the misuse of natural resources. evolveEA, working closely with the Office of the Premiere of South Australia, studied the region, collected and analyzed a wide array of data on carbon emissions, energy, water, transport and waste, and created compelling graphic interpretations of the data to mobilize the public through the Thinker-in-Residence outreach... 
Posted by admin on November 02, 2009
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