Greenbuild and Emissions

Thank you for the excellent article on the U.S. Green Building Council’s Greenbuild conference (

Vol. 12, No. 12). I would like to take issue, however, with the claim that the conference was free of carbon dioxide (CO

₂) emissions.

The chart accompanying the article shows that this claim was made because USGBC received a donation of over 10 million pounds of CO

₂ credits from DuPont Antron—an amount which more than offset the calculated CO

₂ created by the conference, including emissions resulting from the energy used by attendees to travel over 7.5 million miles to and from the conference site in Pittsburgh.

Receiving donated credits from corporate sponsors does not mean that USGBC and/or conference participants did anything at all to reduce air pollution or “net out” the energy and atmospheric impacts associated with the conference and all that travel. DuPont deserves praise for its conservation efforts, but I don’t see how credit for that can be transferred to USGBC or the conference. This feels like greenwash and is very disappointing, especially coming from USGBC.

If USGBC is serious about mitigating the environmental impacts of its conferences, it should assess a mandatory “green fee” from attendees which would be sufficient in and of itself to finance, incentivize, or leverage new conservation measures equal to the anticipated emissions impact of the conference.

Walter Simpson, CEM

LEED-Accredited Professional

Energy Officer, SUNY Buffalo

Buffalo, New York