Understanding Green and Resilient Buildings and Districts (On Demand Seminar)

A pre-recorded streaming video replay of the September 2019 webcast, Understanding Green and Resilient Buildings and Districts.

Increasingly, in the purchase and rental of green buildings, it is necessary to significantly expand the types of due diligence associated with the systems and certifications that make a building “green.” This seminar will discuss the kinds of commitments that may have been made in order to obtain certain certifications, such as LEED, and the ways these programs are evolving. The speaker will also discuss other elements of buildings that must be assessed such as green leases, green roofs and walls, solar roof or remote facility commitments, energy performance contracts and other energy commitments, as well as water, waste, and site commitments.

To maximize the efficiencies of infrastructure and build social equity on the community scale, building owners and community stakeholders are increasingly going “beyond the sidewalk” and participating in district-based systems. Many cities are creating “ecodistricts” in order to increase their resilience, reduce operating costs for businesses and residents, increase community prosperity, and improve economic development. This program will discuss what they are and how they compare to other standards as well as the process of becoming one.

Real estate developers, whether public or private, can no longer ignore the different catastrophic circumstances that may affect their portfolios. Private developers face financing and investor scrutiny over the resilience risks for their properties. Risks may be slow-moving such as sea level rise or sudden like hurricanes. They may be complex like crime or even the impact of driverless cars. Localities also face resilience risks in locating utilities, implementing retreat policies, and even financing infrastructure such as hospitals and parking decks. This program will cover how to manage these risks and utilize resilience assessment tools such as RELi.

There is no longer any room for treating environmental and sustainability issues as a separate expertise from real estate expertise. You can update your understanding of this rapidly changing landscape in this course.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Daniel K. Slone, Vertical Vision PLC / Midlothian

Dan Slone is a partner and co-founder of Vertical Vision with the title of Lawyer and Vision Wallah.  He represents property owners developing innovative new land use strategies for more sustainable developments and open spaces, and he counsels product manufacturers regarding the unique opportunities and impediments facing green products.  Over the last decade Mr. Slone has represented numerous national and international nonprofits such as the U.S. Green Building Council, the World Green Building Council, and EcoDistricts.  He has served on the boards of several nonprofits, including the Congress for the New Urbanism, Bioregional North America (One Planet Communities), and the Resilient Design Institute.  He is cited consistently on lists of “top lawyers” for businesses, and he has won awards for his service for the environment.  He is a frequent author of articles and a national speaker regarding green development. 

In the summer of 2008 Mr. Slone and co-author Doris Goldstein wrote A Legal Guide to Urban and Sustainable Development for Planners, Developers and Architects, published by John Wiley & Sons.  In 2007 ULI published Developing Sustainable Planned Communities, which includes Mr. Slone’s chapter on “Maintaining Sustainability.”  In August 2009 the ABA released Green Building and Sustainable Development: The Practical Legal Guide, which contains a chapter he wrote as well.  Mr. Slone has written chapters on energy and legal arrangements in a book on eco-industrial development and a chapter in Sustainable and Resilient Communities.  One of his recent publications was an essay entitled “Developing Sustainable Visions for Post-Catastrophic Communities,” published in 2015’s Sustainability in the Global City. He is one of the featured experts in Doug Farr’s Sustainable Nation (2019).

Mr. Slone addresses co-product issues for manufacturers, issues in contracts for gray water and storm water harvesting, regulatory barriers, and product claim issues as well as intellectual property and licensing of alternative technology issues.  He assists owners of large tracts with the monetization of environmental services, and helps develop innovative infill, greenfield, and retrofit projects by drafting new codes, obtaining land use and environmental entitlements, drafting governance documents, and negotiating public/private partnership arrangements.