Sustainability strategies become the talk to of the town, and especially when the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) holds their annual BuildingEnergy Boston Conference. This conference is designed by and for practitioners in the fields of high-performance building and design, energy efficiency, and renewable energy. It brings more than 1,000 industry leaders and emerging professionals together to learn from and share ideas with each other. Finegold Alexander Senior Associate Lara Pfadt and Architect Kate Theodoridis attended the conference this year and engaged in lively discussions about our built environment. Kate Theodoridis sat down with us to discuss her key takeaways.

- While the new energy codes might seem jarring or extreme, they are still not enough to get to zero carbon emissions by 2050. It’s important for us to remember that these new regulations are just the tip of the iceberg, while we learn how to operate under our new set of parameters in the state of Massachusetts.

- We are faced with making hundreds of decisions every day, and it’s much easier than we think to make those decisions green while also staying within our clients’ budgets.

- We are responsible for educating ourselves and each other about the climate crisis and ways to get to 0 emissions – this was the crux of the NESEA conference this year. People coming together to share different scalable solutions and strategies for accomplishing this goal.

Click here to learn more about the BuildingEnergy Boston Conference!