Charles J. Kibert Ph.D., P.E. is co-founder and President of the Cross Creek Initiative, a non-profit industry/university joint venture seeking to implement sustainability principles into construction. He holds a B.S. (General Engineering) from the U.S. Military Academy, a M.S. (Nuclear Engineering) from Carnegie-Mellon University, and a Ph.D. (Mechanical Engineering) from the University of South Florida. He is a registered professional engineer in Florida and held mechanical and electrical contracting licenses in Florida. He is a USGBC LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP). He has served as a consultant for numerous green building projects and directed the design and construction of the award winning Rinker Hall, the first LEED gold certified building in Florida which was listed as one of the AIA COTE Committees Top 10 projects. He is a member of the Building Commissioning Association (BCA) and has extensive experience in mechanical and electrical contracting, and design of renewable energy systems.
He was co-chair of the Curriculum and Accreditation Committee of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and helped create the first ever student chapter of the USGBC for which he served as faculty advisor. He was a board member of the Florida Green Building Coalition (FGBC) and is on the board of the Green Building Initiative (GBI). He developed a widely used green building continuing education program for Florida contractors and subcontractors, Build Green and Profit, which has been delivered to overt 5,000 builders and subcontractors. He teaches courses on green building and LEED to building industry professionals in the southeast U.S. He is the author of over 100 articles, papers, and other publications on sustainable development and related issues. He was the lead author of the first edition of the highly successful publication “Greening Federal Facilities” available on the website of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (www.eren.doe.gov). He is the author of Sustainable Construction: Green Building Design and Construction, Second Edition (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 2008), the editor of Reshaping the Built Environment (Island Press, 1999) and lead editor of Construction Ecology (Spon Press, 2002).
Topic for Green Building Focus
Beyond the Cutting Edge of Green Building
More About the Topic
Contemporary green building in the U.S. is centered on the US Green Building Council's LEED rating system that, although not a standard, is an arbiter of what constitutes a green building. The question of what lies beyond current thinking about green building in the U.S. is an important one and should include several key themes that are lacking in LEED and other rating systems. Among the measures that need to be considered to create a 'strong' version of green building compared to today's 'weak' edition, are deconstruction, carbon neutrality, net zero energy, natural systems integration, cradle to cradle, optimized building hydrologic cycles, and high performance passive design, to name but a few. This presentation will address these important issues for their potential integation into the mainstream of green building design.