Sustainability expert Judith Heerwagen from the office of Federal High Performance Green Buildings at the US General Services Administration will be the morning keynote speaker at the Electric League of the Pacific Northwest’s 2013 Powerful Business Energy Conference to be held May 23 at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue.
Judith Heerwagen
Sustainability expert Judith Heerwagen from the office of Federal High Performance Green Buildings at the US General Services Administration will be the morning keynote speaker at the Electric League of the Pacific Northwest’s 2013 Powerful Business Energy Conference to be held May 23 at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue.
Seattle City Light Superintendent Jorge Carrasco will welcome participants and introduce Heerwagen for her presentation, “Changing Energy Behaviors: The Physical System Meets the Social System.”
Recent research shows that occupant and organizational behavior can dramatically influence the energy performance in buildings – even in buildings that meet the highest levels of green building certification. This talk will provide an overview of these research findings and discuss current approaches to changing behavior to align it more effectively with energy.
Heerwagen is an environmental psychologist whose work focuses on the links between buildings and human behavior. Prior to joining the General Services Administration in 2010, she was a staff scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and had her own research and consulting business for 10 years.
Heerwagen is co-editor of Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life which won the 2008 Publishers Award in architecture and urban planning. She has conducted post occupancy evaluations of more than a dozen sustainable buildings with a focus on occupant experience and organizational outcomes. She has published widely in both scholarly and professional journals and has delivered invited talks and keynotes at national and international conferences. In 2005 she was named an “environmental champion” by EnvironDesign Magazine.
Seattle City Light is one of the lead sponsors for the Powerful Business Energy Conference. The conference’s goal is to provide the business community with the information necessary to find partnerships and solutions that will reduce their energy consumption, save them money, improve the comfort of their buildings and enhance the productivity of their facilities.
Discussions on Making the Case for Energy Efficiency, Technology, Building Systems and Sustainability are designed for commercial building owners and managers, building operations and enginering staff, architects, consulting engineers, property developers andothers interested in cost-effective opportunities in commercial energy efficiency.
The afternoon keynote address will be delivered by Dana Schneider, vice president of sustainability services for Jones Lang LaSalle. She led the implementation of an energy management and sustainability program at the Empire State Building with an anticipated annual energy savings of $4.4 million.
Learn more or register on the conference event site.