U.S. Green Building Council

Willy Franzen — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:07:08 +0000

I live across the street from what was formerly the world’s largest building—the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. It’s massive at 4,000,000 square feet, which is extremely impressive considering it was opened in 1930. What’s even more impressive is that, with some debate, the Merchandise Mart is now the world’s largest “green” building. It is LEED-EB Silver certified, and apparently the retrofitting that they did to achieve this certification has cut utility bills by 10%. Upgrading one of the largest buildings in the world to be more energy efficient and environment-friendly is a daunting task, luckily the LEED Certification process provided the owners of the Merchandise Mart with guidelines to work to. The organization behind LEED is the U.S. Green Building Council, which is based in Washington, DC. They are a non-profit that is “committed to a prosperous and sustainable future for our nation through cost-efficient and energy-saving green buildings.”

LEEDing You to a New Career

We’ve heard a lot about green jobs over the past few years, yet we haven’t seen the growth to back up the talk. Although the U.S. Green Building Council is a non-profit that probably won’t grow as quickly as a for-profit focused on the $60 billion green building industry, they do have some pretty cool job offerings. Here are some stats that explain why the USBGC is doing what they do:

Buildings in the United States are responsible for 39% of CO2 emissions, 40% of energy consumption, 13% water consumption and 15% of GDP per year, making green building a source of significant economic and environmental opportunity. Greater building efficiency can meet 85% of future U.S. demand for energy, and a national commitment to green building has the potential to generate 2.5 million American jobs.

If you like where the USGBC is going, then you should check out their Jobs page. They have quite a few positions posted, and a number of them appear suitable for new grads. These include Associate – Chapter Leadership Development, Computer Systems Analyst, Education Review Associate, Executive Administrative Assistant, and LEED Technical Customer Service Associate. To apply for any of these positions you can send your “résumé and letter of interest with salary requirements and title of position applying for to jobs@usgbc.org.”

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you know about the U.S. Green Building Council?

One Day, One Job » greene

U.S. Green Building Council

LEEDing You to a New Career