"INTERNATIONAL CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES"
 
 

Moderator: Robert J. Kobet, AIA, LEED Faculty, is President of Sustainaissance International, a multidisciplinary consulting firm with offices in Coconut Grove and Pittsburgh specializing in sustainable design and development and environmental education. Bob has consulted internationally on a variety of projects in eleven countries on five continents ranging from greening a building in the Beijing Olympic Village to consulting for the Cultural Section of the State Department in Argentina.  Bob is also the CEO of the International Eco-Friends Network, an organization founded to enable children around the world to share their experiences through his work in green schools around the world.

"Building Green in the Caribbean"

Current building practices in the Caribbean region present a set of particular challenges in implementing green building practices and applying LEED. Meeting these challenges and capitalizing on opportunities to implement green building practices is a key element in transforming the built environment into a positive environmental, social and economic change accelerator. This presentation will focus on the emerging momentum of green building in Puerto Rico and survey important lessons learned during the first LEED projects, where the design process, the contracts, the risk instruments, and the key market players seek common ground to transform the building market by making sustainable building practices the standard practice.
 

Vincent Pieri is a licensed architect, LEED AP, and the principal of Pieri + Associates Architects, an architecture, project management and green design consultancy based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Pieri + Associates Architects is dedicated to enabling clients, project development teams, and building owners understand and adopt successful eco‐effective strategies and providing creative interdisciplinary technical support from early‐stage integrative design efforts and metrics throughout the design, construction and building life cycle. Vincent is a Charter Board member of the USGBC Caribbean Chapter, and serves as Chapter Vice President and Florida Caribbean Chapter Regional Council Delegate.
     

"Green in Developing Countries: Recent Experiences in the Philippines"

GreenPoint US has recently returned from the Philippines as an invited guest speaker to an audience of over 750 individuals that are interested in “green building practices”. The Philippines is currently developing its own sustainability program, similar in format to USGBC; however, they desire American experts and mentorship in the training and building processes. Our presentation will discuss this market opportunity and showcase one project that we are currently working on for a re-design of a site master plan for what is currently the 2nd largest dam site in Asia. The request was for a highly efficient sustainable facility. This is one example of opportunity in developing markets such as the Philippines, not only for designers but for the green product vendors as well. Our presentation will include photos of the lecture event and sustainable plan concepts for the dam site project.

 

Scott A. Ward, P.E., M.B.A., LEEP AP. Mr. Ward is a Vice-President for Travis Pruitt & Associates and GreenPoint US. He holds degrees in engineering and business and is a Professional Engineer and LEED Accredited Professional. Having been assigned to leadership roles ranging from Project Engineer to Principal-in-Charge, Mr. Ward has spent his career working on a variety of projects that are located both in the US and internationally. In an effort to share this broad background experience, Mr. Ward has been teaching and leading seminars for many years; most recently, on sustainable design issues and in the preparation for the USGBC Professional Exams. To date, Mr. Ward has helped over 1,000 individuals prepare for and pass the USGBC exams.