Achieving community resilience relies on the engagement and action of numerous stakeholders—from commercial and residential building owners to utilities and government leaders—and offering incentives provides a powerful mechanism to encourage tough decision making. At Building Innovation 2016: The National Institute of Building Sciences Fourth Annual Conference & Expo, Achieving a Resilient Future, to be held January 11-15, 2016, in Washington, D.C., participants will examine the multiple incentive packages available to these audiences to advance investment in mitigation and resilience.

Attend the National Facilities Management and Technology Conference and Expo (NFMT), to be held March 22-24 at the Baltimore Convention Center, to keep up with best practices and innovations in facility management (FM) and operations, including energy management, sustainability, building technologies, communication and data infrastructure in the built environment. While there, don’t miss the chance to learn about National Institute of Building Sciences activities and strategies relating to the Facility Maintenance and Operations Committee (FMOC), the buildingSMART alliance® and the Whole Building Design Guide® (WBDG). Institute members can attend NFMT for free!

This past week, the National Institute of Building Sciences Board of Directors voted to sunset the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council (SBIC).

Founded in 1980 as the Passive Solar Industries Council, the independent, non-profit organization that later became the SBIC was a pioneer advocate of the whole building approach to sustainable facilities. The founding members, consisting of major building trade groups, large corporations, small businesses and individual practitioners, understood that energy and resource-efficient design and construction are imperative to a sustainable built environment. The SBIC and its members viewed energy use and sustainability within a larger context of benefits related to productivity and overall efficiency, health and safety, serviceability and other performance factors.

James Timberlake, FAIA, partner from KieranTimberlake, the architecture firm that designed the new U.S. Embassy in London, will serve as keynote speaker of the Plenary Luncheon, to be held 12:00 – 1:30 pm, Wednesday, January 10, during Building Innovation 2018: The National Institute of Building Sciences Sixth Annual Conference and Expo, in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Timberlake will discuss the concepts and integration required to design an embassy that reflects the core values of democracy—transparency, openness and equality—while providing a welcoming, secure, highly sustainable environment.