This is shaping up to be one of the most exciting summers in BuiltCold's history, with major news to share over the next several months. June sets the tone with the announcement of our newest state partner, Minnesota.
01Welcoming Minnesota to BuiltCold
We're excited to share Minnesota will be the next state on BuiltCold's Program Tracker, putting its Buy Clean Buy Fair Minnesota Act into practice.
What makes Minnesota unique is that it's the first state to launch on BuiltCold across both buildings and infrastructure. Buildings are facilitated by the Department of Administration and the University of Minnesota's Center for Sustainable Building Research (CSBR). Infrastructure is led by the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT).
It's early in the work, with plenty still ahead. A full brief is coming soon on how the implementation takes shape across both the vertical and horizontal sectors.
02Policy Designer, open to every agency
Policy Planner is a suite of tools that helps agencies stand up a low-carbon materials program with confidence. Its foundational tool, Policy Designer, is now open to every agency at no cost.
We're doing this to accelerate the adoption of clean construction policies across every level of government, worldwide. Too many agencies and policymakers want to move but lack the budget to design a program efficiently. Making Policy Designer more accessible means governments don't have to start from scratch, which lowers their cost and speeds up their impact.
We put together a short video announcement on LinkedIn, which you can view here.
Interested in learning more? Email partner@builtcold.com and we'll set up a time.
03Data center considerations
Few topics stir as much debate right now as data center construction. We heard it firsthand rolling out Policy Planner to partner agencies, who kept asking a version of the same question: should a clean construction program set guidelines for data center construction, particularly around material selection and use?
That's a call for each jurisdiction, but we feel they should have stronger tooling to reach their own conclusions.
To better serve our government partners, we are exploring a dedicated data center module within Policy Planner, informed by every stakeholder, that offers a more comprehensive view of the policy levers available to them.
Takes less than 2 minutes.
04Out and about
A couple of things worth sharing from recent weeks.
Webinar
The HPD Collaborative (HPDC), Washington's Department of Commerce, and BuiltCold teamed up for a session on Washington's Buy Clean and Buy Fair HPD Precheck, now available to watch on demand.
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Summit
Up in Montréal, we took part in CAGBC's Embodied Carbon Summit, where the theme was meeting the headwinds facing clean construction through collective action. The best part was trading lessons across the border, comparing how programs take shape on each side and what we can learn from one another.
The clean construction community, gathered in Montréal. Photo courtesy of CAGBC and Anthony Pak.