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Please search: Ready & Resilient: Preparedness in the Age of Climate Change

August 21st | 8:30am - 12:30pm 

This program is funded by the SDG&E Energy Innovation Center.

Course Description: 

2018 has been recorded as the second hottest year on record in the U.S. with an upward trend towards increased average global temperatures, the effects of climate change will continue to worsen and intensify. For builder owners and managers, this means assessing and incorporating climate change adaptation strategies, as well as resilience strategies for surviving catastrophic stressors into their near and long-term asset plans and operations. For real estate investors, it means paying attention to natural disasters that create uncertainty for their portfolio and incorporating resilience as a risk management criteria while underwriting properties. This course is eligible for continuing education units from the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI).

Seminar Highlights:

1. Learn about how resilience makes smart business sense, exploring resources and tools used for assessing climate risks to a building asset

2. Understand the key factors to include in a building resilience and climate change policy

3. Learn about tools and processes that link building operations and sustainability with other key departments such as risk management, public health and safety, and human resources, etc.

4. Explore how to integrate a resilience plan at various levels, i.e. building, community, city, regional, and across large scale portfolios

Speakers:

Daniele Horton, LEED Fellow, CEM, MS, AIA, CalBRE 

Founder and President of Verdani Partners

Daniele Horton brings over 20 years of experience in corporate sustainability, real estate and project management. Daniele’s expertise, dedication and passion are central to her leadership of the company. Daniele is an architect, LEED Fellow and a Certified Energy Manager. She is currently leading the Verdani team in sustainability efforts for 11 real estate firms with over 550 million square feet of diversified real estate across 4,250 properties representing over $275 Billion in AUM. Most of Verdani’s clients have ranked among the top ten on GRESB which reflects the success of their sustainability programs. As the head of sustainability for Thomas Properties Group for almost a decade, Daniele led the LEED certification of TPG’s nationwide portfolio of office buildings in house and was ranked as the highest environmental performer on GRESB in the Americas in the Office category (2011, 2012 & 2013). With over 60 speaking engagements under her belt since 2008, and industry leadership with 14 organizations, Daniele was named one of the “Top 10 Most Powerful Women in Sustainability” in 2014.    

Shubha Maheshwari, MS, LEED AP BD+C

Director of Sustainability at Verdani Partners

At Verdani, Shubha serves as Sustainability Director for Colony NorthStar Inc., the 5th largest global real estate investment manager with ~$58 Billion of assets. Before that, she was leading Verdani’s Technical Services team. Her background in Architecture and Master’s degree in Sustainability from Carnegie Mellon University, in addition to a decade of diverse experience, allows her to understand sustainability concepts from the designers’, consultants’, and owner’s perspective. During her time at Adrian Smith Gordon Gill’s’ engineering firm in Chicago, she used energy modeling tools to improve building performance of several international sky-scrapers including Kingdom Tower (upcoming tallest building in the world). She was also the creator of the ‘Encompass tool’, an online calculator for the city of Chicago, that helps building owners and managers quickly evaluate major retrofit opportunities. Shubha then worked as an Energy Engineer at Goby, where she performed energy audits and provided LEED consultation for more than 10 million sq. ft. of commercial space. She has also been involved in several speaking engagements at local and international conferences and universities. Looking forward, Shubha aims to expand Verdani's business internationally to countries like India.