Athena’s advocacy work includes education for design practitioners, participation on sustainability codes and standards committees, support to green building rating programs, and advice for policy-makers.
Membership funds and grants enable Athena to play this leadership role in advancing the use of science-based footprinting in sustainable design. Athena’s activities include:
Codes, standards and rating programs
Athena Past President Wayne Trusty is involved with some of the key efforts in North American green building standardization and regulation. His past and current committee work includes:
- Voting member of ASTM E60 sustainability committee
- Chair of ASTM working group for a whole-building LCA standard
- Member of IGCC materials working group
- Member of the USGBC Materials and Resources Technical Advisory Group
- Member of the core committee for LEED 2.2 development
- CaGBC Board of Directors
- CaGBC metrics committee
- Advisor to CalGreen developers
- Voting member of original NAHB residential guidelines (now ICC 700)
- GBI Board of Directors
- Chair, ANSI committee to develop Green Globes as a standard
LCA awareness and education
Athena is the premier source for information on LCA in the built environment, for conferences, journal articles, webinars and training. It provides a clear window into the science-based world of LCA for a general construction audience, addressing the value of LCA, principles and practices of LCA, and interpretation of results. In addition, Athena staff offer fee-for-service customized LCA education for product manufacturers, construction-sector professionals and building owners.
Athena software training
Athena experts can be engaged for hands-on training with the Impact Estimator for Buildings and the EcoCalculator for Assemblies.
International LCA Initiatives
Athena is a valued contributor to international LCA activities, playing an active role in the Sustainable Building Challenge, a continuation of the Green Building Challenge that since 1996 has engaged over 75 teams in project assessments of high performance buildings. Athena has also functioned as secretariat for the SETAC/UNEP Life Cycle Initiative, an International Life Cycle Partnership designed to enable users around the world to put life cycle thinking into effective practice. In addition, Athena has an ongoing relationship with the International Initiative for Sustainable Built Environment (iiSBE), a non-profit organization whose overall aim is to accelerate the movement towards a global sustainable built environment.
