Throughout 2023, The Kendeda Building bustled with activity and lived its mission to inspire change in the building industry. Hundreds of Georgia Tech students, faculty, and staff used it as an educational, meeting, and events hub every week during the academic semesters. Through the course of the year, thousands of visitors were inspired by the space through tours and events. Yet, despite the increase in demand, the building continued to supply, via onsite solar, over 200% of its electricity needs!
A focus area of Georgia Tech's Strategic Plan is Amplify Impact. In 2023, The Kendeda Building helped Georgia Tech advance our Strategic Plan by influencing The New York Climate Exchange (NYCE), a first-of-its-kind collaborative model for developing and demonstrating global climate solutions. Located on Governors Island, the design and operations of NYCE facilities will serve as a model for sustainability and will include a Living Building that is anticipated to be the world’s largest regenerative building. As one of eight NYCE Core Partners, Georgia Tech brings our long history of environmental stewardship to the collaborative. We will amplify impact across the entire NYCE campus and programs.
Georgia Tech and our partners also continued to receive awards for The Kendeda Building:
- American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of Georgia: State Award Winner
- ACEC: Overall Engineering Excellence Grand Prize
While we are honored by these accolades, the best award is seeing The Kendeda Building fulfill its mission to be a catalyst for change in our region and beyond. Below is a review of how Georgia Tech advanced this mission during 2023.
Like The Kendeda Building, NYCE's physical structures are being envisioned to showcase regenerative, accessible, and innovative design, engineering, and operations solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support climate resilience.
Associate Vice President of Sustainability, Jennifer Chirico, accepting the Engineering Excellence Award from ACEC (American Council of Engineering Companies) on March 25, 2023.
The Kendeda Building remained net positive for water and energy during 2023. The building supplied and infiltrated more water than it used. It supplied a whopping 226% of its energy needs via onsite solar, far exceeding the 105% Living Building Challenge requirement.
Key features aiding in performance include foam flush toilets that use less than a tablespoon of water per flush, as well as passive design and a tight air seal that makes the building 80% more energy efficient than a comparable new, conventionally built higher education building in Atlanta.
Seeing is truly believing. Therefore, tours remain our primary form of engaging a diverse group of changemakers. In 2023 approximately 2,850 people took a tour of the building. The building remains a top destination for people seeking to learn about regenerative design, construction, and operation techniques. Interested in seeing for yourself? Sign up here.
The Kendeda Building Team (Georgia Tech staff, architects, builders, engineers, and consultants on the project) spoke at 44 panel discussions, lectures, seminars, and events with an audience of over 3,700 people. Many are available online and have received thousands of additional views.
Nature does not waste. So why do we? To lead by example, events at The Kendeda Building reduce food waste, which results in high-impact diversion of organic, compostable materials from landfills. The vast majority of the events catered by GT Catering adhered to the building's plant-forward, zero-waste menu. Ultimately it is the responsibility of event managers and attendees to ensure that compostable materials (e.g., cutlery, plates, cups, and food scraps) are placed in the compost bins. However, we have provided tools that can dramatically reduce waste, and we have shown our event hosts how to organize and run zero-waste events.
E-Waste Diverted: 1,322 lbs
The Kendeda Building hosts a permanent e-waste drop-off available to the Georgia Tech community. The e-waste recycler we partner with is a metro-Atlanta firm committed to Responsible Recycling (R2) Practices. In 2023, we diverted a total of 1,342 lbs of e-waste from landfills.
Textiles Waste Diverted: 448 lbs
The Kendeda Revolving Closet was launched in 2021 in response to textile waste and to provide students with free clothing. To complement the reuse of clothing, we also brought awareness of proper disposal of clothing by having a recycling bin for clothing and fabrics that can no longer be reused. In 2023 we diverted 448.36 lbs of textiles from the landfill.
A core mission of Georgia Tech’s Kendeda Building is promotion of regenerative building ethos. To this end, we are proud to have assisted academic, faith-based, and corporate organizations across the world to advance their project towards regenerative design, construction, and operation.
In 2023, we continued to assist the Roswell Community Masjid advance its plans to construct the world's first house of worship that is certified as a Living Building. We served on the Planning Committee for The New York Climate Exchange to help design what is anticipated to become the world's largest Living Building. We hosted workshops for organizations seeking to implement regenerative design principles, including Clemson University, Auburn University, and the United States Coast Guard. Given our experience with workforce development through the construction of The Kendeda Building, we served as a member of the ReBuildATL Coalition to create and deliver a workforce training program called Breaking Barriers Through Deconstruction (see video below).
Students are our top priority. Therefore, we continued to have robust engagement with Georgia Tech students, as well as students from other colleges and universities. A few examples are the second micro-grants program and symposium that had ten student-led project presentations, and the second Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse themed tour and workshops.
Students attending the pickling workshop, which was part of the second annual "Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse event at The Kendeda Building.
We engaged with local and national policymakers, including U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Dickens who spoke at a Clean Energy Town Hall hosted at The Kendeda Building, U.S. Representatives Nikema Williams (GA-05) and William Timmons (SC-04), and Georgia Public Service Commissioners.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and others at U.S. Sec. of Energy Jennifer Granholm’s Clean Energy Town Hall at The Kendeda Building.
In April 2023, The Kendeda Living Building hosted Electricity Day. The event drew more than 70 attendees, many of whom were from sister schools in the University System of Georgia. Two sessions discussed approaches that allow for nonprofit organizations to lower electricity costs, which are savings that they can reinvest in their core mission. The first session explained opportunities presented in the Inflation Reduction Act, such as rebates for the purchase of solar systems. Another session covered energy-as-a-service offerings. Presentations, videos and resources from the event are now available on The Kendeda Living Building website. A productive outcome of this event was a commitment by the Georgia State, Kennesaw State, University of Georgia, and Georgia Tech Offices of Sustainability to coordinate their efforts to advance sustainability on their campuses and across the University System of Georgia.