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EcoDistricts’ fall Webinar Wednesday series is back from summer break and kicking off with a bang, featuring Kim Vermeer and Walker Wells presenting Greening Affordable Housing: Trends and Innovations on September 29th at 11 AM PST/2 PM EST.

Kim and Walker, nationally recognized leaders in urban sustainability, identified ten best practices and four emerging trends in their recent book, Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing (Island Press, 2020). Use code WELLS at checkout to receive 20% off your purchase of the book. The authors will share their insights into how green strategies can be integrated into affordable housing design, finance, and operations to lower utility bills, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, provide healthier homes, and contribute to regional resilience. The session includes a discussion of the emerging trends related to health, equity, resilience, and looking beyond buildings to neighborhoods and districts.

Presenters:

Walker Wells
he/him
Principal, Raimi + Associates

Mr. Wells is a Principal at Raimi + Associates, a mission-driven urban planning and sustainability consultancy.  He works with cities, neighborhoods, and community development organizations across the country to further green building and sustainable development practices through technical guidance, stakeholder facilitation, and development of innovative polices and programs.
Over the past two decades Walker has helped shape green affordable housing policy, educated hundreds of practitioners, and overseen the certifications of over 2,000 units of green affordable housing. He is a certified urban planner, a LEED Accredited Professional and a Green Rater and a lecturer in Green Urbanism at the Claremont Colleges and the UCLA Urban Planning Program. Mr. Wells is a 2013 Fulbright Fellow with the Royal Institute of Technology Urban Planning Program in Stockholm, a 2012 Pritzker Fellow at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and he served as an advisor to the State of California Tax Credit Allocation Committee

Kim Vermeer
she/her
President & Founder, Urban Habitat Initiatives Inc.

Kimberly Vermeer, LEED AP Homes, is a multi-disciplinary green building and sustainability practitioner, with a special focus in the multifamily affordable housing sector. Through her company, Urban Habitat Initiatives Inc., she offers strategic consulting to community development corporations and other affordable housing developers to advance sustainability and climate resilience. Committed to delivering the benefits of green building to vulnerable populations, Kim works with teams to incorporate energy efficiency and renewable energy, water conservation, healthy housing and climate resilience into their projects. She directs project certification through LEED or Enterprise Green Communities rating systems, as well as the LEED for Neighborhood Development (ND) rating system for larger master-planned projects.

Ms. Vermeer is also an experienced teacher and educator, and was recently a Practitioner Scholar at UMass Boston, co-teaching an environmental science capstone course. She has also developed, planned, and facilitated many professional education and peer learning events.