USGBC of Minnesota 2025 Annual Meeting Forum

Monday, October 6th, 2025

USBGC of Minnesota held their Annual Meeting on October 3, 2025 at the U of M’s McNamara Alumni Center. This USBGC Minnesota Annual Meeting is a celebration of the Minnesota green building community’s 2025 accomplishments and plan for the future.

Sara Goenner Curlee, Pope Design Group’s Sustainability Manager and Senior Project Architect presented at this year’s half day forum, “Reducing Embodied Carbon in Minnesota.

The event included sessions with industry thought leaders sharing their expertise on reducing embodied carbon in the built environment and embodied carbon requirements and methodologies of the newest version of LEED, version 5.

Curlee, along with colleague Ben Bahr, Director of Sustainability at Emanuelson-Podas, Inc. presented “Embodied Carbon in LEED v5”.

USBGC of Minnesota Forum: Decarbonizing the Built Environment

The built environment is responsible for over 40% of carbon emissions globally and nearly one-third of the emissions produced in the U.S. (USGBC’s 2023 report on the State of Decarbonization).  Decarbonizing buildings, targeting reductions in operational, embodied, refrigerants and transportation emissions, is essential to meeting our collective climate goals.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is a non-profit membership organization that promotes sustainable, healthy, and resilient buildings and communities through its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building program.

For more information, see the event page on USBGC’s website.