On May 15, more than 450 professionals, advocates, students, and community leaders gathered at Temple University for Green Building United’s 16th Annual Sustainability Symposium—our largest annual convening dedicated to advancing healthier, more resilient, and climate-friendly buildings and communities.
The program features a day filled with thought-provoking sessions, exclusive campus and building tours, and networking opportunities that sparked new connections and partnerships. This year’s Symposium showcased the power of coming together across disciplines to move sustainability forward in our region.
A Day of Learning and Professional Development
This year’s program featured 24 educational sessions and four immersive tours exploring some of the most pressing issues shaping the built environment today. Attendees engaged with topics including affordable housing preservation, building performance standards, decarbonization, resilience planning, workforce development, community-led sustainability, and circular construction practices.
Sessions brought together architects, engineers, developers, nonprofit leaders, municipal staff, higher education institutions, sustainability consultants, and community advocates to share practical, replicable solutions grounded in real-world experience and stories. Together, we learned about the latest evolutions in best practices (including more on LEED v.5 as well as Green Building United members’ ground-breaking work to integrate the Phius REVIVE and Living Future CORE programs), lessons learned from building performance standards and building energy hubs in neighboring jurisdictions, and were encouraged by many sessions to move conversations out of sustainability silos and into partnership with other partners and disciplines.
The Symposium also continued to serve as a valuable professional development opportunity for attendees pursuing continuing education credits. All sessions were eligible for AIA Learning Units and GBCI Continuing Education credits, with select sessions also offering WELL, PHIUS, and LA CES credits.
Throughout the day, attendees explored how sustainability intersects with public health, affordability, resilience, climate justice, and community investment. This intersection reinforces the importance of collaboration across sectors with a shared vision for a sustainable region.
Experiencing Sustainability in Action
One of the defining features of the Sustainability Symposium continues to be the opportunity to experience projects firsthand through guided tours.
This year’s four tours offered attendees an inside look at innovative and transformative projects across Temple’s campus and beyond, including:
- The Temple Tiny House, a student-designed and volunteer maintained Living Building Challenge-certified project
- Verdant Temple, a campus-wide walking tour highlighting Temple University’s evolving landscape and sustainability initiatives
- The transformation of Paley Hall into a modern, wellness-focused academic space (featured as a hard-hat tour in 2025)
- Charles Library, an internationally recognized learning hub redefining the possibilities for academic libraries
These tours gave participants the chance to see sustainable design principles in practice while hearing directly from the expert teams responsible for planning, designing, and implementing the projects. This year every tour reached capacity, reflecting the desire for experiential learning from Symposium attendees.
Building Community and Connections
Beyond the sessions themselves, the Symposium left space for meaningful networking and relationship-building throughout the day.
The Expo Hall was filled with conversation over breakfast and lunch with discussions carrying on to the closing happy hour at Mitten Hall. Attendees connected across industries, organizations, and experience levels. The energy throughout the event reflected the growing momentum behind equitable climate action and sustainable building practices in our region, as well as the importance for connection and hope in a turbulent moment for our practice.
We are deeply grateful to the sponsors, speakers, tour hosts, volunteers, selection committee members, and attendees who made this year’s event possible as well as Temple University’s Office of Sustainability and Re:Dish for helping us make the event zero-waste. It is our collective expertise, collaboration, and commitment that continues to shape a stronger and more resilient built environment for all.
Looking Ahead: Celebrating 25 Years of Impact
As we reflect on this year’s Symposium, we are also looking ahead to an important milestone for Green Building United.
In November 2001, the Delaware Valley Green Building Council was founded with a vision for a healthier, more sustainable built environment. Twenty-five years later, that work continues through Green Building United’s education, advocacy, and strategic initiatives across the region.
This fall, we will celebrate this milestone anniversary at our annual Groundbreaker Awards.
Save the date: November 19, 2026.
We look forward to celebrating 25 years of impact from Green Building United as well as the people, partnerships, and the innovative projects that continue to move this work forward. If you have any GBU memories, photos, anecdotes, or stories you’d like to share to help us celebrate, submit your memories here!