Miriam Aylward's picture

NESEA 2021: What We Accomplished Together

by Miriam Aylward

BE Boston 20 RegistrantsBE Boston 21 RegistrantsBE Boston 22 RegistrantsBE NYC 19 RegistrantsBE NYC 20 RegistrantsBE NYC 21 RegistrantsBusiness MemberMember
Wednesday, December 22, 2021

NESEA is an extraordinary community of practice. We share our lessons learned, our successes, and our questions. We challenge each other to reinvent the status quo and include more perspectives, all in service of our shared vision: a built environment in the Northeast that is climate neutral, adaptive and resilient, energy independent, architecturally inspiring, and supportive of connection and community. We’re so proud of what we accomplished together over the last year!

Please consider donating or pledging to help us meet our annual goal of $50,000 (we met our matching donation from Abode Energy Management last week, so we’re now 70% of the way to our goal!). Your contribution will help us continue to offer great programming in 2022.

In 2021, we ran 40 events: 6 in-person and 34 virtual. Some key moments included:

Strategic Planning

We convened a Strategic Planning Working Group, which facilitated 5 stakeholder focus groups with 62 participants and developed a survey to collect feedback from 132 community members. NESEA's Board of Directors is now using these data to draft new strategic priorities to guide our next 5 years.

Virtual Conferences

BuildingEnergy Boston and NYC collectively brought together 1500 practitioners to learn from and network with each other entirely online. We've also made 10 of this year's sessions available at no charge. A huge thank you to our Boston & NYC Content Committees for their guidance and hard work!

Workforce Development

We ran 2 workshops to recruit our community members to our new programs designed to support emerging professionals and students: The 21st Century Green Building Workforce is Hiding in Plain Sight, and Workforce Development & Mentorship Initiatives. More than 150 people participated.

Anti-Racism Workshops

We partnered with AORTA, the Anti-Oppression Resource & Training Alliance, to offer 3 online workshops on creating anti-racist organizations to NESEA Staff, Board Members, and the wider NESEA community. 127 people participated in one or more of these workshops.

Emerging Professionals

We provided scholarships to 15 students and emerging professionals, giving them access to NESEA’s content and community. We also offered all students of NESEA Academic Member institutions complimentary access to BuildingEnergy Boston and NYC 2021.

Virtual Pro Tours

We ran 5 virtual Pro Tours in 2021, featuring projects ranging from the world's tallest infill Passive House in NYC to a campus built for Living Building Challenge certification in Maine. Through a mix of presentation, video, and group breakouts, attendees were able to directly ask questions to content experts and meet new people in our community.

 
To read more about what NESEA has accomplished in the past year, check out our FY21 Annual Report. Thank you for being part of our community, and we look forward to engaging with you in 2022. Please consider donating or pledging to help us meet our goal and continue our important work together.
 

 

Our Mission

NESEA advances sustainability practices in the built environment by cultivating a cross-disciplinary community where practitioners are encouraged to share, collaborate and learn.

Miriam joined NESEA in 2014 after completing a Masters of Business Administration at Antioch University New England. She held the position of Program Director at NESEA before serving as Executive Director from 2019 to 2022. Before joining the NESEA team, she worked as a project manager at the Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech, ran an event planning business in Montana, and led backpacking trips in Wyoming and Utah.

Miriam Aylward's picture
BE Boston 20 RegistrantsBE Boston 21 RegistrantsBE Boston 22 RegistrantsBE NYC 19 RegistrantsBE NYC 20 RegistrantsBE NYC 21 RegistrantsBusiness MemberMember

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