Christopher Schaffner

Chris Schaffner, PE, LEED Fellow is founder and CEO of The Green Engineer, Inc. a sustainable design consulting firm located in Concord, MA. Chris has 35 years of experience in the design of building systems with a focus on energy efficiency and sustainability. He holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from M.I.T., and is a registered professional engineer in Massachusetts, California and Vermont.

A long time promoter of sustainable design, Chris was a charter member of the US Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED Faculty(TM), training more than 10,000 building industry professionals in the use of the LEED Rating System since 2001. He currently serves on the LEED Energy and Atmosphere Technical Advisory Group (TAG), after recently completing his term on the LEED Steering Committee, where he served as 2019 LSC Chair. He previously served on the USGBC Board of Directors, the USGBC Advisory Council, as Chair of the Energy and Atmosphere TAG and LEED Advisory Committee, and as a member of the Indoor Environmental Quality TAG, among other volunteer roles with the USGBC.

Chris is currently is a part-time Lecturer at Northeastern University in their Sustainable Building Systems program, after several years teaching at the Boston Architectural College. He has also lectured at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, MIT, Brandeis, Duke, WPI and Wentworth.

In 2008, Chris was selected as a member of Massachusetts Governor Patrick’s Zero Net Energy Building Task Force, where he chaired the State Interim Standard working group. He also served as a member of the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust Fund Green Building Advisory Committee and on Boston Mayor Menino’s Green Building Task Force Advisory Committee. He was a founding Board member of the USGBC Massachusetts Chapter.

Chris is a member of ASHRAE, and serves on the committees for ASHRAE Standard 90.1 and Standard 209. He holds ASHRAE “High Performance Building Design Professional”, and a “Building Energy Modeling Professional” certification. He is also a member of the Society of Building Science Educators. He holds the LEED AP designation with BD+C, ID+C, and EB+OM specialties. In addition he is a WELL AP a member of the WELL Faculty, and serves on the WELL Air Advisory.

Over the past 35 years Chris has been involved in a large number of projects incorporating energy efficiency and sustainability. These projects have been across many building types, ranging from high-rise office buildings to small-scale multi-family residential. Many of his projects include energy intensive building types such as research laboratories and hospitals. His portfolio includes more than 220 projects that have achieved LEED Certification.