Story

In 1998, The Green Roundtable / NEXUS’s founder—addressing the inefficiency and dysfunction in the way buildings were designed and built— originated a series of “roundtables” to discuss the issues and devise potential solutions.  Initially, a small group met during lunch hour to discuss ways to integrate sustainable design into their mainstream practice.  The group grew rapidly, drawing in other like-minded people who were pursuing parallel efforts. 

Over the course of a year, it became clear that there was a vacuum in this region that had to be filled, a demand for dialogue, expertise, and education. NEXUS evolved from this group, and has stepped in to fill this vacuum by providing a forum for people from multiple disciplines to engage in proactive, effective dialogue around design and construction issues. The original lunch group grew to 450 participants in the first year, hit 3,000 after just three years, and is now 16,000. Participants come from every sector related to design, construction and post occupancy of the built environment. NEXUS addresses the "disconnects" by coordinating the activities of all of the relevant stakeholders, and leveraging their independent expertise and activities into a more unified, coherent big picture to achieve maximum impact.

What started as a few people getting together at lunch to share resources and lessons learned, evolved into an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to mainstreaming sustainable design with a systematic approach implemented through an array of programs: the NEXUS Green Building Resource Center (opened to the public in February 2007), a robust consulting & training organization, and programs such as Sustainable Performance certification, Net Zero Energy Institute, Green Product Association (GPA), and many more.

GRT and USGBC

For over eight years, The Green Roundtable / NEXUS has been the Massachusetts Affiliate of the US Green Building Council (USGBC). The two organizations have aligned mission statements around advancing green building principles and practices, and in addition, carry out similar green building and sustainable design educational programming. Over the past two years as an Affiliate, NEXUS has worked closely with a group of local leaders, members and volunteers of the USGBC MA Membership Forum (now the MA Chapter of USGBC) to engage and grow the larger green building community in Massachusetts.

Although there is now the presence of a USGBC Chapter in Massachusetts whose role it is to engage members, host USGBC events and provide leadership opportunities for the sustainable building community, NEXUS will still be closely tied to USGBC as an Affiliate organization. NEXUS will continue to offer all of their current programs (LEED AP workshops, NEXUS Green Building Resource Center, green technical assistance, policy summits and more) and will still maintain a close connection with USGBC National as well as the USGBC Chapter in Massachusetts.