Last week, the City of Boulder's Emily Freeman was awarded the 2023 Green Champion award from the Colorado Green Building Guild for her work in deconstruction and outreach. Emily oversees the success of the City of Boulder’s deconstruction ordinance to keep carbon intensive building materials available for reuse and recycling. Since ordinance implementation, Boulder has diverted 77% of building materials from the landfill. Emily is leading efforts to identify opportunities for improvement, engage with the deconstruction community, and drive progress towards the city’s goals.
The work that Emily is doing to try to connect different communities together as far as starting their deconstruction ordinances is really powerful and important. It's so meaningful that she is engaging the contractors and stakeholders who are actually affected by this ordinance to solicit advice and critiques to make the program better. It's clear that Emily cares about the spirit of green building and deconstruction, and not just the statistics.
Emily was instrumental this year to the deconstruction of the former Boulder Community Health Hospital, which "allowed for reuse and recycling of almost 94% of the hospital’s building materials by weight instead of entombing them in landfills."
Emily's work was also featured in an article written on Grist: "From Portland to San Antonio, cities have begun to mandate that old buildings be taken apart instead of demolished. How do these ordinances work? Emily Freeman, [Recycle Colorado Member], is leading efforts in Boulder to identify opportunities for improvement, engage with the deconstruction community, and drive progress towards the city’s goals."
