As Atelier Ten’s planning practice leader, Ben has extensive experience with urban ecology, renewable energy systems and green development assessments. He has directed numerous projects and managed the development of sustainability guidelines for a wide range of master plans on a multitude of sectors including commercial, university, government, and transportation. He has consulted on more than 100 high-performance building and planning projects including one of the first outpatient facilities to achieve LEED for Healthcare certification in New York City and a comprehensive environmental framework for Harvard Business School.   Ben is a proud recipient of the ENR New York’s Top 20 Under 40 Award, which celebrates the excellence of young professionals who represent the “Best-of-the-Best” in the construction and design field. He is a member of the University Development and Innovation Council at Urban Land Institute (ULI) and serves as Co-Chair of the ULI New York Infrastructure Council. His dedication and enthusiasm to sustainable master planning and buildings and his attention to the wellness of people and the built environment have provided a unique, cutting edge perspective to all projects throughout his career.   Ben also teaches core courses on environmental design and building services at Yale School of Architecture. He holds an MA in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and a BA in Environmental Science from Northland College. Ben has also earned the rare LEED Fellow designation.  Show Highlights Be proactive in creating a healthy building center that is flexible with metering and monitoring of these spaces too.  Atelier Ten strives to achieve higher levels of sustainability and connections. Leverage your involvement where you can make the most impact in the climate crisis, personally and professionally. Connecting the dots between all the different disciplines.  Hit your client goals and get as much green into the projects by motivating your design teams to find connections between their specialities.   Further and maybe even less than some of those travel carbon emissions. We still have to do that to a certain extent, but can really optimize that more than we did in the past. Optimize what tools to use that benefit operational emissions from energy and everything from passive techniques in the facade surrounding accounting for embodied carbon. Build resiliency in your projects to tackle climate change and “global weirding of climate trends,”for immediate and long term impact.  Tips to gain experience and fail along the way to carve out your path. “To all of the people still getting involved in this [green building] movement and industry, it's really important because your project might inspire others - that continues it going along and we can always design things better. I think that's the kind of hope and optimism we all bring to the foray. So keep, keep going. It takes us all and there's plenty more work to be done. -Benjamin Shepherd   Show Resource and Information Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES   GBES is excited our membership community is growing. Consider joining our membership community as members are given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions. If you are preparing for an exam, there will be more assurance that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member, and so much more. Go to to learn more about the 4 different levels of access to this one-of-a-kind career-advancing green building community!   If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on .  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the !   Copyright © 2023 GBES