2025 Emerald Awards

Pathfinder Award:
Community College of Beaver County Mascaro Construction Institute 

View CCBC partnership impact story video.

High-performance buildings require a trained workforce equipped with specialized skills in green building construction, management, and design. The Mascaro Construction Institute at Community College of Beaver County (CCBC) is preparing the region’s workforce for successful careers, starting with students at the Beaver County and Parkway West Career & Technology Centers and continuing with aspiring and incumbent workers pursuing associate degree programs at CCBC. 

Christopher Leininger, MS Sustainable Systems, PhD., Building Performance and Diagnostics, is Director and Lead Faculty for the Mascaro Construction Technology & Management Program at CCBC. Chris is honored for bringing his knowledge, expertise, and passion for sustainability to the classroom, embedding high-performance education into CCBC’s construction and technology curricula. John C. Mascaro, Jr., President & CEO, Mascaro Construction Company, is honored for his commitment to excellence in the construction industry and for his visionary support in establishing the Mascaro Construction Institute at CCBC. Together, Chris and John are helping to raise a new generation of builders prepared to construct the green buildings of tomorrow.

Enterprise Award: 
Berner International

View Berner’s impact story video.

Manufacturers face unique challenges in achieving sustainability goals across their office and production facilities. Berner International continuously works to apply high-performance standards not only to its office and factory, but also to its products, which create air barriers that deliver sizable energy savings in industrial or commercial settings. 

Berner is on track to achieve net zero energy and is the first of its kind to integrate solar initiatives at its manufacturing facility in New Castle, Lawrence County. Berner has been building air curtains, a sustainable building product, since the 1950s. Their leadership in this space positioned them as a true pioneer and an early advocate for green buildings. 

In 2024, Berner launched its new rooftop solar array, and collaborated with GBA on a Life Cycle Assessment of one of its products to measure environmental impact from raw material extraction through disposal. Berner has been a supporter of GBA since the early 2000s and Miranda Berner, who previously served as a GBA board member, represented the organization regionally and worked with national collaborators, including the US Green Building Council. Berner’s journey towards sustainability includes reducing energy use and waste while integrating clean and renewable energy sources.

Beacon Award: 
Pittsburgh Public Schools

View PPS’s impact story video.

For nearly three decades GBA has partnered with Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) through GBA’s Green & Healthy Schools programs, and the 2030 District program. PPS serves over 19,000 PreK-12 students. PPS is honored for using a whole-school, solutions-based approach to sustainability and environmental stewardship that ensures that the academic, social, and emotional needs of children are met. 

Green and healthy practices across PPS campuses include commitments to energy and water efficiency systems and protocols; investments in green building design concepts; safe drinking water initiatives, including filtered high efficiency water coolers and bottle filling stations; outdoor learning and play spaces; waste management and recycling protocols; green cleaning methods; no idling protocols and the addition of 16 electric school buses; and more. 

Pittsburgh Pioneer Aquatic Therapy Pool, which provides specialized aquatic therapy to meet the needs of medically fragile children in the PPS District, is the most recent example of sustainable design, incorporating LED fixtures, lighting sensors, a white EPDM roof to lessen heat island effects, and a rainwater system to slow runoff. With the capacity to accommodate up to four individuals at a time, it stands as one of only three such facilities in the region—and the only one offered by a public school. 

Vanguard Award: 
Six&Kane

View Six&Kane’s impact story video.

In 2019, West Penn Energy Fund purchased a vacant commercial building in Kane, Pa., a rural community at the gateway to the Allegheny National Forest, and transformed it into a beautiful, high-performance building that is a model of adaptive reuse. 

Renovated and reborn as the first Passive House EnerPHit Plus office building in North America, Six&Kane produces on-site electricity, was built with high-performance building materials, and features abundant fresh air and daylight. The leadership team for this best-in-class project, including Joel Morrison, Fund Administrator, West Penn Energy Fund, and Kane Mayor Brandy Schimp, is honored not only for meeting the challenges to bring this remarkable building to completion, but also for incorporating workforce training to equip builders and contractors with Passive House design skills. 

Luminary Award: 
Tim Smith, Center of Life

View Tim Smith’s Impact story video.

Every green building and every community needs a champion. A graduate of Westinghouse High School, University of Pittsburgh, and the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and a former investment banker, Tim Smith has been Hazelwood’s champion for four decades. 

Tim’s passion for connecting with kids and families led him to create Center of Life, which serves Hazelwood and surrounding communities with rich academic out-of-school programs and outstanding experiences in music and arts. Center of Life has hosted Fulbright scholars from 50 countries and its students took first place at the 2012 Monterey Next Generation Jazz Festival competition, the first in Pittsburgh’s history to do this. 

Planning is underway for Center of Life’s new Community Hub, a transformative facility located on Hazelwood Green and designed to achieve net zero energy and LEED certification. The Hub will host a comprehensive suite of programming and services, including educational, arts, extracurricular, family strengthening, and health offerings. The Hub will also function as a model for sustainable design and operations, and as a tool for community residents to learn about and apply healthy, energy efficient and sustainable practices in their own homes.

Legacy Award: 
Alan Traugott, LEED Fellow BD+C 

View Alan Traugott’s impact story video.

Alan Traugott, LEED Fellow BD+C, is recognized for his long-standing contributions to the field of green building. A founding member of the U.S. Green Building Council, he initiated the first USGBC chapter in New York City and oversaw the development of chapters across the U.S. He is a contributor to USGBC’s LEED rating system; established ASHRAE as the technical reference standard for LEED energy and indoor air quality; served as a member of the Steering Committee for the Green Guidelines for Healthcare (now LEED for Healthcare); and was a developer of the Hugh L. Carey/Battery Park City Authority Residential and Commercial Environmental Building Guidelines (1999). Alan chaired the GBA committee to develop standardized green building performance data and has been involved in numerous green building legislative initiatives for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the City of Pittsburgh.

Alan’s local projects include Phipps Center for Sustainable Landscapes; Energy Innovation Center; The Tower at PNC Plaza; Green Building Alliance office; PNC Bank Branches; overseeing the engineering team to develop a high-performance Net Zero Bank Branch prototype with PNC; and the Cordia Uptown Energy Center plant, which provides steam, chilled water, and emergency power to UPMC Mercy Hospital and Pavilion. 

Prior to moving to Pittsburgh in 2003, Alan was a principal at a global engineering firm in New York City, engaged in projects such as NRDC headquarters (1986) and Audubon Society Headquarters (1990) green building projects, which helped to create NYC utility rebates for energy efficient lighting and building systems.  His resume also includes the World Financial Center NYC; Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Canary Wharf in London; Bond Tower in Sydney Australia; Banco República Headquarters in Buenos Aires, Argentina; State of Illinois Center, Chicago; New York Times headquarters NYC; Merrill Lynch Headquarters NYC; and Long Island Jewish Hospital CHP plant in NYC.  

He was an advisor to Battery Park City Authority in the development of the Solaire, the first green high rise residential building in the US, which was built in accordance with the HLC/BPCA Environmental Guidelines and was awarded the first LEED® Gold Certification for a residential high-rise building.  Alan was an advisor for The New York State Green Building Tax Credit Bill, advisor and contributor for the NYC High Performance Building Design Guidelines (1994), and Department of Energy’s Sustainable Building Technical Manual (1994).  Alan is an ASHRAE Member and AIA Professional Affiliate and was on the Feasibility Study team for the AIA’s Greening of the White House and for the Department of Defense Environmental Showcase at the Pentagon.