What We Took Away from Greenbuild 2025

Resilience as a mindset. Circularity is the new “it” sustainability topic. Global Rating System Alignment around the CMF, and Toolkits as the accelerator.

Greenbuild 2025 wasn’t about adding complexity—it was about cutting through it. Across the Expo floor, sessions, and side-conversations, a clear pattern emerged: the industry is rallying around shared frameworks, smarter tools, and a collective urgency to move from ambition to alignment.

Here’s what stood out to us:

1. Resilience Is a Mindset.

Resilience isn’t just about designing stronger buildings—it’s about building stronger systems, partnerships, and mindsets. This year, “resilience” took center stage, reminding us that sustainability isn’t static. It’s adaptive, iterative, and deeply human.

2. Circularity Is Having Its Moment. 

Material take-back. Deconstruction. Designing for reuse. Circularity showed up everywhere—not as a niche topic, but as a core strategy. When it comes to sustainability demand, circularity is the next frontier.

3. Data Is Driving the Business Case. 

From LEED to high-performance portfolios, the business case for sustainable design has never been clearer. The data is catching up to what many of us have long believed: sustainable buildings deliver measurable value—financially, operationally, and reputationally. Building products have a role to play to accelerate value to customers leveraging a digital strategy to ultimately obtain ROI data for their sustainability investments.

4. The Common Materials Framework Becomes the Connector.

One of the biggest moments of the week: the Common Materials Framework (CMF) moving from concept to implementation c/o of the newly released CMF Implementation Toolkit. It’s quickly becoming the connective tissue between rating systems, certifications, and data platforms—and the momentum is real. This Toolkit will help accelerate business value for all stakeholders across the value chain.

5. AI Is Officially in the Room.

The conversation has shifted from if AI belongs in sustainability to how we use it responsibly. How can it support better data accuracy, faster workflows, and smarter collaboration across the value chain? The potential is undeniable—the challenge is staying intentional.

6. Alignment Is Everything.

From the global rating system alignment (LEED, BREEAM, Green Star, LBC, WELL—yep, all of them!) to the growing integration of MEP and data center teams into sustainability conversations, alignment is proving to be our greatest accelerator.

7. Collaboration Is Still the Multiplier.

Whether it’s manufacturers and verifiers, designers and data platforms, or public and private sectors—the magic happens when we work from the same playbook. Collaboration remains our industry’s greatest source of power.

8. Multi-Attribute Impact is the New Alignment Point. 

The industry is moving beyond single-issue claims and rallying around multi-attribute impact. Manufacturers, designers, and rating systems are all aligning to frameworks that holistically evaluate human health, carbon, circularity, and social factors, rather than treating them as separate checkboxes.

9. MEP Fence Sitters Get the Greenlight from Data Centers.

The surge in data-center development, paired with massive energy and cooling demands, is forcing MEP teams to rapidly mature their sustainability approach. What has been a slow, cautious shift toward integrating sustainability and carbon data is now accelerating because data center owners and operators require unprecedented resilience, efficiency, and transparency. The pressure is on, and MEP is officially on the table.

Greenbuild 2025 left us energized—and validated. The focus has officially shifted from talking about transformation to building the infrastructure, data, and shared systems to make it real.

Parallel was proud to be part of the conversation, supporting and co-creating many of these programs and initiatives designed to scale sustainable material demand and help manufacturers capture ROI from their sustainabilty investments.

Taylor Friehl

Director of Marketing & Creative Strategy

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We’re here to walk alongside you as partners to ensure you’re on your best path for sustainable impact reduction and business value. To learn more about how we can support you on your sustainability journey, say hello@workinparallel.com.