BuildingEnergy 16, this year’s edition of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association’s annual conference on high-performance building, is scheduled to take place March 8 through 10 at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston.

NESEA expects some 3,500 sustainable building pros from 32 states and eight countries to attend the conference, a highlight on the association’s annual calendar and a draw for builders and designers from all over the Northeast. The trade show will include some 150 exhibitors with products and services used in high-performance building.

The three-day program starts with a day of pre-conference workshops on Tuesday, March 8. Speakers will touch on topics that include spray polyurethane foam, affordable Passive House construction, the new LEED program for building certification, and cradle-to-grave life cycle impacts of building.

On Wednesday, March 9, opening plenary speakers are Barun Singh, Michelle Addington, and John Farrell, who will address “Key Challenges and Opportunities of Our Times.” Educational sessions and workshops that follow later on Wednesday and Thursday will cover dozens of building topics in both new construction and renovation, with a long list of speakers who will be familiar to the sustainable building community.

Organizers said that the offerings include a couple of panels that step back from the details to look at the big picture. They include:

• How We Sleep at Night: Energy Metrics and Decision Making in Residential Design with Ben Southworth, Marc Rosenbaum, Rachel Wagner, and David White.
• Retrofit Like You Give a Shit: Inspiring Homeowners to Care About Efficiency with Dan Kolbert, Paul Eldrenkamp, Jamie Wolf, Heather Thompson, and Joe Carry.

The conference also welcomes back consultant Michael Blasnik after an absence of a few years. He’ll discuss “Home Performance Insights from Big Data at NEST” on March 10 and look into how data gathered from connected devices like the Nest thermostat can be used to understand how houses really work.

NESEA offers several pricing alternatives, including full- and half-day workshop passes, conference plus trade show passes, and trade show-only passes. There are discounts for students and emerging professionals. NESEA members get a discount.

Details on travel and accommodations are available at the conference website.