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The Greenbuild Report: It’s Hot!

Penny Bonda -- Interior Design, 11/18/2005 12:00:00 AM

For the faithful it was:

Inspirational
Exuberant
Exhausting
Crowded
all of the above

The answer, of course, is all of the above, and then some. For the first-timers, I can hardly imagine how they digested all that Greenbuild, the US Green Building Council’s annual conference, threw at them. Those of us who have attended past conferences have come to expect great keynotes, diverse educational programs, a busy exhibit hall and over-the-top networking, but this year there was something else going on. I heard a couple of speakers say that the green building movement was at its tipping point, moving at last into the mainstream with coverage everywhere—The Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times to name but a few. Perhaps this accounts for the buzz, or it could be the sheer volume of news. One attendee told me, “I am so excited for the future of green buildings and what I can contribute as an interior designer.”

For ten years USGBC has been the primary force behind the green building movement, causing a rippling effect in the design and construction industries by growing its membership, accrediting professionals and certifying buildings. Today, however, says president Rick Fedrizzi, “USGBC is moving mountains through its ripples” and announced a number of initiatives at Greenbuild’s opening plenary session, all of which involve partnerships with others. Do we see a strategy here?

·USGBC, the Turner Corporation and Haverford College, along with former President Clinton, announced a partnership aimed at transforming the way school buildings across the United States are designed and operated in order to reduce their energy consumption, environmental impact and greenhouse gas emissions.

·Working in partnership with USGBC, McGraw-Hill construction has complied data gathered from the design and construction industries as well as government leaders to publish the Green Building SmartMarket Report 2006. This 40 page printed report addresses the growing trends and opportunities in sustainable design and construction by providing current, relevant intelligence about the green buildings marketplace.

·When USGBC announced that it has partnered with Adobe Systems to automate and streamline the LEED submittal process, an enormous sigh of relief and thanks could be heard throughout the hall. Moving to an online data submittal process will eliminate the bulky paper binders all have come to loathe. Additionally, project teams can now submit LEED data during design and after construction, in order to receive feedback throughout the process.

·127 publicly traded companies have at least one LEED certified building in their portfolios. However, as Fedrizzi put it, “one building is not enough” and announced a program to work with 11 corporations, government agencies and educational institutions to promote a commitment to sustainability as a focused organizational value. The companies, including Toyota, Citigroup, Syracuse and Emory Universities and the U.S. State Department, represent in excess of 300 million square feet of commercial space.

Inspiration was plentiful at Greenbuild 05, beginning with an opening keynote session featuring three environmental icons. Interface CEO, Ray Anderson, used a real-life encounter with a moose to poignantly illustrate the dangers of “intruding on nature’s trail” and challenged the audience to embrace environmental ethics. Not to do so, he said, is “manifestly wrong.” Biomimicry advocate Janine Benyus compared our goals for buildings—to become more life-like by mimicking nature’s solutions—to those of centuries old live oak trees that have survived Katrina and many other hurricanes by adaptation rather than confrontation. Finally, Paul Hawkin, author of Natural Capitalism and The Ecology of Commerce, dramatically called attention to the thousands of global groups that are pragmatically making a difference in the health and stability of the world and concluded, “When nothing is sure everything is possible.”

Certainly such sentiments could well guide the work of the four design charrettes organized at Greenbuild in order to assist the Gulf Coast rebuilding efforts. USGBC provided scholarships to 30 Gulf Coast community leaders to come and be a part of the exercises. Green development expert Bill Browning, who has been tapped to head this effort, said, "At Greenbuild, we will devise a plan to offer real services to those that are located in the hurricane stricken regions. We don't want this to be an academic exercise."

The buzz at the US Green Building Council—it’s anything but business as usual!