ANTWI A. AKOM

Professor at San Francisco State University and co-founder of (I-SEEED)

I recently gave a TEDx talk on Mastering TAO. Not TAOism in terms of Eastern philosophy—although, in some ways, yin and yang are a part of it—but in this case TAO stands for Turning Adversity into Opportunity. I call the people, places, and policies that have mastered the art of Turning Adversity into Opportunity “Hope Dealers.”

Hope Dealers ask questions like: What kinds of public and private investments in green infrastructure can help us innovate our way out of poverty? How are our ghettos, slums, and barrios hotbeds of green innovation? What is the role of so-called “slum dwellers” in the future of green cities and in building the green economy? And how can we change the negative narrative of “slum dwellers” so that they can be seen for who and what they are—everyday people and community members—not slums, but neighborhoods with families living, working, playing, praying, loving, living, eating, drinking, walking, biking, and taking their kids to and from school.

These are important questions because the fastest-growing cities are not skyscraper cities like Dubai, Singapore, Shanghai—places that try to make poverty invisible in order to attract investment—but rather informal settlements, ghettos and slums, where poor people typically face inadequate housing structures, enormous environmental health hazards, land use rights, safety threats, vulnerability, and social exclusion.

An estimated one billion people live in slums all over the world. These communities are often beyond city planning and regulation, and account for more than 30 percent of the developing world’s urban population. This means 1 in 7 people on the planet are experiencing spatial—and to a certain extent 20^th-century remnants of racial apartheid.   The most formidable challenge of the 21^st-century city, then—in the face of massive population growth, climate change, and rapid urbanization—is extending public–private partnerships and green infrastructure solutions—clean energy, water, sanitation, parks, protected pathways, greenways, busways, health services, LEED, and especially LEED for Neighborhood Development— to these informal settlements.

Mastering TAO and understanding how slums and ghettos can be transformed into hot,beds of green innovation are critical for the U.S. Green Building Council, EcoDistricts, Urban Land Institute, Energy Star, and others who want to grow and fulfill their promise of “democratizing development” (without displacement) and “scaling sustainability.” Because if these organizations want to remain green global leaders, they will have to make their tools, products, and resources more culturally and community responsive to the fastest-growing demographics and the fastest-growing cities that are becoming the world’s major commercial centers of the 21st century.  In other words, “Greening the Ghetto” as my friend and MacArthur Genius Award winner Majora Carter’s inspiring call to action suggested many years ago—is the next frontier.

If Greening the Ghetto 2.0 is the next frontier it is because the challenges of rapid urbanization and advances in technology offer new opportunities for communities to engage with planning and development from the ground up. The necessity to innovate our way out of poverty is clear. In slums and ghettos innovation is a lifeline for these communities, not about business opportunities or gentrifying physical spaces.It’s life and death. It’s about moving from surviving to thriving. The shift from viewing “folks in the ‘hood” as a billion problems to the power of a billion potential solutions is the first step in revolutionizing community transformation.  Rather than finding ways to further exclude and make these “popup” communities more invisible, mastering TAO requires creative engagement, inclusion, and shared respect.

That’s what happened in Medellin, Colombia, which has to be one of the most remarkable green urban redemption projects in modern history.  Just 20 years ago the name Medellin, ruled by the infamous cocaine drug lord Pablo Escobar, was synonymous with “murder capital of the world.”  Today, Medellin is internationally recognized for its carbon reduction, stunning botanical gardens, library, parks, and innovative public transportation systems. What made all of this possible? The municipal government now spends 85 percent of its $2.2 billion on infrastructure and services for the poorest parts of the city. Strong government financial and policy commitment has spurred investment and public–private partnerships to such an extent that Medellin was awarded the Most Innovative City in the World by ULI, the Wall Street Journal, and Citigroup in 2013.

Pune, India, is another example of innovation out of poverty. In the Yerwada slum upgrade-design, incremental housing strategies allowed shantytowns to be replaced with one-, two-, and three-story single and multifamily townhouses. A key innovation was their culturally aware use of space where small—150 to 250 sq ft—felt bigger by building vertically instead of horizontally and enabling extended families to stay together. 
But the real magic was how everyday people in Pune were the Hope Dealers who drove the urban redesign processes from community mobilization to designing of re-blocking plans and upgrading of homes, to negotiations with city governments around building regulations and delivery of basic social services.  More recently, Pune has switched from using private contractors and trucks for waste management to using informal unions of self-employed waste pickers who hand sort the city’s garbage.  In ghettos and slums this type of arrangement can raise waste pickers’ income, improve quality of life in the slum, save the city money, and reduce landfill and pollution all at the same time.

What can we learn from these examples?  Government leaders in Pune, and across the world in places like Portland, Detroit, Dakar, Denver, Atlanta, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Oakland, Sydney, Cairo, Cape Town, New York, London, and Paris have indicated that the biggest obstacle to slum upgrading, development without displacement, and green building design is the lack of diverse community engagement platforms.

Mastering the art of Turning Adversity into Opportunity through culturally and community responsive technology platforms is a new and resurgent solution that will help democratize how we produce, consume, and solve social problems. Community- driven technology has the power to transform the way we do business, build community, and accelerate sustainable neighborhood development from the ground up.  It is the missing link in green and healthy built environment conversations, and is central to the concept of building healthy, resilient, and vibrant communities.  Amidst the white noise of creating and maintaining sustainable buildings and communities, TAO is emerging as the only solution that is big, global, and will impact every element of what we do—now and in the future.

Democratizing data and decisionmaking in our ghettos and slums shows that it is possible to solve the world’s greatest social problems—like poverty and global warming—by unleashing what best-selling author Lisa Gansky calls “people-poweredcommunities.”  And through the power of collaboration Hope Dealers show that it’s possible to govern ourselves, build a green economy, and create meaningful lives together. We can have development without displacement, social equity, clean energy, green healthy schools, and sustainable employment and economic development for everyone.  Hope Dealers understand what some of us too often forget—the age-old axiom that we are much stronger together than we are alone. So be a Hope Dealer.

LEED ON,

Antwi  Akom

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Starbucks is often touted as one of the more enlightened corporations in the U.S. that’s working hard at shrinking its carbon footprint and pursuing global social responsibility initiatives. Those goals are achieved through innovative green building programs, sustainable operating practices, and sourcing fair trade coffees to improve the lives of coffee growers (and their workers) around the world.

Michael M. Crow, president of Arizona State University.

It should come as no surprise that Starbucks’ leaders recently expanded their efforts in social responsibility—only this time a lot closer to home. Last summer, the Seattle-based company established a college education program in a unique partnership with Arizona State University (ASU) that encourages its own employees to finish college. The carrot for that nudge to go back to school is tuition reimbursement so individuals who start out at Starbucks can aspire to even greater opportunities and achieve improvements in their quality of life. Starbucks estimates about 70 percent of its workforce are students or individuals who would like to go to college, and many of them would do so if they could find an affordable and manageable work/life balance to make that happen.

U.S.-based Starbucks employees who work 20 hours per week or more can sign up to earn a bachelor’s degree in one of 40 undergraduate degree disciplines offered by ASU’s prestigious online program, according to Starbucks. Degrees are awarded for majors that include education, engineering, business, psychology, communications, and retail management. The program is open to workers (called “partners” internally) at all company-owned stores nationwide, which includes its other affiliates: Teavana, La Boulange, Evolution Fresh, and Seattle’s Best Coffee. Employees at support centers and company plants also are eligible.

Employees who are already en route to acquiring a bachelor’s degree and enroll as juniors or seniors will get full tuition reimbursement from Starbucks for every semester of fully completed courses, the company says. Freshmen and sophomores who enroll at ASU online through the program can receive partial tuition payback and need-based financial aid, according to Starbucks.

No strings attached

Perhaps most surprisingly, Starbucks employees who graduate aren’t obligated to continue working for the company once they’ve received their bachelor’s diploma. They can move on to pursue a career in their area of study or go after any opportunity that could improve their standard of living, notes Starbucks CEO and President Howard Schultz. He explains the motivation for initiating the College Achievement Plan, or CAP, was to encourage more individuals to finish college who couldn’t otherwise afford to do so.

“There’s no doubt, the inequality within the country has created a situation where many Americans are being left behind,” observes Schultz. “The question for all of us is, should we accept that, or should we try and do something about it. Supporting our partners’ (employees’) ambitions is the very best investment Starbucks can make.”

—STARBUCKS CEO AND PRESIDENT HOWARD SCHULTZ

The CAP program, which launched officially last June, has been wildly popular. By spring semester 2015, which started in January (2015), about 1,500 Starbucks employees across the country had enrolled and nearly all 40 majors were represented among the degrees being pursued, says Carrie Lingenselter, a spokesperson for ASU online. The most commonly selected degrees among the group include psychology, organizational leadership health sciences (healthy lifestyle coaching), mass communication and media studies, and English.

Shawn Walker, a barista for Starbucks in New York City, was a year away from completing his bachelor’s degree in graphic information technology, but quit a few years back because he couldn’t afford to repay mounting student loans. Now he’s back in school at ASU, working part-time and hoping to move on when he graduates.

“Now I see that it’s possible for me to move my life forward,” says Walker. “I am confident I will be successful doing something I love and this opportunity is a new beginning for me.”

Abraham Cervantes, another Starbucks barista, is now studying music at ASU as part of the CAP program while he continues to work. “I want to teach at a university, and for that, you need a college degree,” he explains. “For me, the opportunity to earn my degree means I have the chance to teach others and make a better life for myself and my mom, who raised me and my three siblings on her own.”

Two-tiered reimbursement, extra support

The program has two levels of reimbursement. Starbucks is offering maximum incentive to individuals who are closer to completing their degrees, but also gives partial reimbursement to freshmen and sophomores as a motivator to get on the path to higher education. Students receive a small scholarship from Starbucks when they first enroll, which never has to be repaid. Participating employees pay upfront for the rest of their tuition and other fees, but then are reimbursed by Starbucks every time they complete 21 credits (the estimated equivalent of a full semester of classes).

While financial support is critical for employees who participate, Starbucks and the university assembled a support system of professionals to ensure students have a better chance of making it to the finish line. An enrollment coach will be assigned to each student, as well as a financial aid counselor and an academic advisor who makes sure they are taking the right courses and staying on track toward graduation.

In addition to the 40 existing majors available at ASU online, Starbucks and the university created a new Retail Management Degree that’s geared toward employees who are interested in expanding their skill set for a retail environment and staying with the company after acquiring their degree, says Dayna Eberhardt, Starbuck’s vice president of Global Learning.

Eberhardt, who helped design the new retail degree with professionals at ASU’s W.P. Carey School of Business, says there are five general categories incorporated into the curriculum for the degree that are important to Starbucks. They are: people and team leadership; critical thinking and problem solving; business management; customer service; and sustainability.

Launching the Starbucks’ CAP program has naturally boosted enrollment for ASU, but Michael M. Crow, the university’s president, says the incentive for collaborating with Starbucks was not about numbers. It was more about fulfilling the university’s mission to widen diversity among its student base and encouraging more individuals who don’t have the luxury of attending college full-time to find ways to obtain their degree, he asserts.

“ASU is pioneering a new university model focused on inclusivity and degree completion, and Starbucks is establishing a new precedent for the responsibility and role of a public company that leads through the lens of humanity and supports its partners’ life goals with access to education,” says Crow.

So far, ASU hasn’t collaborated with any other corporations to create a similar program, but is already receiving calls from other interested companies as Starbucks broadcasts success stories about the alliance, says Lingenselter.

First graduate will inspire others to follow

Kaede Clifford, a 13-year Starbucks veteran, claims the spotlight as the first company employee to report success in the College Achievement Plan program. She graduated summa cum laude in December with a bachelor of arts degree in Mass Communication and Media Studies.

Clifford started college years ago while she was working for Starbucks, took a semester off and never returned—until last year, she says. In the interim, she moved with various company positions from Seattle to Arizona and Germany, and then back to Washington state.

“It was important to me to finish my degree,” Clifford emphasizes. “I wanted to finish something I started and also I know it will provide more opportunities to further my career.”

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Aquicore

Aquicore is a real-time energy management software, which allows companies to use energy data from multiple facilities to optimize their energy consumption, automate processes, and improve predictability and accountability on one centralized platform. Specializing in commercial real estate and industrial facilities, Aquicore provides complete transparency into energy consumption so portfolio owners, facility managers, and engineers can make data-driven decisions to continuously improve their facilities operations.

Aquicore
www.aquicore.com

CarbonCure Ready Mixed Concrete

The CarbonCure Ready Mixed Concrete Technology recycles waste carbon dioxide (CO2) into concrete. The technology is used by concrete producers to make greener and stronger concrete. CO2 is collected from industrial emitters, and injected into concrete during mixing. The CO2 becomes permanently embedded within the concrete, thereby becoming “sequestered” within the concrete as a mineral. The benefits of incorporating CO2 into concrete are two-fold: (1) CO2 is chemically captured in the concrete, thereby reducing greenhouse gases, and
(2) the addition of CO2 can result in improved material properties of the concrete such as enhanced compressive strength.

CarbonCure
www.carboncure.com

Solispost and Solar Signs

Solar powered bollards, signs and displays that are long lasting, generate extensive light and are durable enough for a wide range of conditions. The leading solar product for the retail industry is Solispost. With its self-contained energy source, low installation cost and minimal maintenance requirements the Solispost bollard and Solis display case is designed to offer an economical sustainable lighting solution that can work in numerous applications.

ID Signsystems Inc.
www.idsignsystems.com

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Four years ago, Amir Mans was a son without a future. The father with whom he shared a Section 8 apartment in upstate New York had passed away. Mans was 20 years old, he had dropped out of high school years before, and he had no job, no money, and no direction. “At that point in time, my back was against the wall, and I had nothing else to lose,” he says.

Then his girlfriend told him about YouthBuild Schenectady. For the next nine months, Mans woke up early each day to study all the subjects he had sidestepped and learn the intricacies of weatherizing homes. He found counselors who helped him get his GED—and helped him get through the weeks when there was no food in his cupboards. He earned an alphabet’s worth of certifications (BPI, Lead Safe Worker Practices Certification, and OSHA to name a few) and found a new career. In time, he found that he had a future after all.

Stories like these aren’t the exception for graduates of YouthBuild—they’re the rule. For 37 years, the organization has provided education, job skills, and real-world work experience to underprivileged teens and young adults by mobilizing them to build and rehabilitate affordable housing in communities around the country. Since 1994, more than 130,000 YouthBuild students have built more than 28,000 units of affordable housing. And for the last decade, YouthBuild USA’s Green Initiative has been harnessing sustainable building principles, bringing healthy housing to the people who need them most. “The outcomes are quality green homes, but along the way, we’re building character, a sense of service, and providing skills that help people move on to decent careers and higher education,” says Chris Cato, the Green Initiative’s project manager. “What we’re doing goes beyond building homes.”

YouthBuild began in 1978, when founder and CEO Dorothy Stoneman organized young people in East Harlem, New York, to renovate a dilapidated tenement building. Today, YouthBuild USA, a national nonprofit headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, supports 260 local programs in the U.S., fueled with funds from government agencies and private supporters. The specifics of each independently operating program vary by location, but their audience is the same: 16- to 24-year-olds who are escaping hardship, whether it’s an abusive home, substance abuse, a criminal past, or unemployment, 93 percent of whom lack a high school diploma. “The overarching mission of YouthBuild USA is to unleash the intelligence and positive energy of low-income youth to rebuild their communities and their own lives at the same time,” says Eva Blake, senior director of green initiatives at YouthBuild USA.

And while some YouthBuild programs offer studies in health care and technology, construction is a particularly viable field for hands-on learners, whether the goal is a good job or a degree in building science or a related field. To get there, each YouthBuild student spends roughly nine months navigating a curriculum evenly divided between time spent in the classroom and the job site. In the classroom, they study for their high school diploma or its equivalent, and complete requirements for certifications from OSHA, the National Center for Construction Education and Research, the Building Performance Institute, the Home Builders Institute, and other organizations. On the job site, they build and renovate affordable housing, from single-family homes to gut rehabs of existing properties, often in conjunction with local housing authorities. Throughout the program, students receive counseling and case management for debt, childcare, legal issues, and other obstacles. “When a young person gets a chance to work on a property that’s been run down, beat down, and abused, through the process of repairing and rebuilding it and making it a high-quality environment for a low-income family, that mirrors the work they’re doing in their personal life,” Cato says.

In 2005, Blake and Cato launched the Green Initiative to equip YouthBuild programs with the training and support to build green homes. Traditionally, affordable housing units reflect flaws like toxic building materials, shoddy construction, and poor insulation—unhealthy environments can exacerbate their residents’ troubles by keeping them home sick instead at school or work, Cato says. And very often, these homes’ wasteful energy consumption can lead low-income families to homelessness because they can’t pay their utility bills. “If you go into a property, retrofit it or rehab it, make it energy efficient, and reduce costs by 30 percent, you may be saving a family from becoming homeless.” Additionally, Blake says, green building practices help YouthBuild students stay marketable. “To be competitive in today’s construction industry, you need to know something about green building.”

Within the last year, 44 percent of the units built or rehabbed by YouthBuild students were reported to be green, 300 were ENERGY STAR Homes, almost 300 were Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified, and over 650 have been weatherized. Blake says that so far, 9 percent of all job placements for YouthBuild graduates have been in green jobs.

Eva Blake of YouthBuild USA.

Casa Verde Builders, a YouthBuild program in Austin, Texas, spearheaded many of the green building best practices now in use at YouthBuild programs throughout the country. In recent years, Ted Roan, YouthBuild’s director of green construction and a 16-year veteran of Casa Verde, began traveling the country to teach the YouthBuild construction trainers who instruct students how to weave green building strategies into their projects, like alternative framing ideas to conserve materials, design tweaks to maximize energy efficiency, and the basics of air sealing. “We have 260 programs nationwide, and I’m doing my best to make all of them as green as Casa Verde,” he says.

During his travels, Roan has watched the positive impacts of green affordable housing ripple beyond the building’s footprint. “I’ve seen it firsthand in Austin and in other places: The more homes that are built by YouthBuild, the more the community becomes involved, and some of the local municipalities say, ‘If we had more homes that were saving 30 percent on their energy bill, we won’t have to build a new power plant,’” Roan says. “They’re thinking about what it means to the municipality, but they’re taking their lead from these projects.”
In particular, YouthBuild’s LEED-certified affordable homes have become buzz-generating icons—living proof that green building works for low-income housing as much as million-dollar office buildings. In March 2009, to demonstrate the organization’s embrace of sustainable building practices, YouthBuild members from around the country convened on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to build a green, affordable, single-family home. The home was later shipped to Brownsville, Texas, and completed by YouthBuild Brownsville before receiving LEED Silver certification—the first LEED for Homes house built in the Rio Grande Valley, Blake says. YouthBuild programs were among the first to bring LEED-certified affordable homes to Fall River, Massachusetts; Rockford and Waukegan, Illinois; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Akron, Ohio. Through a partnership with a global building materials company, Saint-Gobain and subsidiary CertainTeed, Akron Summit YouthBuild gut-rehabbed a duplex in Akron. The dwelling earned a LEED Platinum rating, making it the first home in the city to receive that designation—and just the seventh in the Buckeye State.

Since becoming members of the U.S. Green Building Council in 2009, the relationship between YouthBuild and the USGBC has grown stronger. Along with providing increased training and encouraging projects to seek formal LEED certification, USGBC scholarships enabled selected YouthBuild staff and graduates from around the country to attend Greenbuild International Conference and Expo and learn about the wider sustainability movement. During the last five conferences in Chicago, Toronto, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and New Orleans, local YouthBuild affiliates have staffed booths and shared their experiences with fellow attendees. “Those scholarships have been invaluable in transforming the mindsets of the scholars who attended, and in general, this partnership has been great in exposing more young people to the ideas of green building and green strategy,” Roan says. As a result, many YouthBuild graduates have entered the workforce as green construction workers and weatherization installers.

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By Calvin Hennick

At Harvard University—an institution synonymous with supercharged intellects—employees are learning to ease stress and feel more productive through mindfulness meditation.

Leave it to Harvard University to make meditation more efficient. “To listen to a three-minute body-focused guided meditation, press 2,” a soothing female voice instructs callers to the school’s guided meditation hotline. “To listen to a four-minute breath-focused guided meditation, press 3.”
Callers who choose the second option are told to imagine their breath flowing gently in and out of their bodies. “When thoughts arise,” the voice says, “notice them without judging them or following them, and then gently escort your mind back to your breath.”

The hotline is one of several ways the university supports its mindfulness meditation program, which in turn is just one of many programs designed to promote employee health and well-being—one of the pillars of the school’s sustainability plan, which was released last year. The plan calls for a reduction

that well-being is considered an essential part of sustainability,” says Nancy Costikyan, director of Harvard’s Office of Work/Life, citing the research of University of Washington business professor Christopher Barnes. “If you think about sleep as a biomarker for well-being or work/life balance, he’s learning that people who have poor sleep are actually more likely to be worse negotiators and make poorer ethical decisions. That’s a surprising finding that shows that how we care for ourselves plays out in a range of spheres.”

—Nancy Costikyan

Costikyan’s office began the meditation program as a joint venture with the Harvard Center for Wellness two years ago. So far, it’s only been offered to Harvard’s central administration staff, a group that numbers around 5,000 employees, including those in health services, dining services, and the school’s legal department. Facilitators come into people’s workplaces and guide them through the six-week voluntary session with their coworkers. So far, around 550 staffers have participated.

“People are incredibly enthusiastic about it,” says Costikyan. After employees complete the six-week session, some continue to come to university-organized “sits,” and others have even gathered on their own in empty conference rooms to meditate together. “We’re very pleased that we’re able to demonstrate that this has wide, varied appeal.”

Mindfulness meditation, which has its roots in Buddhism, is a practice aimed at training a person’s attention on the present moment and accepting that moment without judgment. Often, people will sit in the familiar cross-legged position and keep a straight back, paying close attention to their breathing and casually dismissing any stray thoughts that pop into their heads.

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Far left: Glynn Lloyd is the founder and CEO of City Fresh Foods, City Growers, and the Urban Farming Institute. Photo: Melody Ko. Middle: Shawn and Connie Cooney started Cornstalk, a freight farming operation in the city of Boston. Right: Kesiah Bascom at the Roxbury Food Project greenhouse. Photos: Eric Roth

BRA continues to have a finger on the pulse of Article 89. They work with new farms gearing up to take advantage of the legislation. “I’m still in love with this project,” says Mercurio, who helps people interpret the article and conducts Comprehensive Farm Reviews—a design review process that ensures the farm in question will be a good neighbor to abutting property owners. A farm’s layout, the activities it will support, the height of its structures, its signage, etc., are among the considerations. “We are looking at all of these factors so hopefully they won’t create any nuisances,” says Mercurio. The city also mails letters to property owners within a 300-foot radius of a proposed farm so its development doesn’t come as a surprise.

The inquiries fielded by BRA run the gamut. “It’s not just the farms,” notes Mercurio. People ask about permitting for things like growing micro greens, erecting a new shed, or building a hydroponic facility. “I help them determine the zoning for any type of urban agriculture activity they want to do.”

The passing of the mayor’s torch to Marty Walsh ensures Article 89’s continued success. A strong proponent of local food production and the programs that support it, Mayor Walsh furthers the work initiated during Menino’s time in office. It is clear the new administration values the ways in which Article 89 weaves urban agriculture into the fabric of the city and ties people together on multiple fronts. “This was something so many facets of a diverse community got behind,” notes Read. “It was something that appealed to many groups on many levels—food access, food justice, and the ‘cool factor’—everyone got excited about it.”

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 a pioneer once again by becoming just the second institution in the United States to issue $250 million in so-called green bonds, an investment vehicle that’s helping carry out projects at Regency’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design LEED-certified shopping centers. And along the way, Regency has proved something else: Its pledge to go green is as firm as ever.

Regency had been in the business of owning, operating, and developing grocery-store-anchored shopping centers—322 at last count—for nearly half a century when it commenced a series of sustainability initiatives in November 2007. “We believe being environmentally and socially responsible is the right thing to do, and we’re committed to that—which can be really strange for a development company, right?” says Lisa Palmer, Regency’s executive vice president and chief financial officer. “But it’s important especially because we’re a development company. We impact the environment, growth in communities, traffic, whatever you look at.” At the same time, Palmer adds, the company’s leadership believed investing in sustainability would produce returns in quality.

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hallmarks of LEED Platinum projects. But maybe the best part of the story about Method’s factory is about location, location, location. The impact on local jobs, the local economy, and bringing manufacturing back inside the city limits in a safe and sustainable way is the real success story behind Method’s new space.

When Method asked commercial real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield’s Global Business Consulting group to find a site for its new factory, the team focused on how to leverage the power of business to create green jobs and opportunities in the heart of the city. Method co-founder and Chief Greenskeeper, Adam Lowry, notes, “We wanted to build our manufacturing facility within a community that could benefit positively from its presence. The world is urbanizing rapidly, so cities in particular are in need of businesses that can help revitalize their economies and communities. Building a world-class sustainable manufacturing facility gave us the opportunity to demonstrate how business can contribute to urban revitalization, community building, and the world around us.”

The Method factory has brought nearly a hundred new manufacturing jobs to Chicago’s South Side and has a recruitment strategy to target the talent in the Pullman community. These are jobs that won’t require workers to commute by car outside the city, saving valuable time, money, and natural resources and lessening congestion on Chicago’s roads and freeways.

By helping Method site its factory in the city, Cushman & Wakefield’s contribution to the project has upped its sustainability ante. Not only does it sit on a restored brownfield site, but it also infuses a new vitality into an old urban community that can benefit greatly from the new green economy. The close connectivity to the community and to transportation will help bring raw materials to Method and transport finished products to stores across the country.*

The facility will help pave the way for the future of urban agriculture. A 75,000-square-foot (1.72 acres) rooftop greenhouse installation is designed to grow up to one million pounds of fresh produce annually, which will be sold to local restaurants and be available to the surrounding community though produce markets.  A 230 foot 600kW wind turbine produces about 30 percent of the factory’s energy, and three solar trees each with 60PV modules can supply 45.9 kW of energy. Solar thermal collectors provide hot water for hand washing and some factory processes. Stormwater from paved surfaces is captured in bioswales where it can filter back into the ground and the south wall of the factory is highly transparent giving workers a strong visual connection to the outdoors while providing an abundance of daylight.

It’s more than a factory–it’s a blueprint for the future in bringing manufacturing back to the city. As Lowry says, “We hope our facility serves as a model for what manufacturing and urban renewal can look like in the 21st century.”

Click here to read more about bringing industry back into urban areas and incorporating LEED principles into site selection for industrial facilities, check out the white paper by Matthew Poreba from Cushman & Wakefield’s Global Business Consulting group.

RENDERING MCDONOUGH + PARTNERS

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