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There’s a misconception about hunger in D.C.—one that suggests it’s only the homeless who use food banks. “It’s an expensive city,” notes Susie Westrup, LEED AP BD+C, manager, Paladino and Company as well as Greenbuild 2015 Legacy Project co-chair. “There are [approximately] 700,000 people in D.C. who don’t know where their next meal is coming from.” The fact is many working lower- and middle-class families visit food banks for supplemental groceries to make ends meet.

One of those food banks is the Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB), with headquarters in Northeast D.C.

This year alone, CAFB distributed 42 million pounds of food (the equivalent of 35 million meals) to 540,3002 people living in D.C. and six surrounding communities. Through direct service and a network of more than 500 partner agencies, CAFB feeds the hungry—though its mission goes far beyond the distribution of dry goods. To date, CAFB has implemented multiple measures aimed at nutrition education and skills training—all of which began with an onsite Urban Demonstration Garden.

In 2012, staff decided that a hands-on food growing experience would benefit the community. Toward that end, the demonstration garden was built and has had that very effect since beginning operations. The garden is used to teach gardening and nutrition basics to agency partners, who in turn, bring those lessons back to their own communities, where they disseminate the information further. Most of the garden’s produce is given away to food assistance partners; the primary focus of the garden is to demonstrate effective urban farming practices.

With both the food bank and the garden operating at full speed, it became clear a third element was needed—a classroom. Enter Greenbuild 2015 and the Legacy Project. As the garden lacked a designated space for key education programs, a flexible, multipurpose outdoor structure was proposed and dubbed the “Urban Food Studio.” The sheltered classroom will provide the CAFB an all-season space for gardening, cooking classes, workshops, and events. It will also give garden volunteers a much-needed place to eat and rest.

The Urban Food Studio is the brainchild of M. J. Crom, now-former food growing capacity coordinator at the CAFB, who wanted to bring gardening to the forefront of the community. With Greenbuild 2015 scheduled to take place November 18-20, 2015 in Washington, D.C., the Legacy Project Committee, the Greenbuild Host Committee chairs, and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) staff members met last October to set up a process for determining just what the Legacy Project would be. Westrup and the group issued a RFP to the public for which they received 11 responses; they were ranked and ultimately narrowed down to four finalists. Attendees at their “Green Tie” event were asked to help determine which proposal should be this year’s Legacy Project. “All four of the finalists were so great that it was very hard for us to come to a consensus,” explains Westrup. “So we [decided] to let it be a vote.” The food bank won the most votes. Interestingly, all four finalists were projects related to food security and food deserts in D. C. “The committee ended up picking one that [addresses] this relevant issue.”

Top: Susie Westrup at the demonstration garden at the CAFB. Bottom: Matthew Noe, LEED green associate at HKS architects, at the CAFB. Photos by Ryan Smith

Furthering the food bank’s mission, the Urban Food Studio will catalyze CAFB’s aim to impact food security through education around the growing of healthy foods. “You can’t teach 700,000 people, and 700,000 people can’t make their way to the food bank, but they can go somewhere in their local community and they can learn how to do something down the road from where they live. That’s why the 500-plus organizations CAFB is already working with are the target,” explains Westrup.

Though they were already teaching in the garden, they were doing so with makeshift accommodations. “The outdoor classroom that is the Legacy Project is a shelter with a functioning kitchen—some of these classes will go beyond how to grow and [will demonstrate] how to cook a healthy meal,” notes Westrup. “Then the partner organizations can do the same thing. It’s this ladder of knowledge, a network that they can spread throughout the city.” She points to the fact that many of those agencies don’t have land on which to grow, so they need to be creative. People are learning how to build gardens in unconventional ways using limited means—maybe they grow in buckets or tubs or kiddie pools. “M. J., the head grower, teaches them how to grow on a budget with reused materials.”

Volunteers put the finishing touches on the studio and surrounding grounds, which will help
the food bank fulfill its mission of ending food insecurity.

Staff from those agencies will arrive at the site—with its food bank demonstration, garden, and outdoor classroom—and learn how to build and grow a self-sustaining garden in their own neighborhood. The food bank can’t supply all the people in D. C. who need food, but they can enable others to do so. “They are limited by their site, but in a way it’s a much more sustainable method because they are teaching [other organizations] how locally grown food can come from these neighborhoods.”

The garden was the first phase of how the land at the food bank was to be developed. HKS Architects—the firm that submitted the winning proposal in response to CAFB’s need for an outdoor, sheltered structure for education and respite—had an existing relationship with the food bank. HKS helped bring to life the second phase—the food studio. “They are the ones who connected the dots,” notes Westrup. “They won the bid and were given $10,000 by Greenbuild to bring them an outdoor teaching kitchen.”

“It’s a pretty simple structure,” says Matthew Noe, a designer with HKS, describing the Urban Food Studio as having concrete columns, a metal frame, and a deck (donated by Ipe Deck) with permeable pavers. A berm wall was created with excavated soil to serve as an additional growing area, and there’s a rainwater cistern and reclaimed-wood benches. They also received a grant from Community Forklift that they used to acquire reclaimed steel. A “living wall” for planting uses reclaimed pallets from the food bank, and a space was developed for growing shade and fruit trees.

“We tried to incorporate all these little elements that are semi DIY to inspire the community to do some of these things at home and to make it more sustainable or eco-friendly for urban gardening,” explains Noe. In addition to all of what takes place under its roof, the building itself will serve as an educational tool. “We looked at how we can leverage a building to teach the community.”

The structure will accommodate 30 to 40 people attending cooking and growing demonstrations and nutrition classes. “Growing your own vegetables is kind of the silver bullet to solving some of the issues surrounding hunger—there’s a lot more nutritional value in that,” says Noe. It is also meant as a respite for workers during hot months, as well as a potential space for donor events. “There is not a lot of shelter out there. It will be a really big add for the volunteers to have a place to rest.” It will serve as a “flex space.” It may even, in time, host schoolchildren for class field trips.

“It is a very exciting project for me,” says Noe. “It’s one of my favorites…the scale of it, how it is going to touch and affect so many people. It brings home the idea of what architecture and space can do and hopefully will do. I see great potential in this affecting not just the food bank but the entire area—a little pavilion where the community can [gather and] radiate out.”

Westrup concurs, explaining how this is a model that can be replicated anywhere and everywhere. Comparing it to the Green Apple Day of Service, she views this year’s Legacy Project as one of service. “I think as green building professionals,” she says, “we often get tied to infrastructure and building versus this other element of sustainability, which is so important—the social well-being of our communities.”

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Disclosure requirements and energy audits make New York City a first-tier “green” city.

A look at green building adoption in
Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Whether you get your hot dog from a cart in Manhattan, “drag it through the garden” in Chicago, or order one at Ben’s Chili Bowl in Washington, D.C., you are stopping for a snack in one of the nation’s green building apexes.

“Each of these three cities is an example of a strong sustainable market,” says Dave Pogue, global director of Corporate Responsibility at CBRE, which published its “National Green Building Adoption Index” in June of this year. The index aims to measure the growth of green building certification—either EPA’s ENERGY STAR program or the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED—for the top 30 U.S. commercial markets over the past 9 years.

But like their culinary offerings, Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C. have marked differences in how and why their real estate sectors have adopted sustainability. “Chicago is the most dynamic of the markets,” Pogue says. “It has really embraced green building practices more than average.” More than two-thirds of Chicago’s square footage has one or more green building certifications, placing the city number three in the index. This was a surprise, says Pogue, due to the immense size of the metropolis, but the reasons why are multipronged.

“Chicago is a first-tier city,” he says. “They have very large buildings and very large corporations. There are civic ordinances requiring certain disclosures such as ENERGY STAR scores.” While green certification used to mean you were ahead of the pack, these days it is something you must maintain to stay competitive, he adds.

In Washington, the capital’s well-known building height restrictions kept them lower in the rankings, which measured percentage of space rather than number of buildings—at eighth place. But the nation’s second largest commercial office market—second only to Manhattan—has more than 40 percent of certified green space. “D.C. has adopted green building,” says Pogue. Much of that has to do with the U.S. General Service Administration (GSA) comprising the bulk of its tenant base and occupying ENERGY STAR-labeled buildings. “Buildings want to lease to the number one tenant in the city,” he says. “There are also lots of institutional owners. They tend to go for certification more than private owners.”

In terms of ordinances supporting green buildings, no one ranks higher than New York City, says Pogue. “They were the first. They have disclosure requirements and energy audits that buildings have to do. It’s not just disclosure—it’s physical action. Clearly a first-tier city,” he adds. Again, the high institutional owner base is sophisticated, though New York City does not have the active government or technology tenant base of other cities like D.C. and San Francisco. In terms of percentage of green space in a market, Manhattan ranks 12th.

Chicago, New York, and D.C. remain three of the most dominant cities in America——but there is concern about abatement.

“We are concerned that we may have had hit a peak because so many of these buildings have become ‘sustainable,’” says Pogue. “In some of these cities, particularly in Chicago, a high percentage of real estate has attained these certifications. The challenge is: How do you maintain and how do you add to a very large base?”

More than two-thirds of Chicago’s square footage has one or more green building certifications.

Nick Stolatis, senior director of Global Sustainability & Enterprise Initiatives, Global Real Estate, at TIAA-CREFF, says, “I think all three cities are maintaining momentum. It’s a steady process and that is really what we want to see—the long-term commitment is important. More and more owners and more and more managers are getting on board. The tenants are sophisticated enough and more and more of them are asking what they are doing.”

It’s how TIAA-CREFF approaches its $86 billion of assets under management. “I would argue that all of it is being operated under sustainability for the long movement. In our global real estate initiative, there are three key principles we apply: conservation of energy, reduction of waste, and benchmarking our assets.”

Pogue points out that it is important to remember even a decade ago was a very different time for green certification. There was little adoption of ENERGY STAR program and LEED was still in its infancy. “Fast forward to 2013/14, and we have found a dramatic uptake of these certifications in particular markets.” In 2015, it means that growth in the 30 largest markets continues, but at a slower pace—indicating that many of the buildings that can get certification have sought it.

So what’s next? “That is the question we have asked ourselves,” Pogue says. “Here is a giant city like Chicago, where two-thirds of its buildings are green. How are you going to the next tier? This is where the problem lies.”

The problem can be better understood in terms of building size. More than half of all buildings over 250,000 square feet are currently certified. This represents 67 percent of those buildings’ total square footage. The figures are 62 percent and 76 percent, respectively, for buildings over 500,000 square feet. Compare this to buildings under 100,000 square feet, where less than 5 percent of buildings have a certification, which comprises 7 percent of their total square footage.

“This is a big buildings phenomenon,” says Pogue. “It’s skewed toward large buildings.

“The industry needs to understand how to get the message to smaller owners,” he adds. “This is trench warfare—hand-to-hand combat.”

“Size is definitely has an advantage,” says TIAA-CREFF’s Stolatis. “Office buildings tend to have more opportunities for the landlord to save energy and money. That isn’t to say smaller buildings can’t be improved. Our approach is, we want to engage with those residents to advise and help them reduce their cost.”

Energy costs may be a good starting point with smaller building owners, especially in less positive economic times. “When we get into a touchy market again—and we will—that may be when smaller building owners do it,” says Pogue.

“It has to do with economics,” he adds. “For buildings who have not previously participated, the next downturn may be the next opportunity.”

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when key players from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), Parsons architects, and Kiewit Construction came together to look at what could be done, they decided LEED Silver certification was within reach—and then, much like the rail itself, they reached a little further.

In 2011, in the city of Monrovia, a 24-acre parcel of land—once home to a collection of 40- to 50-year-old light industrial buildings—was selected as the site on which to build what is now referred to as the Gold Line Operations Campus. Located just south of the I-210 freeway, the $265 million service facility was built to maintain Metro’s growing fleet of light rail vehicles; it houses up to 84 such vehicles and serves as a workplace for 200 employees—24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority CEO Habib F. Balian has been part of the project since phase one, which extended from Union Station to Pasadena, and he played a large hand in the environmental planning and construction of phase two—from Pasadena to Asuza. At its inception, the design-build contract addressed rail alignment, the I-210 bridge, and the parking facilities. “We had a very tight budget going into this and did not really consider there was potential opportunity for any kind of sustainability features,” notes Balian. Between the rail, the parking lots, and the stations, he explains, there didn’t seem to be a lot of options. But when it came to the maintenance facility and campus, “a light bulb went off” and they started thinking seriously about incorporating sustainable design elements.

Planting a variety of drought-tolerant plants reduces landscape water consumption at the campus by 50 percent. 

A 714-panel, 178.5-kw solar panel array generates enough electricity to meet one-third of power needs of the 132,000-sq-ft Main Shop Building. 

The full-service, state-of-the-art facility will house up to 84 light rail vehicles and nearly 200 employees over several shifts a day. Water-reduction measures in the Main Shop Building (such as high-efficiency fixtures and infrared sensor faucets) were employed to help achieve a 35 percent water reduction level.

Balian credits major developments in the solar industry as playing a large role in changing their way of looking at the design. They adopted the attitude that sustainable features were indeed possible. “If there’s a chance to retrofit something in without slowing our schedule or making major modifications to the design, then we should do that,” says Balian.

Enter Roland Genick, chief architect (with Parsons) of Rail and Transit Systems. “It became clear…that with some additional efforts, LEED Gold was actually within reach,” recalls Genick. “With Parsons as the designer and Kiewit as the builder, we huddled together to identify additional opportunities.”

First, they found ways to capture rainwater using filtration systems to collect, clean, and direct water down into the ground. Drought-tolerant landscaping with state-of-the-art smart irrigation systems were added; solar-powered skylights were introduced; energy-saving sensory detectors were placed throughout the facility; and the building was physically configured to monitor power usage. Ultimately, given their large canopy, they even brought in a solar array. “These were things we never thought we would be able to do,” says Balian. “Once it became clear these things were feasible, we found we could spend a little more time and additional dollars to make upgrades that were good for the environment and made sense. We thought being sustainable was something that was very good for Metro long term.”

With regard to the stormwater treatment system, its designer, Jennifer Hall, says, “The intent was to utilize as much space underground as we possibly could [so as] not to impact what they wanted to build out.” Toward that end, they employed a CDS unit to filter oils and sediments from water being directed into the storage system, which will ultimately infiltrate the clean water into the ground. By doing so, they are “renewing the resource daily.” The underground storage chamber’s footprint is all “gravel,” sized for water-quality flow. Any water that ends up in the storm drain is contaminant free. Given the complex and extensive conduit system on site, the infiltration system was divided in two—one part sits under the parking area, the other is in the southwest corner.

In the end, they managed to take six acres of previously impervious conditions and turn them into an area capable of absorbing water. They did, however, need to tie into an existing (and already taxed) city storm drain system, but being able to absorb water elsewhere assuaged additional pressure on that system during flooding. “This changed how long it would take for the water to get from the northeast corner of the campus to southeast corner. If you were to follow the raindrop, we significantly increased the amount of time it [takes.] We helped to alleviate any downstream constraints.”

Carmen Cham, a senior architect with Parsons, points out how unique the railyard site is: “So much of the underground infrastructure has not only to do with the utilities but also the electrification of the trains.” The space was, therefore, very limited when it came to stormwater storage. On the other hand, it was loaded with ballast, which helped a great deal with infiltration of rainwater and its introduction into the ground.

Given the Operations Campus is located in the heart of Monrovia and, therefore, surrounded by a residential community, the Construction Authority strove to find ways to promote sustainability throughout the campus to help mitigate the impact of such a large facility on the neighborhood. They did everything they could to weave the campus into the environment and make it aesthetically pleasing from its two visible sides,

including the planting of citrus trees and a drought-tolerant landscape, the installation of benches and picnic tables, and the construction of “linear parks.” They even made a deal with the community to turn a triangle-shaped piece of property on the northwest corner into an open-to-the-public viewing portal overlooking the railyard. “We knew people were always going to be interested in knowing what was going on,” says Genick.

In terms of attaining LEED Gold certification, Genick says: “It’s important to note, from an approach standpoint, that as you are going through the [USGBC] scorecard…[it] wasn’t written with a maintenance facility in mind. Understandably so, there aren’t that many.” Without a model to follow, the team tried to stay true to the certification’s criteria, but they made necessary adjustments to accommodate the building’s highly particular function. They also wanted to be smart about how they were evaluating all the mechanical systems. “There isn’t necessarily a standard value for energy and water consumption as there would be for a traditional office building,” notes Genick. So they carefully considered the building’s primary purpose: to support the construction and maintenance of trains. “We were building this for an agency that is going to be in this building for the next 100 years,” notes Cham. Daylighting was important, particularly in the shop area, where a number of skylights were introduced to minimize the need for artificial lighting. Throughout the facility light sensors dim based on occupancy; others detect the amount of existing natural light and dim accordingly. The HVAC system was designed to be as efficient as possible, and they used all white roofs to avoid heat island effect. Furthermore, recycled steel and concrete were used throughout the project. (For the shop’s construction they even reused rail line.) “We were almost at the end of the design when the Authority approached us about getting additional credits,” says Cham. “That’s when a [solar] array system was introduced onto the site.”

Because the Construction Authority was only responsible for the planning, design, and construction of the project, while Metro owns and manages all operational elements, including the Operations Campus and the six-station light rail system, the team worked with Metro’s sustainability coordinator to be sure no features were implemented that could not be sustained over time. From the start, Metro was aware of what they would be responsible for, and they committed to maintaining both the operation and its certification. “They knew what they were getting and they are invested,” says Cham.

Today, the Gold Line Operations Campus comprises a main shop building; a car wash facility; a maintenance-of-way equipment storage canopy (the structural support for the campus’s solar power array, which produces nearly 22,000 Kilowatt-hours of electricity per month); a car cleaning platform; a materials storage building; storage tracks, where light rail vehicles are kept when not in use; and a 600,000-gallon fire reserve water tank and attendant pump/hydrant system.

Compared to other Metro facilities, this is a much improved work environment for employees. “We approached it in a very different way. We call it a campus instead of a maintenance or railyard,” explains Balian, noting that the initial design proposal looked more like a prison, which, given its location in the middle of a community, didn’t seem like a good idea. “The biggest challenge was getting the community’s buy-in,” he says. “We wanted to be generous to the community and do nice things for it. I think we did a whole lot to create a nice environment for the people who are going to be working there.” Beyond that, they enhanced the neighborhood with upgraded intersections and better street lighting. “That’s the great thing about these projects,” says Balian, “they are catalysts for improvements in the neighborhoods, and that’s what this did.”

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Washington, D.C.–based EYA, a 23-year-old preeminent real estate development and building firm, brings Washingtonians “life within walking distance.” Twice named “America’s Best Builder,” EYA has succeeded in settling homeowners closer to shopping, dining, and business districts in innovative urban neighborhoods characterized by walkability, thoughtfully planned spaces, and timeless architecture.

At its inception, according to senior vice president Brian (A.J.) Jackson, EYA was responding to “an increased demand for opportunities to live closer in and closer to amenities.” They saw an opportunity. “That was not something large national builders were set up to provide.” With a focus on urban infill, EYA’s projects tend to be smaller and more complicated, and typically require significant development efforts, as their sites are often quite challenging.

“We believed that through better design we could increase the density and really transform the townhouse product from a price-point product into a luxury product,” explains Jackson. In their early days, they modeled many of their homes after the brownstones of late 19th-century New York. To date, EYA has built more than 4,000 units in more than 30 neighborhoods across the Washington metropolitan area. The firm has become renowned for finding desirable locations on which to build homes that afford a pedestrian-friendly lifestyle.

Top: Old Town Commons in Alexandria, Virginia. Photo by Johnny Vitorovich
Bottom: Capitol Quarter is a townhome community located on five blocks in the Capitol Riverfront neighborhood in Washington, DC. Photo by Thomas Arledge

The market for that lifestyle has burgeoned over the past two decades. With its mission to do things “the right way, at the highest level,” EYA has kept pace with those demands, always keying into cultural shifts. “Our homes today are much more energy efficient…and almost all of them have some sort of private outdoor space,” notes Jackson. Many of their newer developments feature homes with loft levels or rooftop terraces, as more and more people desire a place for respite.

In time, EYA sought an even better way to build the urban environment—one that would enhance an entire community’s well-being. By 2007, they made the decision to develop all new projects under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Homes model. “That really pushed us [toward] a quantum improvement in terms of methods, energy efficiency, features, and benefits in the units,” says Jackson. (No other homebuilder in the Washington, D.C., area has earned as many LEED certifications.)

“More and more people want to be in the infill environment and want to stay there longer,” notes Jackson. An uptick in the number of first-time buyers, young families, empty-nesters, and retirees has led to adaptations in floor plans, layouts, and other major design elements. Additionally, there is now a wider range of price points in many of their larger community developments. “We strive to create a broad product mix,” says Jackson.

Toward that end, mixed-income housing developments are among their projects. “Those communities have a significant amount of socioeconomic diversity,” notes Jackson. Capitol Quarter, for example, is one-third low-income housing, one-third moderate or working-income housing, and one-third market rate. EYA’s inclusionary housing—housing required by the city, which may or may not be incentive based—results in 10 to 15 percent of homes targeted for people who can afford between 60 and 85 percent of their area median income (as opposed to affordable housing, for which there is a much higher percentage of the units targeted at a much lower income bracket).

Old Town Commons, a very recent mixed-income project in Old Town, Alexandria, spans five blocks at the city’s gateway. It had been the site of a public housing facility with 194 units. Having forged a partnership with the Public Housing Authority for the site’s redevelopment, EYA replaced 60 of the public housing units that had been there, and then built another 134 units, 154 townhomes, and 86 condominiums, plus added significant green space that includes a park.

“We ended up basically taking a site that was all low-income housing and transforming it into a site that was one-third low-income housing and two-thirds market-rate housing,” explains Jackson. “It’s all designed to feel like one product—you can’t visually distinguish the affordable housing from the market-rate housing.” (The market-rate housing is LEED certified; the affordable housing is a mix of LEED- and EarthCraft-certified units.) In its entirety, Old Town Commons is a remarkable transformation from the two-story Army barracks-like building that once sat there. “The affordable housing is still there,” notes Jackson, “but it is part of a mixed-income community.”

Other noteworthy developments include Capitol Quarter, which features over 300 LEED for Homes-certified townhomes, workforce homes, and affordable rental homes. (It has become a national model for mixed-income development and has led to the revitalization of the ballpark district in Southeast Washington.) Harrison Square is located on the site of the old Children’s Hospital—it takes up an entire city block, blends beautifully with the historic neighborhood, and is credited with sparking a renaissance of the U Street Corridor. Capitol Square comprises 93 townhomes designed with traditional colonial exteriors and modern interiors, while Bryan Square—the redevelopment of a historic school property—features 38 row homes with three distinct architectural styles designed to complement the surrounding neighborhood. And Chancellor’s Row, a 10-acre community of new townhomes, is a prime example of EYA’s modern LEED-certified designs.

Adding 250 families to an existing community, as in the case of Old Town Commons, requires a lot of forethought if it is to result in a “positive culture,” notes Jackson. “We are always building in a context that exists, usually a neighborhood.” EYA’s understanding of community begins with an examination of the existing aesthetic. “We aren’t trying to mimic it, we want to complement it… we are trying to weave ourselves into the fabric of the neighborhood.”

To do so, EYA affiliates make efforts to meet and understand the people in the neighborhoods in which they plan to build. They get a feel for the “vibe” of a place. Their onsite offices are up to speed on what is happening in the neighborhood—the events, civic groups, etc. so they can help integrate homebuyers into their new community. “We find that most people who choose to live in a dense urban environment want to be connected,” says Jackson. “They want to be plugged in and we try to facilitate that.”

“Know Your Neighbor” welcoming events, are one example of such efforts. Hosted for people who will be moving into their homes at about the same time, EYA provides an orientation to the community—its offerings, amenities, etc. “But really the purpose of the event is to get them to know each other,” says Jackson. The program started with their mixed-income communities to minimize the potential for social conflict. “What we found was that it is such a powerful and effective way to build community that we do it in every development now.” They also create community associations and assemble Listservs to be used by new residents to connect with one another, though they often result in a community Facebook page. “The Listservs are just meant to seed communication,” says Jackson.

EYA has received some of the most prestigious national awards for housing design, development, and livability. A strong market supports their work, a solid team furthers their prosperity, and a respected brand stretches their reach. But perhaps the most important thing to be said about EYA is that community is at its core—driving every aspect of every project to make “life within walking distance” attainable for all walks of life.

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In researching her new book, The Sixth Extinction, author Elizabeth Kolbert traveled to the Andes, Africa, and the Great Barrier Reef of Australia to examine the real-time impacts that humans are having on this planet.

A conversation with Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Kolbert on the subject of the health of our planet.

The world is in serious crisis. Rising sea levels, destruction of habitat, loss of farmland, and a host of other outcomes of climate change are destroying the earth’s ecology and could destroy its most dangerous interloper, homo sapiens.

Elizabeth Kolbert, a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine and author of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, has devoted years of travel, research, and writing to the situation and what we can do to get back on course. Kolbert will bring her message as a Master Series speaker to the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, on Thursday, November 19, in her talk, “The Sixth Extinction.”

In a telephone interview from her western Massachusetts home, Kolbert says she will explore how fossil fuels and rising CO2 levels are brewing disaster with the climate. But, as she explains, that will be just a piece of her message to the green building community.

“The world that we inherited is really a world that has been evolving since the last major extinction 66 million years ago,” Kolbert says. “By causing this extinction, we’re undoing that; we’re unraveling this very complicated web of life. Predicted results include shorter food chains and ecosystems that are much less rich.”

Kolbert says her Greenbuild talk will explore the many ways in which we are bringing about this extinction event. “Unfortunately, it is not limited to climate change,” she says, which was the subject of her previous book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. There is also acidification of oceans, which Kolbert has called “the evil twin of climate change”; land conversion and introduced species, defined as those that are living outside their native range due to human activity.

The Sixth Extinction, which took the author to rainforest jungles, mountain ranges, and typical American backyards, details the world’s first five extinctions. A “sixth extinction” would be a game-changer, a human-driven extinction of a variety of plants and animals.

In the book, Kolbert details the damage that already has been done, including the near extinction of the Panamanian golden frog. “Amphibians have the dubious distinction of being the world’s most endangered class of animals,” Kolbert writes. “But also heading toward extinction are one-third of all reef-building corals, a third of all fresh-water mollusks, a third of sharks and rays, a quarter of all mammals, a fifth of all reptiles, and sixth of all birds.”

She expects her Greenbuild talk to push attendees beyond typical discussions of climate change, although whether U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) members should be doing anything differently in their work is another matter. “That’s a good question,” Kolbert says. “I don’t claim to be an expert on green building practices. I’ll ask people to think about this constellation of issues, as opposed to just focusing on climate change. Unfortunately, we need to be thinking of all these issues, which is a big ask.”

Kolbert’s work has brought her into close contact with the world’s political figures with the clout to push environmental change. The 21st COP (Conference of the Parties), an international climate conference, will be held in Paris beginning November 30, on the heels of Greenbuild. The conference is being promoted as a historic event—Kolbert quotes Fatih Birol, the incoming director of the International Energy Agency, who called it “our last hope.” Kolbert realizes how dire the words sound.

“I think that when people say ‘our last hope,’ they mean we really need to curb emissions downward if we’re going to avoid some of the very worst effects,” Kolbert says. “We really don’t know where the border is, the threshold. If we can’t bend that curve—if it keeps going up, up, up—we’re locking in more and more damage. This situation is pretty serious; I can’t overstate that. But there’s not a point at which it wouldn’t still be smart to change things.”

Scientists have commonly thought that limiting the average global surface temperature increase of 2°C (3.6°F) would be adequate to avoid dangerous climate change. But there is a question, Kolbert says, as to whether we have already reached that limit.

“Are we going to lock in massive changes that cause mass migrations of people, that are very destabilizing for the world? There are 7.3 billion people in the world today. Everyone needs to eat. Everyone needs a place to live. If you really start to mess with where people can raise crops and live, you’re obviously creating a recipe for disaster.”

The Great Barrier Reef in Queensland, Australia, is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth.

Kolbert says ambivalence about climate change in the general public has many sources. “I definitely feel there is a disconnect,” she says. “There’s a constellation of reasons. There have been purposeful disinformation campaigns. A lot of people don’t want to believe it.”

The last chapter of The Sixth Extinction is titled “The Thing with Feathers,” a reference to Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Hope is the Thing with Feathers.” Having hope is human, and Kolbert lauds the many people who are environmentally conscious and want to create change. At home, she is used to talking about the subject with her three sons, a 21-year-old and 16-year-old twins. “They’ve really grown up with this issue,” Kolbert says. “I think this has sort of been a part of their childhood, for better or worse.” When people in the public ask her what they can do to help, the first place she points is to government.

“You really need to become active politically,” she says. “If people organize politically, then that will make a difference. It means getting candidates to pay attention to these issues. I urge people to get out and vote, to run for office themselves, or anything in between. People need to understand the issues and write their congressman.”

“In almost every municipality there are issues and debates,” Kolbert continues, including environmental topics and utility law questions. “As everybody knows,” she adds, “there’s a lot of money on the other side.”

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Rick Fedrizzi

CEO and founding chair
U.S. Green Building Council

In our world, there is very little that is permanent. And as the world around me inevitably changes, I’ve discovered that the single thing that tends to last is the power of an idea.

That doesn’t mean an idea is static. Rather, we constantly tinker with the environment in which it sits so that we can nurture it to full flower. And there is no better example of this than all the changes we’re undergoing at USGBC.

Across the globe, LEED is booming. We’ve registered and certified 14 billion square feet in more than 150 countries precisely because we’ve kept evolving the rating system to take advantage of the changes in process and products that the green building movement has inspired.

And that’s led to changes in the tools we have deployed. Few things were more analog than the three-ring binders that held the documentation of the first LEED projects. Now we have not only a richly functional LEED Online project management platform, but we also have the LEED Dynamic Plaque that can serve as a performance management tool to help building owners and managers continuously improve a building’s performance.

It’s also become clear that the world now needs to aggregate building performance across entire portfolios and encompass other aspects such as landscape and human wellness and comfort. So we’ve significantly expanded GBCI’s portfolio to now include credentialing and certification for SITES and WELL, and we’ve added data and financial reporting tools such as GBIG and GRESB, bringing in new audiences and broadening our reach.

This has been the pivot that has caused us to think of ourselves more as the NGO version of a B-Corp than a traditional nonprofit, because we’re constantly changing and adding to the ways we fund our work— whether it’s green schools, green affordable housing, or a LEED Platinum children’s center in Haiti. At the same time, we’re partnering with the business community in ways that are expanding their top lines and improving their bottom lines, permanently shifting the sustainability conversation from the pages of the CSR report to the 10K of annual reports.

We’re also evolving our organizational structure. We’ve just completed the process of changing our governance by seating our first-ever Advisory Council, made up of members of our 2015 Board of Directors, and electing a new board slate whose experience and expertise better reflect the needs of the far-reaching organization we are becoming. We’re also changing how our army of volunteers is structured as we complete the evolution of our chapter network and deploy ADVANCE.

And I’m part of the change, too, as I announced my intention to step down as CEO of USGBC and GBCI at the end of 2016. I’ll spend much of next year working closely with Mahesh Ramanujam, who will take over as CEO of USGBC and GBCI in January of 2017, as well as with the amazing USGBC and GBCI teams all over the globe.

All of these changes are intentional, undertaken to help us evolve and adapt, so we can grow and thrive. Because what will never change is our commitment to the powerful idea on which our mission is founded: green buildings and communities for everyone within this generation.

LEED ON,

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