Get ready for two days of exciting dialogue that will bring us all closer to achieving genuine sustainability in the area of green buildings and sustainable communities.
The Cascadia Region Green Building Council and the American Institute of Architects are working together to host a regional green building conference in April 2007 in Seattle, entitled “Living Future.”  We hope you’ll get involved.

A few top notch speakers we have in mind: Ed Mazria, Rick Fedrizzi, Al Gore, Mayor Greg Nichols, Bob Berkebile, Paul Hawken and others.  The overarching theme is mitigating climate change with in-depth technical and motivational training for a diverse array of building design and construction professionals focused on the Living Building Challenge.

Haven’t heard of the Living Building Challenge? The Living Building Challenge, to be launched during the Tuesday morning plenary session at Greenbuild next week by Cascadia CEO Jason F. McLennan, will raise the bar and define a true measure of sustainability in the built environment, at least as far as what is currently possible and given the best knowledge available to date.  Projects that achieve this level of performance can claim to be the most sustainable in North America and not merely less bad.  At the heart of the Living Building Challenge is the belief that we need to move quickly to a state of balance between the natural and built environments.   No credits to count, models to create and large paperwork to compile. Just sixteen simple and profound prerequisites that must be met.  For example, in the area of energy, there is a prerequisite that dictates Net Zero Energy, meaning that 100 percent of the buildings’ energy needs supplied by on-site renewable energy on a net annual basis.

Sound interesting? 

 The conference will also include a bookstore, a fellowship awards program, the presentation of an official conference film/Living Building documentary, a design competition, Speed Networking (think speed dating but with the purpose of networking) and a variety of other exciting events, including a session called “15 Minutes of Brilliance” in which people will submit ideas ahead of time for how we can move to address climate change in revolutionary rather than in incremental ways. This will be a competition for the best ideas, and only the top four ideas will be presented.  There will be prizes, there will be celebrities, and there will be a catalyst for great change.

So that’s the plan so far.  There are a variety of ways in which we want to invite you to be part of it.