PORTLAND, Ore. — Feb, 6 2012 — The International Living Future Institute and the Portland Trail Blazers are calling all junior high and high school students in Oregon to unleash their brilliance and natural leadership. The students are being asked to devise new approaches to the social and environmental problems that they encounter in their daily lives and film 30-second videos to showcase their solutions.

Read the full press release here

PORTLAND, Ore. — Feb. 1, 2012 — The International Living Future Institute is pleased to announce its keynote speaker lineup for its sixth annual Living Future unConference.  A sold-out event since 2009, this year’s theme, “Women Reshaping the World,” is rapidly gaining traction as the must-see program for green building practitioners and sustainability-focused thought leaders.

Read the full article here

 To Register for Living Future 2012, please visit the unConference website.

Nationally renowned sustainability expert and Cascadia Fellow Kathleen O'Brien, along with David Eisenberg, John Cunningham, and Fiona Douglas Hamilton will provide insight on leadership based on years of experience guiding clients and others to a sustainable built environment March 17-18 at Emerge: Leadership for a Sustainable Society. Learn more

Produced by the Preservation Green Lab of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in partnership with Cascadia, this report provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the potential environmental benefit of building reuse.

Click here to read more.

What started as a competition to stimulate conversation about sustainability has influenced the city of Bend to rethink the infrastructure of Bend's future. 

Read the full article here.

BEND, Ore. — Jan. 17, 2012 — In celebration of a unique and innovative partnership with the City of Bend, Cascadia Green Building Council announced today that its CEO, Jason F. McLennan, will deliver a free public lecture on January 30.

The lecture is sponsored by Bend’s Mayor Jeff Eager and the City Council. McLennan, an internationally renowned speaker, will discuss community transformation and the future of architecture and design. He also will address opportunities for Bend to embrace restorative development principles.

McLennan’s visit to Bend kicks off a unique collaboration between the City and Cascadia along with Cascadia’s parent organization, the International Living Future Institute. The Institute is a nonprofit organization that developed and administers the Living Building Challenge™, the world’s most progressive and stringent building standard. Living Building Challenge projects are quickly emerging around the world and demonstrate the highest level of environmental performance currently possible.

The City’s partnership with the Institute began in late 2010, when a group of Bend’s leading architects, planners and engineers came together to enter the Institute’s Living City Design Competition.  What emerged was the Bend Living City Project, which was supported by the action items of the BEND 2030 Vision.  The Project has since made an important contribution to Bend’s long-range planning.  The City now hopes to work with the Institute to apply the Living Building Challenge framework to future planning projects yet to be determined.  

“We’re excited about this phenomenal collaboration,” says Mayor Pro-Tem Jodie Barram.  “The BEND 2030 Vision, a Central Area Plan that needs re-invigorating, and the Institute's ability to look at sustainable systems in a way that will benefit Bend long term can be transformative.”

The lecture will be at the Tower Theater, 835 Northwest Wall Street, Bend. Doors open at 6 PM and the lecture begins at 6:30.  

In the spirit of giving and warmth that embodies this time of year, full conference registration for Living Future 2012 has been reduced to the "Super Early Bird" rates that were offered this past summer. Enjoy an early taste of the unConference's spirit and register to attend today. Don't wait, though, this discount is for a limited time only.

Visit the Living Future 2012 web page to learn more and register.

Sustainability efforts should be scaled properly

You may not have noticed, but in October and November alone, Portland was the location for at least six sustainability-related conferences. I won't attempt to name them all for fear of leaving out a seventh or eighth that I've missed.

Read the full article here.

(Seattle)—Jason F. McLennan, chief executive of the International Living Future Institute and Cascadia Green Building Council, has been named one of the “YES! Breakthrough 15”—a group of people who are “tuned in to the deepest needs of our time,” says YES! Magazine executive editor Sarah van Gelder.

Read the full Press Release here.

Read the Yes! Magazine article here.

The Natural Step received the Portland Business Journal's 2011 Innovation in Sustainability Award today, November 16, 2011.

Read the article here.

The Bainbridge Graduate Institute, a pioneer in offering Sustainable MBA programs, is launching certificate programs in Sustainable Energy Solutions and the Sustainable Built Environment. Designed for working executives seeking to enhance their career opportunities in these rapidly growing industry sectors, these yearlong certificates launch in January 2012 at BGI’s convenient downtown Seattle learning site.
Read the full article here.

The International Living Future Institute is now accepting proposals for education sessions and presenters / moderators / facilitators for its 2012 program.  We are looking for creativity, depth, and innovation in both session topics and format.  Out-of-the-ordinary learning and networking formats provide innovative design strategies, cutting-edge technical information, and the inspiration needed to achieve significant progress in pursuit of a future that is socially just, culturally rich and ecologically restorative.

For more information and to download the Call for Proposals, visit the Living Future 12 website.

One of the most highly anticipated development projects in the Pacific Northwest is still little more than a grid of concrete and rebar at the edge of the Capitol Hill neighborhood here. When completed near the end of next year, though, the six-story office building may be the greenest commercial structure in the world.

Read the full article here.

Design a Business Like a City

By April Knudsen, Communications Project Coordinator at the International Living future Institute.

We talk a lot about systems in The Natural Step, and systems thinking, as a way to emphasize that everything we do is related to something else. In Portland, our urban planning is laced throughout with the understanding that doing something in one part of the metro region, affects the whole region — to varying degrees of success, I know some would avow. Understanding the complexity and interrelatedness of systems in a region, city, and even neighborhood is key to effectively responding to challenges that inevitably arise, and I hope we’re learning from each challenge, and doing a little better each next time.

Read the full article here.

Our newest study finds that decentralized sewage treatment can reduce carbon emissions by as much as 44% compared to large-scale treatment systems. 

Read the full press release here.

As the need for energy-resiliency increases globally, the Institute responds with a program to verify that 100 percent of a building’s energy needs are supplied by on-site renewable sources.  

Read the full press release here.

Happy Reading!

Read the story in the Portland Tribune here.