For this week’s Guest Post Friday, Musings welcomes another Build2Sustain fellow traveler, Yahya Henry. Yahya (@yahyahenry on Twitter) currently serves as founder and Director of Business Development for The Aribra Group, LLC a developer and think tank that promotes best practices in the built environment. Yahya is an entrepreneur, traveler and avid blogger, and has built his career around his passions for people, the planet and equitable development. He is active in his community and serves on the Sustainable Committee for the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Triangle (Raleigh, NC). He was previously Membership Committee Chair and founding member for the Young Leaders Group and apart of the Executive Committee for ULI Hampton Roads. He was also active in Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) Hampton Roads Regional Group, the Smart Growth Network, International Council of Shopping Centers and the Second Harvest Food Bank.
Yahya previously posted this here at the Build2Sustain Blog.
Depending on who you ask and what the latest headlines are, sustainable, by definition is not universal. Looking up a definition for the word, I viewed at least 10 sub-definitions; no wonder there is some confusion as to what it is and what it is not. The built environment is flawed in this instance. Pressure is on developers and general contractors to deliver a ‘green’ project and to help curb our carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Therefore, anything is being done in the guise of “sustainability.” This model is not sustainable.
What attracted me most about Build2Sustain was that they clearly laid out their mission as to how sustainability was to work and be applied specifically to commercial renovations – that speaks volumes. Confusion (and the learning curve) can be lessened by a clear mission among its project practitioners. More often than not, the majority of people that make those claims of sustainability don’t know what it actually means or how it relates to what they are trying to accomplish. Claims that a project is sustainable, green or has green elements, has no benefit to the end-user if they can’t be articulated in a way that makes sense in application. The built industry has its share of greenwashing as well.
Globally, a shift is taking place and if the momentum is harnessed, great environments will be created. I’m afraid that if it’s not channeled in a manner that seeks to create a more equitable future, we’ll be repeating this cycle in another generation. Awareness will play a significant role in this process to differentiate what is green, sustainable or hype. While I applaud the USGBC on what it has done to bring awareness to the importance of green building and their LEED program, they too are finding inefficiencies in measuring true building performance and sustainability claims. An invisible tipping point exists. Unless there is a resource to draw from, we will continue to see similar results to the USGBC; in other words, too many Chiefs and not enough Indians. I’m hopeful that Build2Sustain will serve as a prototype of what can be achieved when a bottom up approach is taken.
Both YahYa and I would enjoy hearing your comments below. Also, please subscribe to keep up with the latest Guest Posts and Musings.
Thanks for the great post YahYa! I appreciate it.
Greetings Chris and Yahya — I missed Chris’ reply on the other post regarding shared definitions at Build2sustain Chris – for your readers, here it is again:
Interesting point Yahya — part of the conversation here on the green v. sustainable thread, and also amongst the comments on the recent blog post on our page (found here if you are interested http://bit.ly/24EzTn) is on this very topic of loose terms with unshared definitions.
The more technical folks and us lawyer would likely prefer specificity: “the project will achieve x% increase of Y”. Moving the masses may be a very different equation though as enthusiasm and momentum probably drive crowd behavior and there is no doubt that the amorphous “green” push has gained energy and drive in the last couple years.
Added new thought – it is quite exciting to contemplate that we are all part of the conversation to help mold and shape those shared definitions. I like the specificity for purposes of risk management and clarity, but there is without question a headiness to watching the eruption of interest in green building, sustainability, improved energy efficiency … all critical issues that have seemed to languish but have caught a tailwind of late.
.-= Timothy R. Hughes´s last blog post ..Energy, Post-Occupancy & Codes: The Ghosts of LEED Present =-.
Great thoughts Tim, and thanks for bringing in other comments! I agree that the enthusiasm is great. The issue that I have is that the enthusiasm seems to wash over the populous with a sort of “damn the torpedos” mentality that can lead to not only risk issues later, but even credibility issues now. I also have a fear that the fervor will lead to some negative consequences if we don’t take this one step at a time.