What can the Cascadia Green Building Council really do about declining honey bee populations or climate change?
JM: We’ve started by identifying priorities, setting big picture goals, and identifying signal issues that we can develop strategies to address in the built environment. We’ve identified four issues that shape all our programs: climate change; the rise of persistent bioaccumulative toxins in the environment; habitat and species loss; and social equity. We are committed to developing explicit strategies to address these issues in every program we advance: the Living Building Challenge; the Pharos materials evaluation system; and even the conference this week. BW: How does this vision work operationally in the initiatives you’ve mentioned, for example? JM: Our vision gets real in two ways: specific programs and creative collaborations. In both the Living Building Challenge and the Pharos Project, for example, you will find an ideal goal set forth, a vision of what a truly good—not just less-bad—material or building would be. Then you will find specific steps to achieve that ideal. Diffic
