[Greenbuilding] Fwd: Green Buildings and Infrastructure Are Half the Solution

[Mark Piepkorn]

The car thread brought the Green Living Manifesto 
to mind. It's by and about green building professionals.


The following blog entry came from:
   BuildingGreen.com LIVE
The entry can be found here:
   http://www.buildinggreen.com/live/index.cfm/2008/4/30/Green-Buildings-and-Infrastructure-Are-Half-the-Solution 


>"Green buildings have captured the imagination 
>of many in the mainstream, but for green 
>professionals the time has come to stop 
>designing for mere energy efficiency and start 
>designing to regenerate and restore. And that 
>means taking responsibility for what people do 
>in buildings and communities after they are built." ­ www.greenmanifesto.org
>
>Also from the website:
>
>- Communities are people, not buildings.
>- Communities will change when the people living in them change.
>- At least half of human impact on the planet 
>comes from our lifestyles ­ the choices we make 
>every day. Where, and how, we travel. What we 
>eat. What we wear. The stuff we buy, and how we 
>get rid of that stuff when we're done with it.
>- These lifestyle choices are not made in a 
>vacuum. They are made in communities, and are 
>indelibly influenced by community design and buildings.
>- The way we've designed our cities and 
>buildings in the past has created a template for 
>living that most people follow without much 
>thought, and that template makes it very inconvenient to live sustainably.
>- Those of us who create and run the places we 
>live in have tremendous influence to change this 
>template, and and to make it easier for people to change their lifestyles.
>- Some of us have been pre-occupied with making 
>buildings, streets, and infrastructure that use 
>building materials, water, and energy in smarter 
>ways. We call ourselves "green professionals." 
>We call our movement the "green building 
>movement." But we now recognize that the biggest 
>problems are fundamentally social ones.
>- Since buildings and technology represent only 
>half of the problem and half of the solution, 
>clearly the present green building movement doesn't go far enough.
>- All across our cities, entrepreneurs and 
>environmental groups are emerging with solutions 
>to specific challenges of our unsustainable 
>lifestyles ­ car-sharing companies, local food 
>advocates, re-use innovators. But most of these 
>green lifestyle initiatives are not joined up 
>with the green building movement, or each other.
>- We urgently need an umbrella movement that 
>will bring us all together to design, build, and 
>operate truly sustainable communities with 
>intent. The time has come to apply the vast 
>ingenuity of the green building movement to 
>making green lifestyles just as convenient as 
>"grey lifestyles." The time has come to broaden 
>our design teams, to bring green lifestyle experts to the table.
>- We cannot wait for someone else to bring us 
>all together. We are the ones we have been waiting for.