MISSION: "To promote sustainable strategies and responsibility for the Inland Empire’s environmental legacy and built environment, fostering a healthy, prosperous and improved quality of life."

"Beyond LEED-Pusing Innovation Past Platinum to Regenerative Buildings"

A Video Presentation

Who Should Attend?

This presentation will highlight the fantastic possibilities that lay ahead for the built environment and those that are shaping our future.  Anyone interested in transforming the status quo will benefit from this presentation.

Description:

This presentation is a re-play of a Masters Series Presentation held at Green Build 2011 in Toronto Canada.  It includes three renowned leaders and visionaries in the Green Building industry that are pushing the industry to try harder and as the question: What is Beyond LEED?

 If LEED Platinum were to become standard for all buildings, what is beyond the LEED boundary? Many project teams are currently using LEED as a framework for moving beyond the rating system to create innovative solutions and push the boundary of green building. Many practitioners are currently doing important work that will be reviewed in this session. This session will also introduce USGBC's new Regenerative Tool and illustrate how LEED can be used to help shift thinking beyond the next version of the rating system.

 Following the replay, we will have a open discussion among attendees to determine the local possibilities of moving beyond LEED.

Speakers:

 Jason McLennan, Cascadia Green Building Council
Tom Paladino, Paladino & Company
Bob Berkebile, BNIM; Phaedra Svec, BNIM

Event Sponsored and Lunch Provided by:

The Future of Green Building…..is all about YOU!

We live in very tumultuous and uncertain times right now.  Like never before we each are faced with a host of critical issues impacting every facet of our lives.  Sometimes it seems as though the economy, the environment and our own personal health are all under siege by the world around us.  Last month we focused on volunteering and the importance of helping out. This month our theme is “The Future of Green Building”, focusing our programs on predicting where the building market is headed and where we can engage.

Thankfully, Globalization and social media have accelerated the exchange of information and facilitated collaboration aimed at improving our situation.  People throughout the world have simply had enough and are ready to fight back.  This fact is evidenced by the Arab Spring in the Middle East and the Occupy protests occurring throughout the United States.  But in this time of great change it is important to remember that enlightenment also carries great responsibility.

As exciting as it was to see Americans standing up against fraud in our banks and the utter lack of leadership within our government, it was equally disappointing to hear the pervasive sense of entitlement being expressed by the young protestors.  Rather than offering solutions and new ways to move forward many of those interviewed simply were asking for “Their Share” of the profits.

This same attitude has been pervasive in the environmental movement and it may be one of the reasons that bitter opposition to “greening” up our planet exists.  Many want to focus on who is to blame and why they should change, but can not fathom looking at their own lifestyle.

Cumulative impact is both the problem and the  solution. We are all responsible. The lack of fresh water remaining on the earth is not the result of one person flushing the toilet, but rather the result of 7.2 billion people flushing 2.6 times a day! Our actions — what we buy and what we use — have created dire consequences, but we all have an opportunity to reduce the effects by taking responsibility for our own actions.

An ancient proverb states, “There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all leading to the same place, so it doesn’t matter which path you take. The only person wasting time is the one who runs around the mountain, telling everyone that his or her path is wrong.”

As we emphasized last month, each one of us has the power, and the quite frankly, the responsibility to do the right thing.  If we look around and see problems in our world, we are the ones that need to make the necessary changes to improve our environment.

Despite the great challenges in front of us, the USGBC-IE sees great opportunity in the Future of Green Building in our region.  With your help we will find multiple ways to improve the environment, health and overall quality of life in the Inland Empire.

Please join us this month as we explore The Future of Green Building.  Our Green Bags will focus on the upcoming revision to the LEED® Rating System — LEED 2012 – and how the building industry is moving beyond LEED into regenerative buildings.  We also will hear from the trenches of local cities about how effective the new California Green Building Code, CalGreen, has been and what impact it has had on the building market.  Our member meeting this month will be a joint event with the Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) and will include a 2012 Construction Industry Forecast from the renowned construction publisher and market expert McGraw Hill.

Before closing I want to share the story below as a sweet reminder, of how we got into this situation and more importantly, how we all need to work together to contribute to the solution. Remember that you are the future of green building and can start making a difference today by visiting our events page at www.usgbc-ie.org/events for more information.

- Rick Fochtman, USGBC-IE Board of Directors

The Green Thing

In the line at the store, the young cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.

The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”

The young cashier responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation was selfish and did not care enough to save our environment.“

He was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.

In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us.

When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to trim the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.

We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service.

We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?

Where:  Online Webinar

What: 

FREE HOME PERFORMANCE SALES AND MARKETING TRAINING WEBINARS 

Attend these webinars to find out how you can increase your success at selling energy audits and upgrades and marketing your company.   Also learn how to increase business by utilizing the online contractor support resources and co-op marketing program of Energy Upgrade California in Los Angeles County.

REGISTER now for these three webinars at no cost to you.
• In-Home Selling – Feb 7, 2012
• Marketing – Feb 14, 2012
• Utilizing  Resources of Energy Upgrade California in LA County -     Feb 23, 2012

HOT TOPICS! ~ COMMUNICATING YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION ~ STRATEGIC QUESTIONING ~ PREPARING FOR THE PHONE CALL ~ CREATING YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE PLAN ~ MARKETING FUNDAMENTALS  ~ MUCH MORE ~

Webinars are for Energy Upgrade California (EUC) Participating Contractors and staff members as well as those intending to become EUC Participating Contractors.

For more information on Energy Upgrade California in Los Angeles County, please visit www.EnergyUpgradeCA.org/LACounty