Dec. '08/Jan. '09
LEED
C O N T E N T S
Chapter News: US EPA Benefits Far Reaching
Executive Director's Corner: The Economics of Green
The Business of Green: Busted Boiler Brings Energy Savings Vision to Company
Greenbuild 2009 in Phoenix: Long Live The West
LEED: Notes From A Shifted Landscape
LEED: Bethke School LEED Certified
Regional Roundup: Denver Metro Steering Committee's Efforts Pay Off
VISION
Promote responsibility for Colorado's environmental legacy.
MISSION
Advance and promote sustainable planning, design, construction and operation of the built environment through education, improving industry guidelines, policy advocacy, and information and resource sharing.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Tom Hootman, President
RNL Design
Dana Kose, Vice Chair
Universal Development Company
Megan Christensen, Secretary
Bovis Lend Lease
Jim Bradburn, Treasurer
RMH Group
Mike Lowell, Advocacy Chair
US GSA
Bobby Molinary, Membership Chair Hyatt Select
Josh Radoff, Director At Large
YRG Sustainability
Daniele Loffreda, Communications Chair
Plateau Enviro Associates
Conor Merrigan, EGB Chair
C2 Sustainable Development Consultants
Deb Kleinman
Executive Director
Colorado Building Green is the official newsletter of the U.S. Green Building Council – Colorado Chapter, and is published bi-monthly. If you are interested in submiting a story, ideas or other information for publication, please contact the editor at dgloffreda@msn.com
Notes From a Shifted Landscape
Sustainability in the Aftermath
By Josh Radoff, Principal, YRG Sustainability
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The Greenbuild conference, held last month in Boston, offered its usual doses of reflection and inspiration for what’s going on in the world of green building. This year’s conference came at an especially poignant time: enormous energy and hope from the recent election, the economy comfortably and confidently on its way to bottoming out, and the concept of green jobs and a new green economy on the lips of everyone from my mother to Desmond Tutu (the conference keynote). Given all of this upending, the general question that seems to be pervading the collective consciousness of the industry is: Will green building and sustainability survive the current economic mess or, be shown to be a luxury item, no longer of interest in a recession-spiked world? And if survival is in the cards, what will things look like when the pieces settle?
The survival question is obviously the most pressing. Jobs in the building industry have been hemorrhaging, many existing projects have gone on hold, and 
the general pipeline of future projects have, for many, dried to a trickle. But what about the green component of said projects and pipeline? To use one anecdotal metric, projects at our firm (YRG sustainability) – all of which are pursuing some level of sustainability goal – have either gone on hold (fortunately, not that many), or are pressing on. None have come back to us and said: ‘we’re continuing with the project, but we’re jettisoning our sustainability component.’ Or ‘we’re going ahead without seeking LEED certification.’ This pattern is true at all levels of project type whether a local multifamily building, a high-rise in New York, or an international master planned city. The same can be said for the pipeline of projects. The investment money is out there (according to the likes of CBRE CEO Brett White; see his Marketplace interview)and in no conversation have I heard anything about going ahead with projects with the green components stripped out.
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This suggests that the roots of green building are deep; that at a minimum, green building isn’t going away. That it’s like healthy food: if you’ve given up TV dinners and Lucky Charms for a life of fresh, slow food, it’s arguably harder 
to go back than it was to get there in the first place. Try this: watch fifteen minutes of CNN and see how long it takes to see an IBM or other commercial about “going green;” or a story about green jobs or renewable energy. What’s more, we hear from all layers of our normally polarized political and economic strata that the future of our economy is a green economy, staffed by green jobs. This means that we should expect to see a massive influx of policies, regulations, and incentives – federal, state, utility, and municipal – serving to further deepen the roots of this all.