Canada Green Building Rocks!
Thomas Mueller, President and CEO of the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC), reports that their membership and activities are growing very fast in 2007; on a “per capita” basis, CaGBC now has more members than the US Green Building Council
I met today with Thomas Mueller of the Canada Green Building Council , at his office in Vancouver. The CaGBC now has more than 1,700 business, agency and institutional members vs. USGBC’s 12,500. Applying the “10% rule” (Canada’s population is just about one-tenth that of the U.S.), the CaGBC now has more members per capita. The CaGBC is moving quickly to create a flexible Canada LEED rating system for all building types and all stages of a building’s life cycle, using a flexible “bookshelf of credits” approach, combiined with serious “life cycle assessment” methods, directions in which the USGBC is also headed. Mueller is also spearheading moves to bring Canada’s homebuilders into the LEED camp. Expect to see much more coming out of the CaGBC after a major “summit” in Toronto in June of 2008. According to the conference web site, this event will see the launch of the next generation of the LEED® Canada rating system—a tool that will facilitate measurable and large scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and support building owners and operators for continuous building performance improvement. I also learned from Mueller that most of Canada’s major developers are moving quickly to make commitments to LEED office buildings throughout Ontario, the most populous province.
Posted by on 12/11/2007 at 05:32 PM
Yes, Jerry CGBC does rock!
However....they need to turn up the VOLUME quite a bit…
As a Green Agent of Change, a Canadian, and a representative for ENS I
cannot tell you how dissapointed I was when I called CGBC and asked if
they would consider utilizing our Environment News Service network - a
very well respected, well established network, which began in BC, Canada,
17 years ago, to distribute their press releases WORLDWIDE. Their
Marketing rep said flatly, without a second thought, no thanks, call the
World Green Building Council.
As a Canadian and a great admirer of Marshall McLuhan, this is deplorable.
McLuhan was a CANADIAN, a brilliant writer on media communications, who
long before the green Building movement, coined the phrase “Think Global,
Act Local.” This quote is perfect for Green building but it needs to be
fully realized!
To do so more information on Green Building at whatever levels possible
needs to get out thru global networks in order to add fuel to the world
wide environmental fire, fanning it with the fierce, focused energy of
what Paul Hawkins has said to be the “Largest environmental movement on
the planet”- Green Building.
That is the good news.
The Bad News is that at the UN Conference in Bali this December 2007 it
has already been stated that while Green Building could be a significant
reducer to Carbon Emissions there is a “Market Failure”.
“About 40 percent of all energy is consumed in buildings and in
construction. This is the incredible fact most people don’t realize,” said
Kaarin Taipale, of the U.N.’s Marrakesh Task Force on Sustainable
Buildings and Construction."You’d believe everyone would be rushing
towards reducing emissions from the building and construction sectors and
that governments are actively supporting the sector to realize this
potential.""This is not really happening and in most countries nothing is
happening.” This was because there was little knowledge of materials,
little awareness about by business about sustainable buildings, and
economic disincentives, she said."All our studies have found it will not
happen if governments are not active to help overcome the market failure
that is very blatant here.” - REUTERS, Dec 7, 2007
At ENS we interpret this to mean there has been a “failure to market”. In
a connected, global economy where networks are communications and
communications are the true wealth there has been a failure of business to
communicate the message of Green Building to a world wide audience. It is
the SOCIAL Responsibility of government, business and organizations to
share their news and information on Green Building world wide whenever the
opportunity arises! Information is wealth, share it! By using existing
global networks, especially those that are green, you tap into incredible
wealth. Increase the scale of your network and you will automatically
increase your net worth CGBC! As Neil Young said, Rock and Roll will
never die...keep on rocking in the FREE world!
Zen
Green Agent of Change
“Living Green moment to moment”
Posted by on 12/12/2007 at 09:10 PM
