To be at GreenBuild last week was to be in a double bubble. From the outer bubble the surreal crashing of cracked, frozen markets all around us (the shattering of the current paradigm, as closing speaker Janine Benyus put it). The inner bubble was full of the volcanic energy of a construction industry feeling the power of its future. And while to be in the outer bubble was to feel despair, from within the GreenBuild bubble there was a sense that things are better than okay; that the outer bubble actually offers a platform for substantive transformation; that the industry has been doing its homework and is ready to go to work, in timely alignment with the opportunities presented by the crackling outer bubble.
Who knew? The construction industry is usually the dinosaur; slow to adapt, at the trailing edge of innovation. But its LEED green building rating system brought an iconic power to explain sustainabilty to a world that was otherwise too busy to understand. Not perfect, but better than the information and dis-information swirling around in transportation and manufacturing and elsewhere. For some, LEED was a lure to the underlying potential of sustainability, and the efforts of the lured were visible everywhere at GreenBuild. Consortiums to cut retail lighting and power consumption in half. Tales of a maiden effort to put wind turbines on downtown buildings. Fat stats of energy reduction from programs that tell dorm dwellers how they're using energy.
Somehow the construction industry finds itself the vanguard of a movement to transform itself, pull the economy out of the ditch, stage long term productivity gains, and create a world worth having for the generations that follow.
It was energizing to live in this bubble for a week before returning to the darkness and heaviness of the bubble beyond.
Photo: Archer Kelly on flickr
Recent Comments