E-News Update from Oregon BEST

I've been on a kick lately. In my travels to Washington, DC, Greenbuild in Phoenix, and here at home, I'm encouraging our public officials to stop saying Oregon can become a leader in sustainability, green building, and renewable energy, and instead proudly acknowledge we already are. While I've known that to be the case, especially in green building and public policy, several recent encounters have cemented it.

Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told me they have to resist the urge to always use Portland as the example of stormwater management success stories.

Last week at Greenbuild, the world's largest green building conference, I met someone from another state who said, after I mentioned I was from Oregon, "You guys are light years ahead of us."

I've had plenty of other interactions that support this. So I submit we stop talking about becoming a leader and simply act like one. What do leaders do? What we're already doing, in small doses. But we need to ramp it up:

Share our knowledge with the world. Three Oregon BEST Member Faculty spoke at Greenbuild and other speakers included numerous Oregon green building industry leaders. We need to take advantage of more opportunities like this to be on stage at academic and industry events to share the results of our research, our green buildings case studies, and the training based on what we're learning.

Lead by doing. A coalition of organizations are collaborating to create the Oregon Sustainability Center, the world's first high-rise building that would meet the Living Building Challenge: net zero energy, water, and waste. Meeting this goal will be extremely difficult, but no group is better equipped to pull it off than this Oregon coalition, which includes Oregon BEST faculty as advisors who will also help execute a research agenda using the building as a real-world laboratory. This project will be a very clear national leadership statement.

Repeat. Building the first or biggest LEED Platinum or Living Building is quite an accomplishment. But to make a dent in the 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions for which buildings are responsible, America needs to repeat this feat millions of times. Commercializing and scaling what our researchers and industry partners are learning will make a tremendous impact and help us help others.

There's more to it, but these are some actions that are leadership worthy. What do you think? Feel free to let me know.

-- David Kenney, President & Executive Director