Green Options

In 2006, the Cascadia Region Green Building Council announced its Living Building Challenge. (For a description of the challenge, see Moving Beyond LEED.) Its goal is to move green building practices beyond LEED Platinum, aiming for buildings that have zero impact upon their environment. So far more than 50 Living Buildings across the United States are in the design or construction phase.

To augment the Living Building Challenge, Cascadia is developing a companion program known as Living Building Leader. This program will provide a venue for members of the building industry to share knowledge and develop green building skill sets. Living Building Leader is launching a series of sessions covering green building topics which will be taught by experts from fields relating to sustainable building; the sessions are intended for professionals who already have experience in green building.

The Cascadia Region Green Building Council (covering Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia) is already attempting to push beyond the LEED envelope by issuing its Living Building Challenge.

This challenge sets a new standard for what it means to be green. Its icon is a vibrant orange flower, meant to suggest elegance and efficiency; the flower, like a pie graph, is broken into parts, or petals. The 6 petals correspond to performance measures in the built environment:

• Site
• Materials
• Energy
• Indoor Quality
• Water
• Beauty and Inspiration