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An Era of Collaboration

Northwest EcoBuilding Guild Awarded $50,000 PPG Ecology Grant

NW Ecobuilding Guild Enters Era of Community Collaboration

By Fiona Douglas-Hamilton

Mention the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild (NWEBG) and, depending upon whether the person asked is a sustainable building professional or a lay person, one is likely to be met with one of two responses: “Sure, I know them,” or “Who?” If a layperson has heard of the Guild’s work, it is most likely because they have attended programs developed and presented by a local Guild Chapter under the auspices of the regional Guild.

So far, the growth and effectiveness of individual Chapters is influenced by two things: How many motivated green building professionals are there in the area, and what is the general public’s interest in green building? Strangely, these two factors often conflict, providing a conundrum for each Chapter, namely: How do you serve first time “greeners,” who typically are seeking enough information for their own building project (and then no longer renew their membership), and yet give your green building professionals enough reasons to remain active members?

The solution — and real growth — lie in collaboration. We have only to look at recent history to realize why.

In the 1970s, four regional programs in the U.S. were established to promote and popularize the use of solar and renewable energy. Western S.U.N. (Solar Utilization Network) was the Western States’ response. Western S.U.N. was a decentralized approach created by a group of professors in different universities with offices in Olympia, Bellingham and Ellensburg to provide solar energy education. Many future founding members of the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild, South Sound locals such as Sandra Fugate, Tom St. Louis, Paul Horton and Mike Nelson, to name but a few, were heavily involved in the creation of the Washington Solar Council and Citizens for Solar Washington, which successfully lobbied Washington State to set its own Energy Code.

Despite their growth, the programs were vulnerable. In 1981, 30 days after his inauguration, Reagan’s administration radically slashed funding for these programs. Which programs survived? Only those that had created partnerships with local government and other funding partners, prime examples of which are the Energy Outreach Center — originally the Olympia office of Western S.U.N., and those tenacious individuals who started new grassroots organizations, some of which are a powerful presence today (e.g. the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild).

Today, we have a proliferation of green building certification programs, such as US Green Building Council’s national LEED Green Building Rating System™; BuiltGreen™ Washington and its various Master Builder Association green building programs; Northwest Energy Star and Energy Star™; Earth Advantage® and the American Lung Association’s Healthy House program. In addition we have dozens of non-profit educational programs with similar missions.

Nowadays the danger is not from cuts in funding (except of course for the Energy Star program, which is vulnerable because it is wholly federally funded), but rather the duplication of efforts — and thus the dissipation of the funding currently being received by all of these different groups. To address this viable concern, the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, underwritten by the Dept. of Ecology and the Portland Office of Sustainability, recently invited many of these organizations to the first Cascadia Strategic Collaboration Summit to 1) learn about each other’s programs and 2) coordinate efforts and collaborate on funding.

Collaboration and coordination is now considered a critical strategy for advancing sustainable development principles across the Cascadia region. It is within this context that the NWEBG South Puget Sound Chapter, the many different BuiltGreen programs, and numerous other organizations received 2007 PPG Ecology Grant funding starting July 1st.

So far the news is extremely encouraging. NWEBG and The Olympia Master Builders BuiltGreen program have agreed to collaborate in the following areas:

  1. Provide data and funding for a Cascadia region green appraisal guide in collaboration with Earth Advantage
  2. Provide educational clock hour classes to the real estate industry; specifically to appraisers and loan officers
  3. Provide green building resource information display stands at every building permit center within Thurston, Lewis, Mason, Grays Harbor and Pierce counties.
  4. Explore the limitations of current recycling options for C&D (Construction and Development) Waste; assist various municipalities in their solid waste programs; and introduce jobsite recycling to an increasing number of the Olympia Master Builder membership. #}

    And this is only the beginning. We invite and welcome representatives from other non-profit organizations, municipalities and local government to join us at our monthly membership meetings. Come, tell us what you are doing and let’s see how we can collaborate and help green building practices thrive in our region.

    Fiona Douglas-Hamilton is partial owner of Apple Homes, an Energy Star and Built Green Level 5 contractor in the South Puget Sound region. She sits on the regional board of the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild. She can be reached at 360-352-4400.


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Updated 2015/01/07 21:14:22