The International Living Building Institute, home of the Living Building Challenge, is now the International Living Future Institute. The new institute also consolidates several sustainability-oriented organizations in the Western United States: The Cascadia Green Building Council, Ecotone Publishing, and the Natural Step Network USA.
Under the arrangement, the Cascadia Green Building Council will remain a chapter of the USGBC and the Canada Green Building Council and will maintain a network of 14 branches in Alaska, British Columbia, Oregon, and Washington. Ecotone Publishing, which focuses on green architecture and design, will continue to publish books as well as Trim Tab magazine. It also will assemble case studies regarding structures that complete the Living Building Challenge. The Natural Step Network USA will remain an affiliate of The Natural Step International, which seeks to help organizations and communities take steps toward sustainable business practices through education and collaboration.
“The Institute is best understood as a hub for visionary programming,” says CEO Jason F. McLennan, who announced the changes during his plenary speech at the Living Future ’11 conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on April 28. “With the recent certification of the world’s first Living Building projects, we have proof positive that buildings can thrive in partnership with the ecosystems they inhabit. But, as our pioneering project teams have discovered, green buildings don’t exist in a vacuum; they are part of a web of influences moving from the materials we build with, to the structures we create and maintain, and on to the communities we inhabit. The International Living Future Institute offers solutions that reach across these scales even as it addresses individual behavior and organizational culture.“
For more information on the new organization, visit living-future.org.
