2010 For the Greener Good Season
What do community gardens, indoor air quality, Chinese-made goods, and elementary schools have in common? All were featured in the Museum’s groundbreaking 2010 series For the Greener Good: Conversations that Will Change the World. These programs examine issues of sustainability and the built environment by exploring the necessity of creating a green world, tracking how we’ve arrived at our present course, and presenting practical choices to ensure a better future. Each program featured a variety of speakers from different fields such as architecture, engineering, construction, popular culture, healthcare, and government. The goal is not only to address the challenges associated with global warming, depleted resources, and pollution, but also to propose effective long-term solutions.
The series kicked off in January welcoming more than 400 visitors to a discussion on urban agriculture. Given that the average grocery store vegetable travels 1,500 miles to reach our plate, city leaders and community activists are investigating how to increase farming inside city limits. Urban agriculture has the potential to reclaim unused and often blighted land, provide nutritious food to underserved areas, and reduce the urban heat island effect. Panelists included Josh Viertel, president, Slow Food USA; Liz Falk, director and co-Founder, Washington D.C. based Common Good City Farm; and Steve Cohen, manager of food policy, Portland Oregon’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Moderator Allison Arieff, Sunset Magazine’s editor at large asked the audience to imagine fruit-bearing cherry trees dotting Pennsylvania or harnessing social media to let the public know when publicly-accessible fruit trees are ready to be picked. Watch video from the program.
The series continued in February with a program that investigated the health benefits of working in a green building. Representatives from Bank of America discussed a landmark health study on employees working in the new Bank of America Tower at 1 Bryant Park in New York City that is pursuing Platinum LEED certification. The panel included Gregory Kats, senior director and director of climate change policy, Good Energies; Michelle Moore, Federal Environmental executive, President’s Council on Environmental Quality; Lisa Shpritz, senior vice president, Corporate Workplace for Bank of America; Vivian Loftness, professor, Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture, and moderator Robert Ivy, Architectural Record editor-in-chief. The panel explored the question of if you can connect healthier employees to sustainable architecture, could you lower a company’s health care costs? If the field was able to convene enough data to prove this, this could be a game changer when considering how and when to build sustainably. Watch video from the program.
In March, the panel explored the importance of greening the supply chain. Globally, companies are hearing from consumers demanding that products be green, from the manufacturing process to lowering the carbon footprint of goods transportation. The panel featured Gwen Davidow, director, corporate programs, World Environment Center; Kirsten Richie, director of sustainability, Gensler; and Nadav Malin, president, BuildingGreen. Moderator Ken Langer, president of the Architectural Energy Corporation led the panel in a discussion about the dangers of greenwashing, the role of the federal government in mandating green labeling, and the process of auditing bamboo flooring made in China. Watch video from the program.
The series concludes on April 29 with experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Education, National Public Radio, and the design firm Perkins+Will discussing why green schools not only save money for municipalities but also create healthier and smarter students. Recent studies have shown that access to daylight increases test scores as well as children’s future earning potential. Saving a buck now with conventional construction could cost the nation dearly in the future—especially when green school construction costs, on average, only 2% more than traditional building. Register for the "Sustainable Schools" For the Greener Good program.
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The For the Greener Good lecture series is presented by The Home Depot Foundation. |
