Greenbuild 2019 Comes to a Close, New Initiatives and Visions for Future Announced
ATLANTA – (November 25, 2019) – The Greenbuild International Conference & Expo, presented by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC>) and owned and operated by Informa Connect, concluded last week in Atlanta, where thousands of global green building and sustainability leaders gathered.
Greenbuild 2019 featured four days of inspiring education sessions and keynote speeches every day of the conference. This year’s keynotes included civil rights activist Dr. Bernice King, architect and MacArthur Fellow Jeanne Gang, youth climate activist Jamie Margolin, climate and weather expert Dr. Marshall Shepherd, and former President Barack Obama. Greenbuild is the largest green building conference and expo in the world and brings thousands of sustainability and green building leaders together to advance our vision that buildings and communities will regenerate and sustain the vitality of all life within a generation. This year, the conference elevated the connection between people and the spaces they rely on every day.
“Many people may not be thinking about how a building impacts them or their environment,” said Kim Heavner, vice president, conferences and events at USGBC. “That’s why this year’s theme, ‘A New Living Standard,’ explored how we can broaden that conversation and help connect the dots between people and the places where they live, work, learn and play.”
Greenbuild is USGBC’s opportunity to celebrate the work done and begin the updates to the LEED program and others that will propel green building into the future. This year, USGBC made several announcements including the following program updates:
USGBC Equity, announced at Tuesday’s summits, is a new initiative that is designed to highlight and bring attention to the broad spectrum of work that USGBC is doing around social equity. This initiative will take the pulse of USGBC members and the green building community to help determine what individuals are currently doing to advance social equity and how LEED buildings, cities and communities are contributing.
During the Future of LEED education session on Wednesday, Nov. 20, USGBC announced LEED Positive, a vision statement and LEED development roadmap that will lay the foundation for a future of LEED that is regenerative. The LEED Positive vision will guide USGBC in transitioning LEED from strategies that reduce the harm done by buildings to strategies that cause no harm and begin the process of healing and repair.
