The Charge to Participants

Please think about these three questions, in the context of looking beyond green building and sustainable design: 1. What do you care deeply about in your work and how does that relate to expanding the approach to sustainable design? (What is your vision? What are your core values?) 2. What do you feel isn't happening in the design and construction industry now that should be and what are the consequences for sustainability? (What needs to change?) 3. What are you doing in your work in pursuit of your vision?

In relation to these questions and the theme of expanding our approach to sustainable design, please write down and send us your own core question or issue that is driving you in the pursuit of your vision. What do you feel could move you into deeper realms of exploration?

We're particularly interested in aspects of your thinking about these issues that are not fully resolved--that you are still exploring/mulling/ chewing on. We’ll be compiling and sharing your responses (anonymously), so please keep the core question brief.

Participant Questions

What are the most highly effective, FUN, and efficient ways to empower all of us towards "conscious evolution"—towards health, laughter, and love?

How do we get others to respect natural processes and acknowledge their role in our lives?

How can we make the shift from a design approach that follows the Rational/Mental model to one that follows The Integral model? The shift from "grid" thinking to "fractal" thinking?

How can we shift education and practice to celebrate: access to nature; regionalism; passive conditioning; ecological land-use; 'whole life' pedestrian neighborhoods; a balance of integrated, robust and flexible infrastructures and timeless, highly crafted places; celebrations of nature and humanity?

Why do we bother? Faced with what seems to be a losing battle, and surrounded by insouciance or blatant disregard to the evidence of the world's demise, what drives us?

How can we use our work to turn apathy into passion and give meaning to the lives of others?

At its core, sustainability is a way of thinking. What new modes of thinking and new thought processes (beyond mere metrics and indices) can help it take shape?

Is it possible to influence, or even address, at the project or industry level, the deeply value-laden issues such as the desire for affluence or the constraint of population growth?

What design and project delivery approaches have the most potential for creating buildings that stretch towards their ultimate potential, moving beyond sustainability to catalyze restorative and regenerative ecologic relationships?

Can simple, sound-bite information and approaches engender a sense of the importance and complexity of global environmental degradation, convey the urgent need for concerted and immediate action, and offer constructive direction?

What lessons can legitimately be drawn from natural systems and processes that offer direction to the design of buildings and infrastructure beyond the overly simplified and generalized ones that one consistently hears?

How can we shift the values question from being based on economic analysis to being based on ethical action?

What more can we do as industry leaders to integrate non-building projects into the green design arena?

How can buildings do more to remind us all of our natural selves and our connections to the natural world?

I think there is a joy that informs much of the green "movement" (for lack of a better word) that is not yet being communicated to the industry as a whole. How can we communicate that joy?

How do we know when something (a building, design approach, technology) is working well?

What are the most important issues we face as a planet, as all people, and as a society? How can I focus my work to make a difference in these issues, however small that difference might be? How can I know what is the "right" thing to do, the most effective?

How do I stay open to the full potential of integrating science and spirit and help create an environment within which a healing/restorative community dialogue can be maintained?

How best to "in-spirit" people to participate in the health of the whole?

How can we, as design/development professionals utilize the work process: * to develop and employ the capacity to touch the spirit—in clients, community, fellow professionals, in a way that ignites such a hunger to build, work, live and eat in harmony with our place and our planet that, in order to satisfy that hunger, we are continuously called to move beyond our own limits? And * to develop and employ the thinking capability (distinctive from our normal patterns) required to work with increasing effect and effectiveness?

If we back into 2005 from 2020, what are the requirements—illuminated by backcasting—that buildings will have to face in 15 years?

In the green building world we make assumptions about clients that they share or appreciate our value system (ecological design). How do we more effectively communicate the benefits of green building, much less regenerative design, to those with other worldviews?

How can we protect the credibility and integrity of green building and beyond in the face of industry push-back that is intended to confuse the marketplace and consumers?

Where is the science that supports many of the assumptions we make about green processes, practices and products? How much formaldehyde is too much, what are true life cycle costs of buildings, is FSC truly a better approach to forest management?

Given the world's population and the current condition of the earth, if we are truly committed to sustaining the environment should we be building new projects at all or simply recycling what has already been used or disturbed?

What are the changes at the collective and individual level that need to be made to the structures of the development industry to radically—rather than incrementally—lower the impact on the environment?

How can the development process be transformed from the current state where green considerations become just another set of integrated systems (similar to civil, structural, mechanical) to a point were sustainability is the BASIS of the integration?

Ultimately the question really becomes... "do we have what it takes?" Do we... have the intelligence to create solutions to reach our outcome? Do we... have the passion and heart to keep us honest and devoted to our values and beliefs? And finally—do we have the fire in our belly to get it done?

How can we transform our construction delivery methodology from its current set of perverse disincentives into a system of healthy relationships (people, places, planet)?

How can we transform our understanding of human development patterns and their water consumption so that we can contribute to the hydrological health of the places we inhabit?

We all share a basic vision of what we what, what we value, and what we want the world to look like. Why do we behave and act in conflict with our shared vision? What drives this behavior?