First group key findings

Things that catalyze change include: * Learner centered teaching (not content centered) * Mental models (uncovered, shifted) * Interdisciplinary (and cross-disciplinary, and multidisciplinary) * Critical thinking (How do you teach a child that even their teachers are infinitely ignorant?) * Learning organizations, learning communities * Upstream thinking (what we’re thinking about, differs from critical thinking, which is about how we think) * Constant improvement

Concise presentations on relevant approaches.

LEED

• All participants are familiar with LEED and many comments have been made on LEED, its successes and its drawbacks.
• What if we didn’t look at the credits currently in LEED but instead looked at the five broad categories (site, water, energy, materials, IEQ) and thought about what credits could be?

Green Globes

• Rating system based on BREEAM, created in Canada.
• Web-based, interactive
• Total of 1000 possible points in the following categories: project management, site, energy, water, emissions/effluents/ and other impacts, indoor environment, though some points can drop out if not applicable

The Natural Step

Based on 4 laws of physics * Matter and energy cannot be destroyed: First Law of Thermodynamics, conservation of energy, conservation of matter * Energy and matter tend to disperse: Second Law of Thermodynamics, energy from outside the system is required to maintain order * Material quality is in the concentration and structure of matter: * we cannot consume matter or energy itself, we consume the concentration, purity and structure energy * Net increases in material quality on Earth are generated almost entirely by sun-driven photosynthetic processes: green plant cells are the primary mechanism to turn disorder into order

Natural cycles lead to 4 system conditions * In order for a society to be sustainable, nature's functions and diversity are not systematically... * ...subject to increasing concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth's crust. * …subject to increasing concentrations of substances produced by society. * …impoverished by physical displacement, over-harvesting, or other forms of ecosystem manipulation. * In order for a society to be sustainable... resources are used fairly and efficiently in order to meet basic human needs globally.

Integral Thinking 101

We have to communicate and translate our thinking so that others can understand it from their perspective.

Conventional approaches look at only one quadrant (for example, adopt new regulations to “force” change, make the industry “wrong” for building conventional housing, invent new green approaches and assume that they will be adopted, work through environmental groups to stimulate the market) – spiral dynamics is an overlay to all 4 quadrants.

Conditions in the environment determine the dominant Paradigm or Value System within people, organizations, and societies

Stakeholders and their mindsets can be defined by their dominant values: * Purple: Security-- Family, Security, Rituals, Myth, Bloodlines * Red: Dominance-- Feats of Valor, Individuality, Personal Expression, Conquests, Heroes, Personal Power * Blue: Traditional-- Convention, Law and Order, Tradition, “Our Truth”, “The right thing”, Classes, Pageantry, Flags, Structure and Organization * Orange: Achievement-- Strategic Investments, Neighborhood Appreciation in value, Free Markets, Deals, Affluence, Status, Winning the Game * Green: Affiliative-- Equality, Community, Feelings, Environmental issues, Consensus Decision-making, Humanity- Social Justice * Yellow: Authentic--Systems Perspective, Balance of Ecosystem-Human Development, Transformation of illogical markets based on planet-wide perspective, Holistic Thinking

Integral Thinking, Part 2

“People are like potatoes – their eyes only open when they are up to their necks in shit.” * Ecofootprint relates directly to population, affluence, and our level of design and technology. * Design is the mediator between natural worlds and culture. * Stages of human consciousness have evolved through archaic, magical, mythical, and mental; ecological and integral is emerging. * In older societies, worship was the integral force – now technology is. * There is a continuum of scale in ecological systems and designed systems; factors of 10 are important – cell to earth corresponds to computer chip to * Biomimicry is about learning in a deep sense from the natural world – its lessons from 3.8 billion years of evolution – the building as an analog to the natural world.

From Chapter 6 of Design for Life by Sim Van der Ryn

Managing Complex Processes – Solving for a Place

Cultural forces and natural system forces need to align.

Need to understand the story of place – people learn best by metaphor, icons, and symbols

Process for developing an understanding of place (not linear) * Setting the stage – core purpose, big questions, aspirations * Learning about the place – patterns, systems relationships, story – past/ present/ future * Framing the story – extract keystone issues and leverage points * Revisiting aspirations – engaging the community * Reconciling story of place with aspirations * Identify indicators – core value indicators, related functional performance indicators * Integrative design and construction – optimize relationships, leverage relationships * Ongoing feedback and adjustment

Second group threads from dialog:

• Ethics-based action is needed as opposed to economics-based action (though we aren’t really making economic-based decisions now).
• A spirit-based movement, tapping into the creative and intuitive
• Understanding of living systems.
• Mind-set/ world view.
• Need to move faster than one person or project at a time.