Yesterday, in an Impact Series: Game Changers in Sustainability interview, internationally celebrated conservationist Thane Maynard said, “The way that we’re going to change the world is through hundreds of millions of individual choices. The good news is that we have lots of models to emulate. It’s time for people to stop making excuses and just get going. Conservation isn’t about saving the condor or wild horse, it’s about saving ourselves.”

Fortunately, we’re seeing a plethora of green products flood the market, as well as prolific messaging about decisions that individuals can make to enhance the sustainability of their lifestyles.

Sustainability is permeating our business culture as well—the acceptable parameters of capitalism are shifting, causing corporations to evolve beyond a purely profit-driven model to one that incorporates social responsibility and environmental stewardship. Items that economists have traditionally described as “externalities” are now becoming central tenets of blended-values based decision making, enabling business leaders to define firm principles that contribute to the development and success of enduring corporations.

The concept of building community-oriented enduring corporations is not new, but the increasing pace and level of competitiveness in today’s global marketplace is compelling organizations to innovate and collaborate more than ever before in order to remain viable.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School says that “great companies identify something larger than transactions of business portfolios to provide purpose and meaning.” Business leaders can no longer focus solely on a single bottom line—they must build social institutions that appropriately respond to their communities and the environment.

Enter “For-Benefit” corporations: a rapidly growing class of organizations that have redefined fiduciary responsibility, governance, ownership, and stakeholder relationships so that they simultaneously and equally value social, environmental, and financial considerations. Through the creation of innovative legal and accounting practices, For-Benefit corporations are successfully able to achieve a triple-bottom line in a way that makes them not just viable, but increasingly competitive, in today’s economy.

Fortunately, For Benefit corporations aren’t just relegated to academic case studies and theoretical cocktail conversation anymore. Prominent (and profitable) corporations are taking the leap into the new business structure, including well known consumer products brands such as Seventh Generation, Method, and Dansko, as and some companies in our own industry, including Icestone, US Tile, Southern Energy Management, and Sun Light & Power.

Not surprisingly, Patagonia has jumped on the bandwagon and will become one of California’s first For Benefit Corporations. Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, says that “by turning the company into a For Benefit corporation, I can ensure the values of my company continue. I compare it to a conservation easement on a piece of property: It’s a conservation easement on my company.”

For more information about how you can differentiate your business by transforming it into a For Benefit corporation, visit http://www.bcorporation.net/.

How do you think For Benefit Corporations will affect the flavor of our business environment in the future? Write to me at sara@greenbuildermag.com or follow me on Twitter @SaraGBM.

For more information about green building and sustainable living, visit www.greenbuildermag.com, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter at @greenbuildermag and @VISIONHouseGBM for regular updates and breaking news.
 

For those of you headed to Orlando next week for the International Builders Show, we encourage you to come meet the green gang at our booth (W4671.)

We’ll have something for everyone (including a couch so that you can rest your conference weary feet)! Ever been to a TweetUp? They're fun, and we encourage you to join us for one in our booth at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, February 10. 

We’ll also be featuring some of our favorite projects next week, including:

• VISION House® in INNOVENTIONS at Epcot®--a ground-breaking green show home exhibit scheduled to open in April that will revolutionize how people perceive green homes and sustainable living. This experiential exhibit will offer hundreds of sustainable living ideas that Epcot visitors—nearly 11 million a year—can take home to enhance their daily lives. Sponsors for this exciting project include Trane, Schlage, Boral, Pella, Panasonic, Armstrong, and Kohler.

• VISION House LA—a stunning, high-end home of the future located in the fashionable neighborhood of Pacific Palisades that integrates the best in sustainable design, advanced technologies, and intelligent systems. Indoor and outdoor living spaces are nurturing and comfortable. Durable green products keep the home healthy and safe. The house is regenerative, providing pleasure to its inhabitants, adding value to its neighborhood, and replenishing its surrounding natural environment.

• Green Chix— a social media movement that has been launched by Green Builder Media and our Emerald Circle partners to encourage sustainable thinking in mainstream consumers. The goal of Green Chix is to provide information, inspire ideas, and facilitate conversations that lead to long-term, sustainable change. After all, the incremental improvements that we make every day can lead to exponential results. Don’t forget to pick up your very own handmade recycled leather “friend” bracelet!

• Green Builder College—our online educational platform that offers the highest quality curriculum available online today about sustainable building and design, building science, and green products. There’s no better way to get your continuing education credits and accreditation from organizations like AIA, RESNET, BPI, USGBC, NAHB, SIPA, and others!

• Green Builder magazine—pick up copies of our beautiful January issue, which focuses on innovative solar solutions, as well as our February issue, which is our highly acclaimed annual compilation of Hot 50 products.

• Green Builder Coalition—a non-profit organization that advocates for sustainability.

So come on by for a little down home sustainable hospitality. We look forward to seeing you there!

Not going to IBS but want to share your ideas with us? Write to me at sara@greenbuildermag.com or follow me on Twitter @SaraGBM.

For more information about green building and sustainable living, visit www.greenbuildermag.com, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter at @greenbuildermag and @VISIONHouseGBM for regular updates and breaking news.
 

Tuesday evening, President Obama delivered his third State of the Union address to our nation. He began his speech with an attempt to transcend the politics of the day by referencing the bravery and teamwork of our armed forces.

For an ephemeral moment, there seemed to be pause in Washington backstabbing, a fleeting feeling of synergy as we silently celebrated the bravery of those who serve our nation. For one instant, the individuals in the Chamber, as well as those watching on television sets around the country, were not democrats or republicans, rich or poor, young or old, male or female. They were citizens, colleagues, community members, and even friends.

The President summoned all U.S. citizens to manifest the altruism and collaboration displayed by members of our military, rallying us to work together to create a better future with more educated citizens, higher paying jobs, clean energy, and security from threatening oil-rich nations.

Obama supporters say that the address was unifying. Critics claim that it was redundant, even defiant, and laced with politics as usual.

But, interestingly, on the day following Obama’s State of the Union, politics were indisputably set aside when Representative Gabby Giffords (D-Arizona) resigned her seat—not because she was under any pressure to do so, but because she knew it was the right thing to do. The extraordinary woman who miraculously survived an almost certainly fatal gunshot to the head disarmed an entrenched Congress and softened the hearts of a nation.

After viewing the news reports covering Giffords’ resignation, in which members of Congress displayed unmasked human emotion, I can’t help but wonder—must our political pendulum swing irresistibly from compassionate back to cutthroat?

Must we endure a violent assault on human dignity and life itself to enable us to shed our partisan straightjackets and release our civility? Is that degree of trauma necessary in order for us to listen to one another’s voices with tolerance?

The President asked us to return to our core American values, to level the playing field for everyone, so that we can create a better future. Giffords’ remarkable courage reminds us to appreciate the magical gift of life. It seems to me that the most effective way for us to actualize these things is for each of us to embrace this precious opportunity for self-determination.

How do you think that we can become a more civil society? Write to me at sara@greenbuildermag.com or follow me on Twitter @SaraGBM.

For more information about green building and sustainable living, visit www.greenbuildermag.com, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter at @greenbuildermag and @VISIONHouseGBM for regular updates and breaking news.
 

George Bernard Shaw once said that, “the reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. All progress, therefore, depends on the unreasonable man.”

Transforming the world around us requires courage. Challenging conventional wisdom demands innovation and imagination. And crafting a new vision for the future necessitates finely honed communication skills.

I’m delighted to announce that senior Imagineer Joe Tankersley has agreed to share some insights into how we can use the magic of storytelling to create a more sustainable future in an interview with Green Builder Media President Ron Jones on our Impact Series: Game Changers in Sustainability webinar program on January 19.

Joe, who has been with Walt Disney Imagineering since 1996 and has worked on projects for Epcot®, Magic Kingdom® Park, Disney’s Animal Kingdom® Theme Park, Disney’s Hollywood Studios TM, and Disneyland ® Resort, will be a wonderful addition to our list of visionary and “unreasonable” (in Shaw’s sense of the word) speakers for the Impact Series, which include internationally renowned author and sustainability expert Lester Brown, former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, ocean activist Jean-Michel Cousteau, venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, environmentalist Dr. Marcus Eriksen, Vice President of Global Responsibility for Starbucks Ben Packard, former EPA and FBI administrator William Ruckelshaus, and Co-Founder of Celestial Seasonings and Horizon Organic Dairy Barney Feinblum.

The interview with Tankersley will be held live on Thursday, January 19 at 11am PDT/2pm EDT, and will then be available on demand on our website at www.greenbuildermag.com. To register for the webinar, go to www.greenbuildermag.com/impactseries.

We thank our generous sponsors for the Impact Series—Trane, Schlage, Boral, BASF, DuPont, Beam by Electrolux, BioBased Insulation, and Green Builder Coalition—who help make all of this innovation possible!

How do you adapt the world around you to create a more sustainable future? Write to me at sara@greenbuildermag.com or follow me on Twitter @SaraGBM.

For more information about green building and sustainable living, visit www.greenbuildermag.com, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter @greenbuildermag for regular updates and breaking news.
 

Over the holidays, I picked up a delightful little book called The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. While I haven’t finished it yet (I have been fairly forewarned that the ending is heart-wrenching), I have read enough to recognize its precious message.

The tale is told from the perspective of a dog, Enzo, who just so happens to be a profound philosopher. Through his relationship with Denny, his car-racing ‘human’, and his own keen powers of observation, Enzo has educated himself on the sophisticated innuendos and delicate phenomenon of the world around him.

While readers readily relate to Enzo’s story, his unbridled passion, complete selflessness, and non- judgmental reactions may come easier to dogs than humans. He masterfully marries the joy of auto racing with pure joie de vivre, correlating driving practices with states of being and establishing that ‘life, like racing, isn't simply about going fast.’

Enzo deftly sprinkles clever maxims throughout his narrative. Perhaps his most enchanting mantra is, ‘that which you manifest is before you’ - an important reminder that we have at least some ability to control the world around us, and that it is not an event itself that it is important, but rather our interpretation and response to that event.

Enzo elucidates that race car drivers are often afraid of rain. It amplifies their mistakes and becomes an unpredictable element. But rather than fearing the rain, so instructs Enzo, a racer should embrace it—possess it—and initiate a response before he loses control of his car.

We alone can control our circumstances. By changing our mood, our approach, or our energy, we can create our own destiny. As Enzo says, “be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.”

What if we applied this truism to all of our relationships, intentions, and actions? What if we set aside our egos and looked at things from Enzo’s point of view? And what if we followed his suggestion to occupy the moment without worrying about the future? To live each day as if it was stolen from death? To feel the joy of life, relieve ourselves of our daily burdens, and recognize just how beautiful life really is? How would we change? What would we manifest?

What advice would Enzo have for you? Write to me at sara@greenbuildermag.com or follow me on Twitter @SaraGBM.

For more information about green building and sustainable living, visit www.greenbuildermag.com, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter @greenbuildermag for regular updates and breaking news.