By Natalie Hickerson

ILFI is proudly featuring a series of member impact stories to showcase and celebrate some of the wonderful work our community has been doing. This week we introduce architect Anne Torney, leader of Mithun’s San Francisco office and Board Member of the San Francisco-based Housing Action Coalition.

To Anne Torney, climate change and income inequality are the two biggest challenges of our time. Her work at Mithun, a multi-disciplinary firm committed to sustainable integrated design, allows her to address both of these issues at once by helping to spearhead new and greener approaches to affordable housing. She has worked with numerous low-income housing providers on buildings in urban areas up and down the west coast, keeping health and sustainability at the center of all efforts.

A current project that embodies this important work is Casa Adelante 681 Florida. Located in the historically Latinx Mission District of San Francisco, the project is a collaboration of two neighborhood-based nonprofits, MEDA and TNDC, and is the second in a cohort of six all-electric, fossil fuel-free affordable housing buildings by Mithun. This affordable housing project demonstrates not only the ecological promise of cutting-edge sustainable design but the potential of these buildings to serve as infrastructure for community identity. The roof, for example, is a valuable outdoor resource and social space that can bring residents together. Thanks to close collaboration with one of the developers’ strong urban gardening programs, the roof deck features a garden with designated beds and tool storage areas. People using the adjacent laundry rooms can hang out with people who are gardening, and the rooftop space can be used for birthday parties and other outdoor gatherings—with a beautiful view of the city as a backdrop.

The ground floor of the building will serve as the new Cultural Arts Healing Center for Carnaval San Francisco, a community group that honors Latin American, Caribbean, and African Diasporic cultural history through performances, visual arts, classes, and more. The patterns on the space’s entry gates, designed by local high school kids through the neighborhood arts group Youth Art Exchange, weave together references to past and present Latinx culture. An outdoor pre-function multi-use space allows events and activities to spill out onto the street, amplifying the presence of cultural institutions beyond participants to include the wider community.

Anne asserts that projects like 681 Florida and the others of its cohort have impacts far beyond the spaces themselves: they are demonstrations of what is possible. Mithun used this group of buildings to conduct research comparing the costs of all-electric with conventional systems and was able to demonstrate that going fossil fuel free was not only safer and healthier for residents, but was cost neutral—and even cost-saving. Anne explains that the Mithun team has “shared this research widely at different conferences and with cities considering reach codes, in order to help folks understand how they can move the needle on decarbonization.”  Illustrative success stories like this can be very effective in convincing skeptical developers and municipalities to embrace large-scale sustainability goals.

In terms of the broader ILFI community, Anne values the opportunity to see what people are doing across the country, “at different scales and in different places with different levels of urbanity”. She believes that a key function of sustainability organizations is to inspire and empower and that projects implementing groundbreaking ideas addressing the intersection of climate change and inequity can serve as path-breakers demonstrating proof of concept, encouraging others to take bold steps in their own practices. 

About Anne Torney

Anne is an architect who has made affordable multi-family housing and transit-oriented urban infill the focus of her work for more than 30 years. She brings a deep commitment to community voices and ecological performance to all her projects, which range from supportive studios for formerly homeless seniors, to the revitalization of isolated public housing sites into walkable, mixed-use, and mixed-income communities. Her affordable housing experience includes award-winning projects in San Francisco as well as San Jose, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Notable examples include Casa Adelante at 2060 Folsom, and Sansome and Broadway Family Housing, a CNU Charter Award honoree. Anne serves on Mithun’s Board of Directors and leads the firm’s San Francisco office. She is a longtime Board Member of the Housing Action Coalition. An active member of AIA and the Urban Land Institute, Anne is a frequent contributor to conversations on equity, affordable housing, and diversity in the profession.

Interested in becoming part of our community of practitioners, organizations, and everyday advocates transforming the building industry through the holistic lens of climate, health, and equity?

Drew Shula is the founder and CEO of Verdical Group, a sustainability consulting company helping clients decarbonize their building projects. He is also the founder of the Net Zero Conference, an annual conference and expo dedicated to carbon, climate, equity, ESG, net zero, and resilience.

Why did you start Verdical Group and the Net Zero Conference—what were your drivers?

Of course, I wanted to make money, but I wanted to do it my way. My favorite movie was The Social Network and I’d seen it in the theater multiple times. We had entrepreneurs in my family and in my wife’s family. We had our first daughter, Acadia, in 2010 so I had a two-year-old at home when I decided to start Verdical Group. I thought that if I didn’t do it then, I’d probably never do it.

I had a strong ambition to change the world and started Verdical Group alone in my Pasadena garage as a direct response to the climate crisis. 40% of global carbon emissions come from buildings, so they are a huge part of the problem, which conversely also makes buildings a huge part of the solution. Verdical Group is a sustainability and green building consulting company helping our clients decarbonize their building projects.

Now I’m a start-up guy and love talking about social entrepreneurship—starting companies that make a positive impact. Verdical Group has always tried to lead by example. We’re a certified B Corporation, 1% for the Planet member company, registered Benefit Corporation in the State of California, have committed to not take money from fossil fuel companies, have divested our investment portfolio, and are a net positive company. We published our first annual Social and Environmental Impact (ESG) Report last year and our mission is to, “build an equitable net zero future for all people, now.”

As a for-profit company working to make a positive impact, part of how we achieve our mission is through education and that’s where our Net Zero Conference comes in. We’re now in our ninth year and the event has grown to 1,500 attendees from almost every U.S. State and more than 50 countries. We’ve been able to scale our impact far beyond our clients who we talk to in our day-to-day project work, impacting the entire industry.

What’s exciting to you in the sustainability industry today?

I’m a climate optimist, I think we’re going to solve this problem, and there’s a lot to be excited about. The rise of ESG is a big one—Environmental, Social, and Governance reporting. Big companies are starting to transparently share their positive impact goals and progress. Things are changing fast. Every industry in the world is reinventing itself to run zero carbon—buildings, transportation, shipping, manufacturing, you name it.

One risk is how confusing all the terminology is becoming—we need to keep things simple. Do you know the difference between carbon negative, climate positive, and net zero? Sustainability people need to focus on the issues and standardize terminology fast because it’s driving people away from our movement and leaving them confused.

We’re at a critical moment, trying to cap our planet’s warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius. It’s incredible to see the climate actions being taken in all industries, but we need to move faster, with more urgency and sweeping policy. $369 billion of federal funding for climate initiatives in the USA is a great momentum signal, but we have an incredible amount of work ahead of us.

The Net Zero Conference is a place for sustainability leaders to convene, inspire, and create a path forward to get this done. We need to build a net zero future for everyone as quickly as possible. I think I’ll spend the rest of my career working on this challenge.

What’s next—what’s in your future forecast?

Verdical Group and the Net Zero Conference are continuing to scale up. Our company has doubled from 2020 to 2021, and is on track to double again from 2021 to 2022 this year. It’s our goal to continue on this trajectory into the future. There are strong tailwinds and a ton of momentum in our movement.

We’re not pursuing growth for the sake of growth, or solely for profit. We’re growing to do more good in the world. The larger we get, the more projects we complete, and the more carbon we reduce from the atmosphere. And that’s where this story comes full circle because I hope to be back in the Maine woods where I grew up when I retire a few decades from now, reconnected with the nature and seasons of my youth, without significant change from what I enjoyed growing up.

How fast can we move? How fast can we reduce and sequester our annual gigatons of carbon emissions? How low can we cap our global warming number? Check back in with me in 20 years and if I’ve done my job well, I’ll have good news for you. 

About Drew Shula

Growing up in the woods of rural Maine, Drew Shula was incredibly connected to nature and attributes this to why he is in the sustainability industry today. His parents were hippies who moved to Maine as part of the back-to-the-land movement in the 1970s.

At 18, he moved to the slightly larger town of South Bend, Indiana at Notre Dame for a five-year program studying Architecture, Urbanism, and Philosophy. He also considers the summer he spent volunteering on an ecotoruism project in the tiny rural village of Tokor in the Adaklu Region of Ghana as a transformational experience, where he was struck by the strong communal ties and quality of life the locals enjoyed.

After graduation, he moved to LA with his college girlfriend, Elizabeth, who he ultimately married. At the time, the sustainability industry didn’t exist yet, but he knew he wanted to make a positive impact on people and the environment. After a series of temp jobs and from professional experiences that introduced him to LEED and the green building industry at places such as Jerde Partnership, Thomas Properties Group, and Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), he ended up founding Verdical Group in 2012.

Working in green building and sustainability allowed Drew to marry his training in the building industry with his deep connection to nature and love of environmentalism. He considers himself one of the lucky people who absolutely love what they do for work—for Drew, there’s no better recipe for life happiness.

The Net Zero Conference 2022 (NZ22) will take place at the LA Convention Center, September 15, 2022, with the Trailblazer Gala & Awards that evening at the South Park Center in LA, keynoted by ILFI’s CEO Lindsay Baker. The event features an expo hall, keynotes, and an education session program. Register at: www.netzeroconference.com.