Dear friends,

When we were finalizing our 2025-2027 Strategic Plan, I was living through one of the longest heat waves that my state of California had ever experienced. Families and workers struggled to stay cool despite the record-breaking temperatures, hospitalizations increased, and over 70 million people lived under a heat alert. We had also just been informed that the average global temperature has warmed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for 12 months in a row. Not everybody lived through that devastating heat wave. 

When we ask ourselves how we are doing, we must start with this very real gauge of climate action progress and remind ourselves first and foremost that we are still tragically barrelling into an era of extinction, heartbreaking climate-induced migration, and resource depletion. And as ever, the human impacts of these transitions are borne disproportionately by lower income communities, communities of color, and people living in the Global South, which have historically been damaged most from the destruction of the past. We have transgressed 6 of the 9 planetary boundaries, and we are feeling the effects of these transgressions more and more every day. 

We must act urgently, together, with thoughtful strategy and care like never before.

As an industry, the global building and construction industry is a major contributor to these growing crises. Specifically around greenhouse gas emissions, which remains one of the most measurable and important impacts we can track, according to the Global Buildings Climate Tracker, a tool used by the United Nations’ Global Status Report on Buildings and Construction, our sector essentially remains unchanged in our emissions despite needing to radically reduce them in order to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and curb the worst effects of climate change by 2050. For many other impacts including health, equity, biodiversity and others, we don’t have many data points to be optimistic about. Rapid structural change is still eluding us, and is more urgently needed than ever before. 

We must act urgently, together, with thoughtful strategy and care like never before. At Living Future, we hold a vision and a commitment to that action, and we see signs that our world and our building industry are turning collective attention to that path and starting down it. As these intersecting crises become more present in our lives, it is strengthening and growing the global community of people dedicated to transforming the building industry. 

This past March, I had the opportunity to travel to Paris for the very first global summit on Buildings and Climate, hosted by the UN. There, roughly 800 global leaders gathered to discuss and strategize the challenges we face: not just greenhouse gas emissions but biodiversity loss, economic justice, resilience and health. The group rallied around the goal of the new Buildings Breakthrough Agenda, which aims to achieve “near-zero emissions and resilient buildings to be the new normal by 2030”. And to my delight, as we sat in the main auditorium for the plenary session, keynote speaker Ciarán Cuffe, a leading member of the European Parliament, declared that a useful goal and framework for hitting this goal is in fact the Living Building Challenge. This is why we continue to show  up for this community: we believe that it is critical to clearly articulate and inspire people towards our ultimate goals. We are proud to have created tools and resources that are actionable, accessible and evolving  to support the growth of our movement as we make these ambitious shifts.

Now, our next step is to harness that growing interest in regeneration along with the high ambitions and commitments of global leaders towards near-zero emissions and resilient buildings as the new normal by 2030.

We are also encouraged to see that the term ‘regeneration’ is on the rise. For us at Living Future, we define this term as follows: Regenerative work creates a positive impact across social, cultural, and ecological systems. This is the path to a common living future. We see the term ‘regeneration’ being used to signify a growing ambition to go beyond “sustainable”: many people and organizations see that we have to take big leaps towards a better future for all, not just small steps, if we want to really see the change we need. But also, regeneration as a goal speaks to a reality of our world that grows every day: we have already lost so much, and we lose more every day. The work of regeneration, which the Living Building Challenge articulates in detail, is different from the work of building sustainably because it involves the critical act of healing, of reconciliation, and of maintenance and care. These actions need more of our time and attention: we will not simply build our way out of the problems we face. We will build, yes, but we will also repair and maintain, we will need to be good stewards of the precious buildings and resources we have. And so it is wonderful to see the growing interest in regeneration, because it gives much needed momentum to the holistic work that we are deeply passionate about in the Living Future community. 

And to be clear, that momentum is deeply and urgently needed. As industry leaders, the community of Living Future practitioners and champions have a key role  to play in the transformation we MUST accomplish.  We are here to support you in this work, but this takes all of us, using our unique voices in our unique communities, to really achieve the transformation we need in the next decade.

Now, our next step is to harness that growing interest in regeneration along with the high ambitions and commitments of global leaders towards near-zero emissions and resilient buildings as the new normal by 2030. We intend to continue our leadership beacon work, while providing more “on ramps” for more of the industry to join us by removing as much friction as possible, without diluting the commitment and action required. We need to see action at scale, and that means structural shifts in how buildings are built, renovated, and operated, how our supply chains work, the levels of transparency and accountability we incorporate into our work, and how our buildings are regulated. At Living Future, we provide inspiration, support, and community to expedite the journey towards a regenerative building sector. We will be there at the table to push for ambitious goals and measure our industry’s progress towards them. We hope you will join us.

In collaboration,
Lindsay Baker
CEO, Living Future

Inside Living Future’s Affordable Housing Program

Living Future is excited to announce a new online course that bridges education and sustainable affordable housing: the Red List Free Affordable Housing Guidebook Companion Course. Developed through a collaboration between Living Future’s Education and Affordable Housing Teams, this course highlights the importance of using healthy building materials in creating Living Affordable Housing. As part of this initiative, Brittney Boudwin, Senior Director of Education, sat down with Susan Puri, Director of Affordable Housing, to explore the history, goals, and evolution of the Living Future Affordable Housing Program and its vision for the future of Living Future’s Affordable Housing Program.

Brittney Boudwin: Susan, it’s so nice to be on the other side of this screen with you! 

Susan Puri: Likewise! I’m happy we’re working together on new education for Living Future’s Affordable Housing program. Thanks for setting up this time to chat about the program’s evolution and achievements. 

Brittney Boudwin: My pleasure. Before we dive into updates about the program, can you tell me why Living Future has an affordable housing program in the first place?

Susan Puri: The built environment that we have created has worsened inequality through housing that is leaky and built with substandard and even hazardous materials and building systems, leading to disproportionately high utility bills and health issues in lower-wealth communities. These same communities have also often been left to manage poor air quality and environmental hazards from an industry that externalizes its negative impacts on those living in its vicinity. Affordable housing developers today are seeking to create buildings that will provide a better quality of life and improved health, help to empower residents economically, and that will be positive assets in their communities. Many developers also have the explicit goal to create environmentally sustainable buildings and a mission to decarbonize their building stock. 

Living Future’s Affordable Housing Program provides the supportive structure and peer sharing that is necessary to move the sector towards these ambitious goals. Our pilot projects and their successes are proof that it can be done. The resources and examples provided by these teams allow for affordable housing projects all over to learn from them and move towards decarbonized, healthy, and beautiful buildings as the norm for affordable housing.

BB: For folks unfamiliar with Living Future’s Affordable Housing Program, what exactly is it? How does it work?

SP: Our Affordable Housing Program centers around engagement with our affordable housing pilot project teams that are pursuing Living Future certifications (Living Building Challenge/Core, Zero Energy, and Zero Carbon). We saw that the most convincing case for Living Affordable Housing would be to have teams sign up and try to make it happen—with support and resources from Living Future. 

Projects have ranged greatly in size, location, context (urban or suburban or rural), and climate. We have affordable housing projects spanning from Hawaii to Alaska that are attempting the Living Building Challenge. The projects also are very diverse in typology—most often they are multi-family buildings, but the cohort also includes duplexes, single-family prototype houses, and even tiny homes! Every single one of the projects we’ve worked with are true innovators in the sector, and since they are some of the first ones tackling these challenges, need additional support. We provide individual and group-wide technical assistance and education to the project teams through various platforms and set up mechanisms for them to share information and resources with each other. We have had teams get their engineers on the phone with each other to share information about building systems, had teams share cut sheets and information on Red List Free materials that they researched and specified, and had teams develop and then share workflow and process documents with each other. With our newest cohort, we also started a mentorship program so that project teams that are new to the Living Building Challenge can learn from those who have undertaken it in the past year. 

In addition to providing upfront support and resources for teams, Living Future also seeks to learn from each project team and distribute their knowledge and learnings to further progress on deep sustainability for the whole affordable housing sector. We create resources sharing their success and strategies or filling a need that teams expressed to us.  Our resources include individual case studies and success stories, as well as aggregated lessons and data from collective group learnings. We have resources on our website dedicated to topics such as federal and state financing of sustainable affordable housing, healthy materials, guides for contractors, and many more. All these are intended to provide a template for other teams that want to implement these strategies and give them a head start to try it out on their own. Resources like our Affordable Housing Materials List and Best Practices Guide for Red List Free Affordable Housing were developed based on feedback from our teams regarding the barriers they face.

BB: Living Future registered its first affordable housing project in 2011. Was that the beginning of Living Future’s affordable housing program? How has it evolved since?

SP: The Living Building Challenge launched in 2006, and we registered our first affordable housing project in 2011. Between 2011 and 2014, we worked with a small cohort of just 3 affordable housing projects that we called the Innovators Network. It was a test case to see if the Living Building Challenge could work in the affordable housing sector and to learn what support they would need. Those initial projects used the Living Building Challenge as a framework during design and construction but did not intend to certify. 

However, these projects demonstrated that they were able to drastically reduce their EUI, specify Red List Free products, and implement many of the other components of the Living Building Challenge. We understood through working with this group that it is possible to build affordable housing in a new way. We published the first edition of the Living Building Challenge Framework for Affordable Housing in 2014 to share the learnings from the Innovators Network, and then took on a second round of pilot projects (10) in 2015. 

In 2016, Lopez Community Land Trust in Lopez Island, WA, became the first certified affordable housing project under the NZEB standard (a predecessor to our Zero Energy Standard), followed by the certification of Lakeline Learning Center, which was certified as a Zero Energy project in 2018. Since then, three more projects have been certified, including two that achieved Petal Certification, one of which achieved 19 of the 20 Imperatives of the Living Building Challenge. We published an updated version of the Living Building Challenge Framework for Affordable Housing in 2019, which included case studies and information from our first three cohorts of pilot projects. We recently welcomed our fifth cohort of teams and continue to expand the location and types of projects pursuing Living Future certifications. 

Over the years, we have also strengthened our relationships with partners who share a similar mission to enhance the sustainability and resilience of affordable housing.

BB: What successes has the program had over the years?

SP: In addition to the certified projects mentioned above, each of our pilot projects has had ripple effects through its community and through the people who work on them. Although certification is critical for verification and accountability, it is not the only measure of success we apply, particularly to the affordable housing pilot projects. Even projects that did not ultimately certify very often achieved levels of sustainability that were not thought realistic for affordable housing. 

Our work at Living Future is to elevate these stories and aggregate their information into resources that give other project teams a head start. An example of this is our Materials List for Affordable Housing, which is an aggregated list of products vetted jointly by our affordable housing teams and Living Future to eliminate some of the effort and time needed to find healthy building materials for use in affordable housing projects. From this list and conversations with our project teams, we also created the Best Practices Guide for Red List Free Affordable Housing, which provides key steps and tools for any project team that wants to begin eliminating unhealthy products from their buildings. We also have written case studies and several workflow resources, based on feedback from past pilot project teams. All of these resources can be downloaded from our website. You can also hear from a few of our participants in a video we created and read about several of the projects on Living Future’s blog, Trim Tab.

We have also seen that many past participants were deeply impacted by using Living Building Challenge principles on their projects and carried much of it through to future work. At least two participants have told me that they found a new purpose in their careers: to construct regenerative buildings in alignment with the Living Building Challenge. Many others have relayed how many Red List Free materials they continue to eliminate from future projects after understanding how feasible it really is.  It’s difficult to quantify, but we believe that the Living Building Challenge has the potential to inspire change that extends far beyond a single project.

BB: We know that climate change is impacting all aspects of the built environment. What are some of the specific effects climate change has on affordable housing?

SP: One of the sad ironies of climate change is that those most impacted by it often had the least to do with causing it. A resident of an affordable housing project that we worked with noted that their carbon footprint was extremely low because they simply did not have excess to waste. ‘Energy poverty’ has already been a growing concern and utility bills have continued to rise (13%, on average, between 2021 and 2022, according to the US Energy Information Administration), with lower-income households paying a far greater share of their income for utilities. The result of this means that households sometimes have to choose between paying rent or paying for utilities, leaving them in danger of shut-offs. 

One of our past project teams had a goal of Net Zero Energy after learning that community members (half of which live below the federal poverty line) paid utility bills of up to $600 in the summer—in a state with very severe heat conditions. Extreme weather events need to be increasingly planned for; all communities will need buildings that can withstand and protect them during a crisis. If we build housing that does not provide this kind of resilience, we are leaving entire communities exposed in dangerous ways.

BB: Why do you think affordable housing projects should pursue the Living Building Challenge?

SP: The Living Building Challenge and other Living Future certifications provide a framework for integrating climate, health, and equity holistically throughout a project. This resonates with the mission of many affordable housing developers. Though there is an urgent need for shelter, there are additional services and sensitivities that need to be considered—for example, the color of the building may be adjusted to reflect culture and community, the materiality may need to not look too institutional, or the team may be employing biophilic design or other elements of trauma-informed design. 

One pilot project participant described the Living Building Challenge as focusing on “qualitative,” rather than just “quantitative” factors. Affordable housing developers and project teams are already doing a lot with each project, and this is both an advantage and a challenge. They plan to hold the buildings for a long time and truly want to provide residents with what they need to thrive. They are not just buildings, but places where they will be providing a multitude of services and, in some cases, helping residents to heal from trauma, deal with complicated health issues, and find financial stability and security.

Affordable housing developers are often mission-driven nonprofits who strive first and foremost to serve their community and conduct much more intentional community engagement than many other projects. While they are balancing a lot of competing priorities with scarce resources, there are many ways that the Living Building Challenge supports their goals. 

The resident-centered approach of affordable housing developers also means that there is an extra incentive to ensure that each element in their building improves the lives of occupants—incorporating elements like urban agriculture or spaces for community gathering hold important meaning and are not just being checked off for certification. We recognize that in affordable housing there are big challenges due to funding shortages, regulations, and many other barriers. However, we do not see the LBC as an impossible goal. It is not easy, but we have seen amazing innovations and progress by the pilot project teams we’ve worked with, many of whom accomplished levels of sustainability they did not think possible.

BB: You mentioned the resources around healthy materials that Living Future developed as part of this program— the Affordable Housing Materials List and the Best Practices Guide for Red List Free Affordable Housing. What should project teams that want to include healthier materials in their affordable housing projects do first? Where’s a good place for those teams to begin?

SP: We are working with several developers and architects right now to address this exactly. There will be more details available in an upcoming blog on our Safer Materials Shift. In the Best Practices Guide for Red List Free Affordable Housing, we outlined the easiest CSI divisions to start with—we want everyone to know that it is really easy to find cost-efficient Red List Free materials for products like drywall, insulation, acoustic ceiling, carpet, and even paint. Teams can also use more unfinished natural materials like wood to eliminate the need to even vet the products against the Red List. 

Decreasing finishes and the overall number of materials in a project is a good practice that benefits the bottom line but also avoids bringing materials that might introduce Red List chemicals. There are many other products (such as resilient flooring) that also have Red List Free options, but may require a bit more effort or a small cost increase. In the last cohort, all project teams engaged with the Red List and specified products with Declare labels, regardless of their certification pathway. Many were able to specify more Declare-labeled products than required by Core Certification. Several project teams pursuing Zero Energy Certification also passed along a list of Red List Free products that they utilized—which we added to our Affordable Housing Materials List! The newest cohort is also eager to begin researching and integrating healthy materials. 

BB: My last question for you—what projects are eligible for the Affordable Housing program and how can they participate?

SP: I’m so glad you asked! At least 50% of the homes in a project need to be income-restricted to 60% AMI (area median income) for rentals or 80% AMI for homeownership and the affordability needs to be maintained for at least 30 years. We are accepting projects into our newest cohort, on a case-by-case basis. The new cohort will run until mid-2026 and includes peer engagement, training opportunities, and, of course, the potential to lead the sector towards Living Affordable Housing.

BB: Thank you so much, Susan! I loved hearing about the growth of this program and the success stories, and what you’ve learned from the cohorts. We’ll have to be certain to include those lessons learned as well as advice from cohort participants in the new courses.

SP: Certainly! This has been a pleasure! I’ll see you at Living Future in May!

BB: Looking forward to it!

Editor’s Note: Interested in joining our Affordable Housing Community at Living Future? Contact us at affordablehousing@living-future.org if you are interested in joining our newest cohort of affordable housing teams.

Designing the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library

What would a restorative place really look like? What would a regenerative building feel like? What would it mean if a building project treated biodiversity as part of its purpose and site strategy? What does it look like when we bring back our prairies? What should a building and its landscape prioritize to celebrate a conservation-focused president? And what will this place look like in 2100, if we do all we can today? 

These are some of the big questions that drove the design development of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library (TRPL), slated to open in the summer of 2026. Roosevelt was known for his conservation efforts and for the solace he found in North Dakota, where he went to recover after his wife and mother died on the same day in the same house in New York City. He wrote that he could “never have been President had it not been for my experience in North Dakota,” and he maintained his deep connection to the place and the people for the rest of his life. This is why the foundation dedicated to his legacy sought to build his Presidential library and museum there.

Pursuing full Living Building Challenge (LBC) 4.0 certification has been an enormous undertaking for this project, partly due to its remote location in Medora, North Dakota. Importantly, the LBC target was built into the design competition and the entire team has been working toward that goal from day one. 

Snøhetta’s architects and landscape architects won the design competition after an immersive selection process that brought the teams to the Badlands. Snøhetta’s design conceives the Library as the landscape. It conserves much of the 93 acres, placing the grassland at the heart of the project. The building is a powerful, low-rise form, evocative of the Badlands landscape. With its green roof, natural wood, and rammed earth walls it engages and mimics the site and offers inspiring vistas. 

JLG Architects serves as Architect of Record and sustainability lead, Confluence as Landscape Architect, Snøhetta as Design Architect and Design Landscape Architect, and JE Dunn is the contractor. The team utilized LBC because of its strong alignment with Roosevelt’s point of view and influence. They are also employing LEED 4.1 and SITES for this model project. 

The team has focused heavily on site and conservation and informed their design and goals based on community engagement and feedback. The project aims to help visitors learn from Theodore Roosevelt’s life and leadership, engaging visitors in conserving the land, and connecting visitors to the adjacent Badlands that are the landscape of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park and National Grasslands. 

Changing patterns

Broadly, the team’s approach is that a building must do good. They are continually evaluating what “net positive” means in every context and at every scale. Craig Dykers, Snøhetta’s Founding Partner, notes that “the location is powerful as it speaks to TR’s life and legacy, yet it is also a challenging place to build. Our team has found the Living Building Challenge is a clear way to communicate the levels of care that the project needs to attain.”

Jenn Carroll, LFA, MPM, Manager of Sustainability for the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation, says that the organization is thrilled to have the opportunity to be a leader in the region. “We are showing that this can be done, even here.” Carroll notes that since its inception, the project has been getting a lot of attention from local businesses, and from elected officials across the state.

Patrick Thibaudeau, LFA, LEED Fellow, CCS, Principal Sustainability Officer at JLG Architects, suggests we’re not just building a presidential library.  We’re building an idea that has powerful transformative impact, changing business as usual for the way we live, learn and work for the next century.” The design intends to create a total net positive legacy for the next 100 years and more. “This is how we practice now with all our clients,” he says, “and it really changes your perspective.” 

Christine Beaubien, LEED AP, Project Manager with contractor JE Dunn, has been hip-deep in the Living Building Challenge and soaking up the intentions and process. “I love that it’s called a challenge,” she says, “This is a custom project in a very remote part of the US, so there are a lot of challenges.” 

The library is the landscape

The Snøhetta team recognized a raw beauty in the ancient Badlands, a landscape that has never been glaciated. This quality, Michelle Delk, Snøhetta Partner and Landscape Architect Partner says, “allows for another level of reading than is ordinarily possible. You can see the evidence of the geologic eras and the histories of use are visible, too.” 

This beauty — what Theodore Roosevelt called a “stark beauty” — inspired the team to let the grassland be the centerpiece. The accessible boardwalk loop is designed as if the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt were inviting people into the landscape in the center of the loop, where conservation — of historical documents and the land — will be visible. They also played with perception, providing a series of vistas at different levels, so that visitors can see erosion and other landscape elements. The building invites people up on the building roof, with two sides tucked into the earth and creates a gentle roof, like a butte. 

“We have all spent a lot of time thinking about what Theodore Roosevelt might have wanted this place to become,“ Thibaudeau says. “In many ways, the project is the site. There is a building there, but the building and the site are understood as one thing.”

Grassland reclamation and biodiversity

What “deeply rooted in place” means for biodiversity is a massive planting and native seed collection effort. The site is 93 acres, and the team is working with ecologists and university researchers, including crews from North Dakota State University (NDSU) to collect and grow seeds from the site at a nearby location since these plants are not available at most regional nurseries. The roof portion alone will have 400,000 plantings, and the TRPL staff and partners are helping create a land management approach that naturally eliminates invasive species. The seeds that are being nursed by NDSU will be amplified over time. And the library owns these, so there is even the potential for this to become a seed bank in the future. 

The opportunity for the project to serve in this role came about, Matt McMahon, Snøhetta’s Project Director says, because the team realized early on that the remote setting would make it difficult to find nurseries with the right plants. They began to imagine a nursery tailored to genetically specific Badlands species. 

McMahon notes that the seed collection has expanded to become a driving element — not just as an outcome but as part of the process of deep engagement for the team and the public. Public participation in Seed Collection Days was invited on numerous occasions. This effort also prompted engagement with private and public landowners who have ecologically intact grasslands that have species that the team wants to collect.

“Almost everyone on the design and owner core teams has spent time doing seed collection out in the Badland landscape,” McMahon says. “This connects us all to this project and place in a deep and personal way.”

There have been some interesting and inspiring ripple effects of this effort already. Thibaudeau explains: “We have started native plant restoration work and seed collection from our site and surrounding areas. One of our large benefactors is in the oil industry, and that team has become very excited about the reclamation work. They see potential for how this can translate to the oil field reclamation work beginning in many areas.” As in other arenas, the team aims to become a leader in grassland restoration, proving what can be done by projects with grassland sites. There is talk about finding a co-op partner for a native seed bank in the future. 

Community and stakeholder engagement

As a practice, says Dykers, “Snøhetta brings an open process to our projects, listening to the land, local communities, and stakeholders to inform how design can be tailored to place. Our design process draws upon the stories people and places share, building ownership and consensus and excitement to the community that often emerges around a project.” This is essential to LBC’s Ecology of Place Petal where the Imperative for deep community engagement exists.

The team knew early on that engaging with the community and stakeholders for this project would be important. The owner brought three prospective design teams during the competition to connect with the land and the people of Medora, giving the community access to three finalist teams, setting the stage for continuous community engagement. 

Delk describes this further: “This project is about connecting — connecting physically but also connecting to people.” This has played out in a number of ways. There is a Library Foundation storefront in downtown Medora to serve as a community-facing place where people could share their ideas. “We supplied the library with design materials to help people visiting the store engage in and understand the design, including a large physical model,” she says. “People can remove the roof and see how the site works and how it relates to its neighbors. They can also ask questions and share feedback.”

One of the Snøhetta team’s big moves was to connect tightly with adjacent neighbors and uses, including a restaurant and entertainment venue that have been in place for many years. Their design proposed knitting to those uses, and exploring “how do we share” rather than separating from them.

The library has hosted multiple public meals and engagement sessions. The design team continues to update the community on progress and engages with members of the public about various aspects. A tribal liaison was brought on board at the onset to help represent indigenous groups and engage with them and with the state. As Delk notes: “The owner and the entire team have understood from the start how important it is to make time and space for a range of interactions and feedback.”

Materials: transparency, take-backs, and more

Thibaudeau notes that the team is “deeply engaged” in the supply chain. “If manufacturers don’t have EPDs, we’re asking them to secure them.” Christine says that the team has been working with several manufacturers to encourage take-back programs. “Many of these organizations have such programs in Europe, where shorter distances between building sites and their factories make this easier,” she says. “We’re asking them to think about how they can make this work here, even if their factories are several states away from our site.” More generally, she says, “The project is really urging manufacturers to be more transparent. Some have been very open. Others have pushed back and forfeited their opportunity to participate.”

Low-carbon concrete was another novelty for the area. The ready-mix team — Dickinson Ready Mix — was willing to be innovative and create mixes for this project, and “they’ve gotten national recognition” for this, Beaubien says. The concrete finisher, Winn Concrete, was hesitant at first, because they didn’t have experience with the mix. But they have been very pleased with how the concrete is turning out, she says.

The “hey, I know a guy” school of “Get It Done” is definitely in play on this project, as it is in so many LBC efforts. Beaubien and Carroll both talked about their work to make connections between businesses and individuals to help build the solutions that are needed. “We’re always looking for ways to fill the gaps,” Beaubien says. “We start talking about packaging and what to do with all the elements, and then we find out that ‘someone knows a guy’ who recycles palettes. That’s how the system comes together. In some cases, things won’t fully align for this job, but we will get the ball in motion so that they will be much smoother for the next one.”

Carroll points out that the team’s tireless efforts to connect the dots around recycling, including ongoing work with neighboring communities, may mean that by the time the project opens, the region’s recycling ecosystem will be far more robust than it is today.

Beaubien highlights that another outcome of this invaluable experience has been in establishing processes with the team and gaining a greater understanding of how LBC impacts the overall cost and value of a project. She notes that this will provide immeasurable value to clients considering sustainability certifications and to trade partners with concerns about how these projects will affect their work.

An important ripple effect of this building, the team expects, will be on the visitors themselves. “This landscape can be read,” McMahon says. “We see this as a place to build literacy about what a landscape is and how people can relate to it and exist within it.” Thibaudeau agrees: “We are connecting people to a place,” he says. “We want them to learn about land and stewardship from the place, and take that knowledge home and do something with it.” 

Perhaps the longest-term ripple effect of all may be from the grasslands and the seed collection work, and how they play into biodiversity and species conservation. 

Images © Plomp, courtesy Snøhetta and Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library

Living Future is able to support projects like these and share their stories with the world thanks to contributions like yours. Please donate to help us continue to build a living future.

Since 2014, the Just program has worked with over 400 companies on their Just labels. Today, 200 organizations proudly hold active Just labels, while nearly 80 others are actively pursuing theirs. Just is a voluntary disclosure tool and transparency platform that helps organizations measure and improve their commitment to social equity and diversity in the workplace. By showcasing measurable actions, Just fosters accountability and inspires meaningful change across industries.

While it is becoming more common for architecture firms to secure their Just Labels, it is less common for construction companies. However, more and more of them are seeing the program’s value. We spoke with a couple of these organizations to learn why they chose Just and what it means to them. They highlighted both internal and external benefits, and their enthusiasm was clear. Some are already working on groundbreaking projects—pushing the boundaries toward zero-carbon or zero-energy buildings, regenerative construction practices, or participating in Living Building Challenge projects. Others are eager to be a part of this transformative movement.

I had the pleasure of speaking with leaders from two Just labeled construction firms, Consigli Construction and DPR Construction. At Consigli, I connected with Elizabeth Allen, Sustainability Manager, and Kena David, Director of Sustainability. Elizabeth played a key role in helping the company earn the Just label in 2023, and now she and Kena are collaborating on their renewal efforts for the upcoming year. At DPR Construction, I  connected with Cari Williams, Global Social Responsibility Leader, who has led DPR Construction’s Just label work since 2021. 

According to Elizabeth Allen, “The Just program gave Consigli the opportunity to evaluate and reflect on its current policies, practices, and culture around social impact.” She explains that the Consigli team focused on three key areas: “what we were already doing well, what we could change immediately, and where there were opportunities to make long-term changes to our policies and culture.”

What’s the motivation? Kena David says that Consigli saw value in the program. It brought them recognition among other firms who want to pursue a Living Building Challenge project. It also served as a catalyst for implementing ideas that had been in development. For instance, the program inspired them to enhance their paid volunteer time off benefit, encouraging employees to engage with their communities—a step that had been considered previously but gained momentum through their involvement with the Just label.

 “The goal of the Just label,” David says, “is not to get on LBC projects. It is to become a better organization — for our team, our projects, our collaborators, and our community.”

The construction sector faces some areas for growth that often emerge during the Just label process. A prominent area being gender diversity. In the built environment, construction tends to be one of the least gender-diverse industries, although gains have been made in recent decades. The Just program helps organizations analyze their data and benchmark performance against their own internal and sector-specific norms. While also helping them create a roadmap for continuous growth and improvement.

Parental leave is another topic that bubbles up against some cultural norms in this sector. David reports that “the Just process incited and spurred conversations about parental leave and our executives have been considering these issues in a deeper way than ever before. This is big, because in construction there is a culture of not taking much time off at all.” 

Williams, at DPR, points out that the construction industry’s greatest challenge is continued and deepening workforce shortages. “We are faced with an aging workforce and younger people are showing less interest in joining our industry,” she says. “Some ways that we are combating these challenges are by providing additional training opportunities for new and existing talent, offering better wages and benefits, and expanding the pool of available labor by doubling down on accessing diverse talent.” 

This context was key to why DPR applied for the Just label (2.0). “The process highlighted gaps in our data and reinforced the need to improve our systems,” she says. “Our technology team worked with us to develop robust dashboards for our representation data. The other challenge was modeling the living wage for our large and diverse employee base. We had a data ninja assess every employee!” 

She says that the label “helps us win work with customers that make social responsibility a priority and those that are pursuing LBC and other high level certifications.” But it also helps DPR recruit and retain talent and improve employee engagement. “We have found that the label provides external benchmarking, validates we are on the right track and provides transparency, internally and externally,” she says. “Most importantly, pursuit of Just label aligns with our central beliefs:  Respect for the Individual and Change the World and our Mission 2030: to be one of the most admired companies.”

Consigli’s David reflects that “it is not common yet in construction firms to be talking about organizational aims and equity topics in this way. But that just means that we have to talk about why it’s important to us. We have found that the best things about the Just process have been accountability and transparency.”

The Just program offers a unique opportunity for organizations to evaluate their policies, culture, and practices around equity and social impact while providing a framework for improvement. Organizations like Consigli Construction and DPR Construction have already seen the value—not only in gaining recognition for projects like the Living Building Challenge but also in enhancing employee engagement, attracting diverse talent, and initiating conversations and actions around critical topics like gender diversity, parental leave, and workforce development.

The Just label is more than a badge—it’s a commitment to social equity, transparency, and continuous improvement. Learn how your organization can join this movement and shape the future of equity in the built environment.

Discover how the Just label can support your commitment to equity and transparency! Join our monthly info session to learn more, and explore the details of the label in the Just 3.0 Program Manual.

Allsteel’s Commitment to Healthy Interiors and Sustainable Practices

Lydia Neeley Tolander is the Senior Product Portfolio Manager at Allsteel. Following advocacy efforts made by the project team for the Stanely Center for Peace and Security, Allsteel began its journey into material health and transparency, getting its first two Declare labels in 2023. After discovering PVC, a Red List ingredient, in one of their components, Lydia’s team worked to reformulate and test changes to their products, ensuring that they met the needs of the project team while also being healthy for the building’s environment.

Lydia and her team’s journey through the removal of a Red List ingredient showcases Allsteel’s dedication to healthier, transparent material safety. Their efforts in identifying, disclosing, and addressing all ingredients within their products serve as a testament to the positive impact pursuing Declare can lead to.

What made you decide to remove PVC from your product lines and how did you make a business case for it?

At Allsteel, we’re focusing our commitment to sustainability by building a better portfolio with better impact that can create a better experience. This includes understanding and minimizing the impact that our products have on both the users of those products as well as the environment.

In 2022, Allsteel Beyond® architectural walls were installed throughout the new headquarters building for the Stanley Center for Peace and Security. The Stanley Center brings together people from across countries, cultures, and sectors to create dialogue and drive policy for mitigating climate change, avoiding the use of nuclear weapons, and preventing mass violence and atrocities. 

The Living Building Challenge was adopted to guide the center’s workplace design efforts and this space ultimately became one of only four buildings at the time to achieve full Living Building Challenge certification through the renovation of an existing building. Through our team’s partnership and participation in this journey, providing the necessary chemical disclosures for our product in this space, we were inspired to start the journey to meet the transparency needs to obtain a Declare label for our entire architectural products portfolio. We felt this disclosure and concept of total chemical material transparency aligned closely with our brand, values, and corporate-level goals.

This was a fairly lengthy process and involved significant cooperation from our network of supply partners. While evaluating one model, we identified a foam gasket tape used to minimize light and sound transmission, where our supplier was unable to provide the chemical composition. As a result, we sent a sample of this tape to Iowa State University to have the material analyzed to determine the composition. The findings indicated that this foam tape was PVC, something we were not aware of. With its status as a Red List chemical, it was immediately evident to the team that we needed to find a suitable replacement for this part as it did not align with our commitments.

Can you tell me about the process you used to remove the Red List ingredient from the product lines?

Upon discovering that PVC was present in the gasket tape, we quickly deployed resources to investigate and identify a suitable replacement. Our product engineering team worked in conjunction with internal materials experts and our supply chain team to find a tape that would meet the same functional and performance expectations as the existing gasket tape. 

Our engineering team started by gathering the customer requirements for the current version of the foam tape, such as visual aesthetic, size/shape, and compressibility. They then passed that information along to our internal procurement team and our external vendor partners with requests to find a material that met those requirements while also meeting the preferred material makeup requirement. These teams connected with primary manufacturers of such materials who in turn provided us with recommendations and samples to review.

With samples in hand, we performed fit and function testing and evaluated the options made available to us. We essentially validated that the function was equal to or better than the function of the previous material in our applications of the new material. This was a team effort over about a day, involving simple installation, some reviews, and approvals. Once alternatives were identified, the team completed the necessary application testing and eventually selected the replacement. 

Overall, the time commitment was a few weeks of work spread over a few months, with phone calls and meetings as needed every few weeks to stay aligned. Transportation and lead time of materials were big factors. Once we had determined the path forward, time to complete the material transition was also significant to avoid throwing away inventory of the old tape – we wanted to transition out of it as quickly as possible but also wanted to minimize the amount of waste we were creating in the process. 

We first identified that the foam tape contained PVC in September 2023 and started immediately working with procurement. We had tested, selected, and finalized our replacement by December 2023, ran down our Aspect inventory by March 2024 and transitioned for that product category, and finally ran down our Beyond inventory in June 2024 to transition completely away from using that material within our product portfolio. We updated our bill of materials structure for all applicable Allsteel Aspect and Beyond^® models to use the newly identified replacement in lieu of the previous tape.

What do you anticipate will be the impacts on your business and your consumers after removing the Red List ingredient from the product lines?

Our architectural products series consist of demountable walls that are oftentimes a replacement for conventional construction—an industry that produces a great deal of waste, dust, and other by-products that can be harmful to humans and the environment. For us, this creates an opportunity to innovate and do better. Our products physically surround our clients and their employees via the built environment and as a result, it’s our commitment to continuously re-evaluate our offering to ensure it meets the highest standards supporting human and environmental health. 

We find that this commitment aligns with many of our clients’ values, goals, and vision that they have for their workplace and makes it easy to continue to invest in our product solutions. Because sustainability doesn’t have an endpoint, removing PVC from our architectural products portfolio was just one step in our ongoing journey to be better than the day before.

The desire to be part of something that exemplifies the positive impact people can make has led to coordinated efforts for the greater good. Collaboration among materials experts, project managers, various segments of the supply chain, and numerous internal and external teams resulted in the removal of a hazardous ingredient—PVC. This commitment to continuous improvement aligns with the values of our clients. Doing good not only has a moral benefit but also meets the increasing demand from clients for products that are healthy and sustainable. 

If you want to contribute to meaningful change, join Living Future’s Regenerative newsletter to stay connected and find inspiration to improve each day. 

For updates specific to Declare and materials, please opt in to the Products and Materials list.

When resource choices drive big goals

One of the Living Future theories of change is that all our work reverberates. The ripple effects of the Sonoma Academy Guild & Commons — which were Petal Certified and Zero Carbon Certified in 2021 — are powerful and subtle. First and foremost, of course, as an education project — the academy is a college preparatory school in Santa Rosa, California — there is the fact that nearly every element, material, and service does something to teach about a more sustainable, resilient, equitable, and community-forward approach. This project exemplifies the principles of the Beauty Petal, which celebrates “design that uplifts the human spirit” and promotes broader societal change. It also serves as an illustration of regenerative design for a living future. 

This project program is a student center, community gathering, and dining commons, teaching kitchen and garden, and indoor/outdoor maker spaces. The school leadership and design team’s commitment to making this an all-electric project turned out to have immense ripple effects. “Creating a Net Zero Energy, all-electric project that included a commercial grade kitchen and a maker space was not something that everyone thought would be possible at first,” says Pauline Souza, principal with WRNS, the architects on the project. She credits the collaboration with Hormoz Janssens, David Kanada, and others for helping to realize this vision.

This was one of the first all-electric commercial kitchens with induction cooking in the country. The prep area has copious daylight and operable windows, and the kitchen area is on display to the community gathering/dining space. The food service operator, Flick/Compass, was uncertain at first about how cooking with induction would work for their processes and concerned about efficiency and effectiveness. “But they really came around,” says Souza. “This is a small kitchen, but after we worked with that team, it has become ‘the little kitchen that could.’ Since its completion, many companies and organizations have come to see how it works. This includes folks from Microsoft.” Pauline explains that this kitchen became an induction cooking proof of concept. 

Rick Theis was on the Sonoma Academy board during the project’s development and through construction and early occupancy. He was also Chair of the Buildings and Ground Committee and helped write the school’s Sustainability Guidelines. He recalls giving many tours of the project to people who could “hardly believe seeing a fossil fuel-free commercial kitchen with no gas range,” he says. “Seeing an induction wok that could get hotter than one fired by gas really amazed them.” Design teams brought their clients to see the Sonoma Academy kitchen in action — and reassured them about the effectiveness of induction cooking.

The induction cooking choice relates to the bigger missions of beauty and education. “We were able to show how the induction cooking allowed us to downscale the mechanical because there is less heat and much more. The choice became both a driver and a liberator for form. The space, though small, seems expansive, and the connection to the site is strong. It might not seem like a piece of kitchen equipment could be a design driver, allowing us to reach for the Beauty Petal, but these things are connected.”

From the project’s Beauty imperative: 

The resultant design strengthens the strong sense of place apparent in the school and tells the story of the region’s architecture, landscape, people, sustainability, and everyday life.

In today’s techno-centric world, people spend more time looking down at devices versus connecting to their place. For Sonoma Academy, a high school on the outskirts of Santa Rosa, their goal was to have people look up and out, to create a campus heart, and to bring the school and community together through dining and making, all while celebrating the region’s beauty.

The beauty of the site inspired the organization of two sweeping floors that stretch to views, grab onto the hillside, and work to blend this campus with many levels. With the open sliding doors, students are encouraged to wander in and through, making this building a part of everyday pathways. Exposing the materials, the radiant manifolds, the structure, and the systems invite the user into the daily functions of the building. Biophilic principles providing guidance for planning and material selection – everything was thought of as a critical piece of the story.

From the project’s Inspiration and Education imperative: 

Sonoma Academy also has launched a Connections program that brings the principles of sustainability into the classroom curriculum. The 9th-grade program includes classes such as Literature of the Environmental Movement and Environmental Science, and an Exploratory course revolving around food and the garden, just to name a few.

Additionally, Sonoma Academy holds Open Houses and campus tours to prospective student families as well as Community Fundraiser events. These Open Houses and fundraising events are held multiple times a year and are open to all. The project’s educational brochure is provided at the open house and highlights the building’s design and environmental features.

Another area that had an immense ripple effect was the project’s work on the Materials Petal. “It took us a long time and deep work to get there,” Souza said, “but the effort has changed our process and our understanding of engagement in the industry.” She explains that the team did a deep dive into material health for this project, and that has unrolled into several other projects. “I was moved by how the act of doing the hard work really changed us and inspired us to go farther. It was a lot of granular effort at the time but it was really exhilarating, too. We are still riding this wave of inspiration even now. We have worked with a lot of rating systems and standards, and I have not experienced this kind of shift in any other case.”

This project had the “all in” feel to it that can result in innovative solutions. For example, Souza explains, “We were able to add PV and a green roof — not just one or the other. This was important because this building is nestled into the site and the roof is highly visible from other levels. This is one of the special ‘beauty moves’ that we were able to realize, thanks to the persistence and care of the entire time.”

Indeed, the beauty of this project is partly a result of the fact that the design team conceived it as a building of its site. The sense of it being of its place is palpable. And Souza says it not only looks like that, but it feels like that, too. “It really doesn’t feel like it was ‘shipped in.’ It feels like it is from this place and belongs here. The materials are humble and tactile: wood paneling, green roof.” The result is a biophilic building — the beauty of the project feels more like land than sculpture upon it. 

RELATED LINKS

https://living-future.org/case-studies/sonoma-academy-guild-commons/

Living Future is able to support projects like these and share their stories with the world thanks to contributions like yours. Please donate to help us continue to build a living future.

Cover photo © Celso Rojas

Moore & Giles’ Path to Red List Free

Beverly McAuley, the Senior Director of Sustainability and Education at Moore & Giles, has advocated for material health and transparency for years. Her passion for material safety led Moore & Giles to be the first leather company with a Declare label in 2017. And now, because of her efforts, they have over a dozen Declare labels, all Red List Free, and most third-party verified. 

Beverly’s dedication to regenerative design and safe products transcends disclosure. By working with her suppliers to address hazardous chemicals within the supply chain, Beverly is changing the tanning industry. By leading with empathy and collaboration, she is safeguarding end users and protecting tanneries from harmful exposures.  

What made you decide to push your suppliers for the removal of Red List ingredients and to publicly disclose those ingredients?

Historically, people have trusted that the food we eat and the products we use are safe. Through the years, we’ve seen negative impacts resulting from that way of thinking, like using asbestos, lead, and Teflon in nonstick pans. Now, it feels like we are in an era filled with the desire to have the information to allow us to take control of our destiny and ultimately our legacy, through our decisions. That requires a certain level of transparency, whether it’s the food we put in our bodies or the products we put in our buildings. Moore & Giles became an early adopter and the first leather company to achieve a Declare label as our format of choice for ingredient transparency. 

Our process to achieve full material disclosure has been a journey—easy with some and requiring a bit more patience with others—but through gathering that deep level of disclosure, we’re now able to screen the chemicals against the Living Building Challenge (LBC) Red List to learn more about their impacts. That’s all meant to provide a background of what got us to this point.

Our process in general, is to ensure that our products are compliant with specific regulatory lists, like Cal Prop 65 and REACH, in addition to restricted substances lists like the LBC Red List. When entering a product and its ingredients, if we see any red flags, we’ll notify the supplier and request that they remove the ingredient and substitute it with a safer chemical. That’s simply become our standard procedure. I assume if a substance is on the Red List, we should remove it. It’s the right thing to do. It’s better for all of us. The whole process has opened our eyes to exploring other ingredients, even if they’re not flagged against the Red List. We are approaching transparency from a place of curiosity by asking what each chemical does, if we must use it, and if there might be a better way. This method has led to some inspiring side effects, with our suppliers now doing the same thing, and seeking out innovative options. If we can replace a chemical with something that’s safer and will still create the same product, why not? 

What was the process you used to convince your suppliers to share their ingredients and remove Red List ingredients?

There is historic evidence that leather is older than fire, next to wood and water, leather is the oldest material humans are still dealing with in the built environment. There’s a long history there. Some of these tanneries, our suppliers, are family-owned, multi-generational, over one-hundred-year-old companies. When we started requesting information, it was unexpected and new because no one else was asking. 

We originally sent a supplier survey, asking for full material disclosure for all of the products we purchased from each supplier as well as another five-page document full of questions for them to answer. We hit it hard, received a couple of responses… and a lot of crickets. It was too much, not only because of what we were asking but also the tech side was confusing across our global supply chain. So, we corrected our course and backed up a bit. 

We worked on educating our suppliers on the why. Why are we asking for this information? Who else is asking for this (clients, project architects, etc.)? What are we going to do with it? It was important to make it clear that it wasn’t just Moore & Giles asking for this level of disclosure, but that there was a return on investment connected to the ask. This informative approach supported the fact that we were doing this for a good reason.

When we started, some clients didn’t even know what Declare was. But now, some design libraries won’t specify a product unless you meet certain requirements like the Declare label. The industry is evolving to support these requests a lot more than it did when we began.

After educating on the why, we provided step-by-step training sessions to guide suppliers through logistics. We recorded a virtual training on how to fill out the forms and how to give full material disclosure. The most important thing that was really concerning suppliers was that they were worried they were giving away all their secrets. Consider your great-grandmother and her most loved recipe. If she is like my Great-Grandmother, she is protective of her legacy and will leave out an ingredient so that no one ever makes it as good as she did. (True Story). 

Giving up that secret recipe and potentially handing it over to competitors is a common concern for many suppliers when it comes to transparency. So, we worked with Toxnot, now 3E Exchange, to help our suppliers understand how they can make an ingredient proprietary to protect their recipe while still providing the ability to screen against hazard lists like the Red List. 

Putting their fears at ease and requesting one product per supplier really started to shift things in motion. Once we achieve one Declare label with a supplier, they seem to get it and feel confident doing more! Today we’re receiving regular product disclosures and tanneries are much more open to the process. 

I often think about an experience I had with one tannery. Something had been flagged on the Red List, and when we reached out to them to remove that ingredient, they responded later to thank us. That doesn’t happen very often. But they reached out and told us that no one had questioned it. They’d always made it that way and never had a reason to change because it’s what worked, it’s what people purchased, and it’s just the way it was. And that right there is the way humans have been operating, whether it’s the food we buy, the clothes we wear, or the products we specify—it’s business as usual. However, in this case, when we questioned their ingredients and asked if they could seek a safer alternative for one product, they found a much safer ingredient and incorporated that change throughout their entire product offering. This created a shift in the way of thinking and changed the way we deal with that tannery now. If they make a change or find something innovative and sustainable, we’re their first call. We celebrate these positive shifts together, which is important for all of us to remember to do, as we navigate our way to a sustainable and regenerative future. Today, this tannery is investigating regenerative farming solutions, upgrading to more energy-efficient equipment, and using renewables, in addition to material health. It is so rewarding to look back and see how that chemical change request was the tipping point to where we are today, with all parties looking through a lens of curiosity to ask, “What better solutions might exist?”.

What have been the impacts on your business and your consumers since removing Red List ingredients from the supply chain?

One important aspect to consider while you’re looking for sustainable attributes that we learned early on is aesthetic. The quality and aesthetic of the product needs to be as similar as possible to what the client is used, or better. You can be as sustainable as you want to be, but if it’s not desirable, it typically won’t be specified. Thankfully, the ingredient changes on our products haven’t had a negative aesthetic impact. We can’t tell the difference. Our clients can’t tell the difference and there is no change in quality or performance. The switch is a success and has been a no-brainer and encourages designers to consider sustainable products in their projects. 

The architectural and design industry has become more aware of the Declare label, and it’s recognized on green building platforms and scoring systems, helping our products’ recognition. Many design libraries, like the Genslers, the Perkins & Wills, and others who are making their own material specification requirements are also recognizing Declare Red List Free labels, emphasizing third-party verification, which is so important, and something we believe in and incorporate. 

All of this effort has led to more specifications resulting in purchases. That’s bottom line, return on investment right there! Some companies are still in that space where you have to prove ROI before you can do anything from a sustainable perspective. And for those folks, I can say that we’re there, we’ve done the work, and we’re experiencing results. Sure, it’s taken a lot of work and building trust to shift our age-old industry to this level of transparency. But now they’re just proud to be part of it and join hands with us to lead the way forward! 

Having a healthy portfolio of third-party verified, Red List Free Declare labels is important to us, and it will continue to be part of our plan. We’re beginning to see our competitors come along behind us. Paving the way is invigorating, but it can also be a challenge because rather than navigating an existing path, you are instead making the effort and investment through trial and error to create it. I always say celebrate your trailblazers in every market because they’ve done the work. Ultimately, we’re doing the work so that people will follow. My only question is: what’s taking so long?

Any final thoughts you want to leave with our readers?

Take the risk, BE the leader, and blaze those trails! I’m happy to talk to anyone about my process and the value beyond ROI that having a Declare label has brought our team and our tanneries.  

We will never fully realize the extent of the ripples of the positive impacts that are created from decisions like these. And that has to be okay. To companies that need proof of return on investment before change will happen: you are falling behind. We must consider and discuss the cost of doing nothing. When determining the cost of the materials we specify, purchase, use, and ultimately discard, we must shift to a culture of including the impact on our planet, human health, and future generations of using those materials and their ingredients as part of the cost, multiplied by the impacts created by frequent replacements if it is a low-cost, short-term product. We must choose well, not often, making verified sustainable choices that support environmental and human health and take an active role in a circular economy. These key elements need to become part of the ROI equation. For now, we might not know what the final numbers are, but we do know that there is an impact to every decision that we make, creating our legacy in real-time. The question is, will the legacy you leave behind be a good one?

Living Future believes that justice and equity are at the core of creating a regenerative future. Regenerative work creates a positive impact across social, cultural, and ecological systems. A truly regenerative future is one in which community members are intentionally and actively engaged in co-designing and co-creating their built environment so that it reflects their values, meets their needs, and cultivates thriving communities.

Equity has been an explicit component of Living Future programs since the introduction of the Equity Petal in the Living Building Challenge in 2009. Since that time, we have continued to elevate and champion equity as a core pillar of our work by introducing our Affordable Housing program in 2013, launching our Just program in 2014, and continually evolving all the equity components of our programs regularly. We are eager to invest more resources to enhance equity in our standards and to use them as transformative frameworks for the building industry. We are now excited to embark on a new initiative to sharpen our focus on equity further.

Living Future’s Equity in the Built Environment (EBE) Initiative will integrate and center equity throughout all of our programs. Living Future is in the process of developing major updates to our regenerative building and sustainable materials programs, and the EBE Initiative, which is grant-funded through June 2026, provides an opportunity for us to focus our efforts to reflect on, reimagine, and refine how equity shows up in all of our standards. Through performing in-depth analyses of our current programs as well as other industry standards and frameworks, conducting research, and engaging with a diverse range of organizations and individuals working toward aligned goals, we will listen and learn new ways Living Future can more effectively advance equity and justice through our work. We will then integrate what we learn into future  updates to our programs as well as tools and resources that equip and support organizations toward centering equity in the built environment. 

Spotlight on the steering committee

The EBE Initiative is co-led by a steering committee of Living Future staff and equity leaders in the built environment. Together, the committee aims to define key equity goals and priorities, identifying how Living Future can drive transformational change and create lasting impact within the industry. You can learn more about the steering committee on our EBE Initiative landing page. 

“I am excited to synthesize the results of our community engagement efforts, conversations with industry professionals, and research in a format that will be beneficial long-term both for Living Future and for other organizations committed to bettering the world through our built environment. There are still currently many gaps in how equity is classified and prioritized within sustainable development, and I am proud that we are working to fill those gaps!” – Daraja Brown, EBE Steering Committee member

“I chose to join the steering committee because it is a great way to join forces with like-minded leaders who are actively working to shift current mindsets, practices and systems toward equitable, regenerative futures for communities. “ – Precious Rideout, EBE Steering Committee member

* Living Future would also like to acknowledge Ganesh Nayak, one of our founding EBE Steering Committee members, who tragically passed away in July 2024. He is greatly missed and we are forever grateful for his kindness and passion for inclusion and accessibility in the built environment, which he generously lent toward the development of this work. You can learn more about Ganesh and his legacy in this blog post.

The EBE Initiative represents a pivotal moment for Living Future to continue growing and learning, as we deepen our commitment to advancing equity through every aspect of our work. As the work progresses, we will be sharing what we learn through our research as well as inviting our community members to review proposed program updates. We hope you will join us on this journey and look forward to your engagement with us along the way. 

Join our mailing list for future EBE updates and engagement opportunities!

Our 2023 Impact Report Is Out

Our 2023 Impact Report is out, showcasing the incredible progress we’ve made together. This isn’t just about our organization – it’s about the collective energy and achievements of our community and the movement as a whole.

Imagine a world where buildings are regenerative, products are sustainable, and our impact on the planet is positive. This is the vision we’re building, and our Impact Report lays out the powerful trends and patterns that fuel our journey.

At the heart of our work are frameworks that challenge the norm and redefine possibility. The Living Building Challenge, a global standard for regenerative design, sets the benchmark for a sustainable future. Our other programs – the Living Product Challenge, Zero Carbon, Zero Energy certifications, and the Declare and Just labels – are driving innovation across industries, creating a ripple effect of positive change.

Join us as we continue to push boundaries, accelerate progress, and shape a more sustainable world, together.

We are especially gratified to share some of the 2023 numbers and milestones. For example:

• Products: We supported 370 manufacturers to publicly disclose ingredient information on 1,325 Declare labels (up 175 YoY) representing some 16,000 products across 25 product types. 

• Buildings: We registered 65 projects for our building certifications (Living Building Challenge, Zero Carbon, and Zero Energy), and certified 20 projects, representing 3M sq. ft. (2x more than previous high). These diverse projects ranged from a 100 sq. ft. affordable housing project to an almost 1M sq. ft. hockey arena.

• Critical Buildings: We engaged 7 new projects to participate in our Affordable Housing program, which now includes 64 registered projects located in 28 U.S. states and 1 Canadian province. With these new projects, totaling 500+ housing units, the cohort represents 3,000+ housing units that will provide healthy, efficient, and affordable housing for 9,000+ residents. 

• Organizations: We engaged 62 new firms to start using the Just framework to evaluate their organization’s policies, practices, and  performance (up 15 YoY), and ended the year with 161 active Just labels. These labels represent a diverse range of organizations and a total of 36,000 employees (up 5,000 YoY), with organizational sizes varying from 2 to 8,500 employees. 

This is why we are doing this work. 

As our CEO, Lindsay Baker shares so eloquently in her letter in the report: 

“We are promoting a philosophy: to build in a way that is regenerative, not just sustainable. The Living Building Challenge can guide decision making. It is also an advocacy tool — a way to ask for the building that you want, the materials that you want, in the private and public sphere. It is also a certification, with all of the specific requirements and documentation that such a designation requires. The goal is to heal ecosystems, to make us healthier than before we entered the building, and to create good and healthy jobs that sustain families. This is the task of regeneration, which our planet calls upon us to do more deeply today than ever before.”

Ready to see the incredible things we’re accomplishing together? Dive into our Impact Report and witness the power of our collective efforts. Get inspired, and join us today by donating to make an even bigger difference!

RELATED LINKS
Celebrating Over 200 Certifications with Our 35th Living Building

PHOTO CREDIT:
The “deckony” at the ZGF-designed PAE Living Building in Portland, Ore., is a fifth-floor oasis offering a multi-sensorial biophilic environment that invites people in with sweeping views, fresh air, and indoor-outdoor connectivity. © Benjamin Benschneider.

At the International Living Future Institute, we have the privilege of working with affordable housing practitioners who are transforming the industry through groundbreaking innovations on every project. At this year’s Affordable Housing Summit, we are honored to showcase these projects and share them with you all. During the Summit, we will learn about projects such as a 28-story haven for LGBTQ+ seniors in Harlem that is designed for net zero operational energy and embodied carbon (see Innovations in Embodied Carbon Session below), a housing structure setting a new precedent for sustainability and designed with deep engagement with its First Nations residents in British Columbia (see Designing for Culture and Connection Session below), and houses designed to address the shortage of missing middle residential construction in the northwest and be adaptable to grow with families (see Innovative Housing Models and Pathways to Homeownership Session below).

The Summit will kick off with opening remarks by designer, urbanist, and social justice activist, Liz Ogbu, a global expert on engaging and transforming unjust environments. Her work is rooted in collaborating with communities and leveraging design to address systemic harm, catalyze community healing, and foster environments that support people’s capacity to thrive. We will also be joined by other noted experts in regenerative design such as Sonja Bochart and Chris Hellstern (both Living Future Heroes!). 

Our speakers this year have so much inspiration and knowledge to offer, and we are thrilled to host them all. We hope you will join us on October 24th and 25th as we celebrate innovation in the affordable housing field. As we look forward to this event, here’s a peek at more of our sessions and speakers:

Designing for Culture and Connection

These speakers are reshaping how we engage with the built environment by centering our deep connection with nature and with culture. 

Sonja Bochart is a prominent biophilia expert who has led biophilic design workshops that span 10 recent Living Building Challenge projects.

StudioHuB Architects will share how trauma-informed design principles and deep engagement with the local Indigenous community informed everything in the Chilliwack Housing Project in British Columbia, down to the facade pattern.

Innovative Housing Models and Pathways to Homeownership

We will feature the work of visionaries who are paving the way for greater access to homeownership through forward-thinking housing and development models. 

The three speakers in this session are all affordable housing developers utilizing strategies to rapidly increase the availability of housing in their communities and to leverage unique financial structures to provide opportunities for homeownership. These developers are creating new communities taking the form of structures such as community land trusts, co-ops, tiny house villages, grow homes and shared ownership models, all while employing sustainable and regenerative design principles.

Equity and Inclusion

Explore frameworks for incorporating robust equity and inclusion, including Arch Nexus’ recently-launched Comprehensive Equity Toolkit. 

This session will also feature two members of Centering Equity in the Sustainable Building Sector (CESBS), an initiative that brought together leaders in environmental justice, architecture, affordable housing, transportation, economic development, and sustainability to create a multifaced plan to universalize access to sustainable, healthy, regenerative building design for the places where we live, work, learn, and play.

Scaling and Shifting to Safer Materials

Marilyn Specht and Chris Hellstern, recognized leaders in the regenerative design movement and members of Living Future’s Material Health TAG, will lend their extensive knowledge of selecting materials to this group. 

We will also introduce our new Safer Materials Shift initiative with our partners at Housing Partnership Network and Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future.

This session will also include an interactive (but low-pressure!) game with the group to help test out everyone’s knowledge of healthy materials.

Innovations in Embodied Carbon

This session will illuminate strategies for comprehensive decarbonization as pioneers in Zero Carbon affordable housing shed a light on the growing importance of embodied carbon in the sector. 

This panel will include four speakers, all of whom have been visioning and working diligently to decarbonize the affordable housing sector. These case studies will include a presentation on the tallest Living Future Affordable Housing Pilot Project to date, as well as an introduction by Ruwan Jayaweera of PAE, the engineering firm behind some of the largest Living Buildings, with 60+ projects having certified or in pursuit of the Living Building Challenge and Zero Energy Certification.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn from these amazing speakers. Sign up here to register.

Cover photo credits:
Chilliwack Housing Project, rendering courtesy of StudioHub Architects
The Kelsey Civic Center, rendering courtesy of WRNS Studio, Mercy Housing, The Kelsey, and SPA
Hazelwood Biophilia Workshop, image courtesy of Rothschild Doyno Collaborative and Sonja Bochart
Carmen Villegas Apartments, rendering courtesy of Magnusson Architecture and Planning

The Impact of Declare Labels

Over the last few years as Declare has grown, material transparency has become the rule in sustainable building. The Living Building Challenge requires some Declare labeled products to be used in projects, LEED offers points to projects using Declare labeled products, and the Green Building Council of Australia recognizes Declare. As self-disclosure becomes more common practice, the industry is pushing manufacturers to do more. 

Building standards are starting to offer more benefits to optimized and verified products. Red List Free products—products whose bill of materials have been verified—and those that have done the work to improve their declaration status will be getting more attention as we move into the future. And we are excited to share the stories of three manufacturers spearheading that movement.

Breaking Barriers: The Moore & Giles Story

Suppliers often resist disclosing chemical formulas due to proprietary concerns. However, Beverly McAuley tackles this challenge head-on by working empathetically with leather suppliers, explaining the intent of the Red List, and educating them on the health risks of Red List chemicals. Her approach not only safeguards the end users, but also protects tannery workers from harmful exposures. Beverly’s success story can inspire manufacturers, contractors, and designers to adopt similar strategies for fostering change.

Overcoming Hurdles: Vode’s Journey to Transparency

Vode, a forward-thinking lighting manufacturer, faced the risk of losing their Declare label due to a non-compliant adhesive supplier and the use of fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP), a Red List ingredient, in their cabling. To comply with the essential use exception of FEP, Vode had to disclose all proprietary ingredients. Despite several attempts, Vode had to make the tough decision to switch to a supplier willing to disclose adhesive ingredients. This pivotal move ensured the continuation of their Declare label, demonstrating that changing suppliers is a feasible step towards material health and transparency. Leti from Vode’s experience can motivate others to overcome supplier challenges and prioritize transparency.

Achieving Healthier Interiors: Allsteel’s Commitment

Allsteel, known for its interior office facades, have updated their Declare labels by removing PVC, a Red List ingredient, from their architectural products. Initially, they only achieved a Declared status, but through persistent efforts, they successfully reformulated their products to exclude PVC and advance to LBC Red List Approved. This inspiring journey showcases Allsteel’s dedication to healthier, more transparent materials and serves as a testament to the positive impact of Declare labels.

Why These Stories Matter

These narratives from Moore & Giles, Vode, and Allsteel underscore a common theme: the pursuit of healthier, more transparent products. By sharing their stories, we can illuminate the significant strides made towards safer materials and inspire others to follow suit. Each of these manufacturers has demonstrated that transparency and material health are achievable goals, paving the way for a healthier future.

We invite you to delve deeper into these transformative stories through our compelling Trim Tab interview series. Hear firsthand how these industry leaders navigated challenges and made impactful changes. Let their journeys inspire you to prioritize transparency and health in your own supply chain.

Stay tuned for our upcoming series, where we celebrate the power of Declare labels in driving positive change and advancing our mission for a healthier world.

How the Living Future Community is Shaping a Sustainable Tomorrow

When I set out to write about ILFI’s new Introductory Membership, I knew I had to create something more than a Top 5 list of reasons to join. It needed to be authentic, inspirational, and a little fun–a lot like our Living Future Community! Inspired by the storytelling elements of the  Living Building Challenge (LBC) and the curiosity and playfulness central to Biophilic Design,  I’ve taken the opportunity to virtually connect with five of our members, learn more from some of the brilliant and passionate people that make up the Living Future Community, and share our stories. I’ll start with mine. 

Bri DiNicola (she/her) | Austin, TX | International Living Future Institute

Being a part of the Living Future Community, I’ve found a space where I’m not just seen and heard but truly understood. This community has become my anchor, especially during times when the challenges of climate change feel overwhelming. My journey into sustainability was sparked by Professor McLelland (you’ll hear from him later in this post) during my first sustainability course at the University of Alabama. That passion deepened through my Sustainable Built Environments program studies at the University of Arizona and led me to the heart of the Regenerative Buildings movement.

In 2023, I officially joined the Living Future Community, drawn by the opportunity to stay up-to-date with the most cutting edge industry developments and expand my knowledge through becoming a member and enrolling in Living Future Accreditation (LFA) with my Professional Member discount. The $0 Introductory Membership, now available, would have been a game-changer during my student years. It’s a perfect gateway for those eager to integrate into the professional realm of this inspiring movement.

A little over a year later, I found myself facing probably the biggest opportunity of my life so far: the chance to join the Living Future Membership team and officially dedicate my career to the regenerative buildings movement. While I may not be on the front lines creating products, buildings, or cities like many of you, I am truly grateful and honored to be able to have a role in connecting those who are— By creating opportunities for you to learn together and work together, I know that this community is unstoppable. 

Ateet Singh (he/him) | Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India | Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC)

Ateet is a young architect driven by a deep passion for continual learning. His passion for sustainable design was ignited during a pivotal course at Thomas Jefferson University, where he was first introduced to the LBC by Professor Rob Fleming. This experience opened his eyes to a holistic approach to architecture, beyond the traditional rating systems prevalent in India. Previously working to support the Sustainable Architecture initiative at FivD, Ateet is now pursuing a master’s degree in Advanced Ecological Building & Biocities through the IAAC. Since joining the Living Future Community in 2021, Ateet has deepened his commitment by earning his LFA and is now working towards advancing regenerative design in a market still dominated by conventional, more prescriptive methods.

“ILFI has been my go-to source of knowledge since I first heard about it. Here in India, we usually focus on rating systems, but ILFI helped me approach sustainable building design in a new way. It has drawn my attention towards the finer details of building design, such as the importance of equity.” 

Despite the challenges, Ateet remains committed to developing a greater level of expertise and connecting with like-minded individuals to help expand the adoption of more holistic and equitable approaches to building design.

Lauren McNeill (she/her) | Denver, CO, USA | Group 14 Engineering

Lauren’s introduction to ILFI came at an early Living Future Conference, where the launch of the Just Label ignited her passion for sustainability. 

“I found ILFI right out of college and I wasn’t very technical at the time, so it was nice to find a group that was welcoming me with open arms, even at a baseline understanding of what these principles were. Everyone was always very willing to share their experience, share their background, and just widen the circle. That was something different in the [AEDC] industry, and I found it really motivating and inspiring.”

As a direct result of Lauren’s LF conference attendance, her firm, Group 14, pursued their first Just Label. The process of earning the label catalyzed internal changes, prompting the firm to formalize practices such as paid volunteer time to employees. The Just Label became a cornerstone in Group 14’s journey, and as they soon pursue their 5th Just label under the newly-updated Just 3.0, they continue to ensure that their internal practices reflect the values of sustainability and social responsibility they champion in their projects.

One of Lauren’s standout projects is the Northglenn City Hall project, which is pursuing Core certification under the LBC. This project is a shining example of regenerative design and innovation through collaboration, particularly with its rainwater capture system—an impressive feat in a state like Colorado, where water laws are notoriously strict. Made possible through Lauren’s collaborative work with Denver Water & City of Northglenn, the project team worked closely with local water authorities to create an augmentation plan that ensures compliance with Colorado’s water laws while still achieving their goal of no potable water use for irrigation. Lauren’s work has made a substantial impact, demonstrating that industries traditionally intensive in energy and water use, like distilleries, can also adopt sustainable practices, inspire broader change, and even seek Net Positive Water under the Living Building Challenge!

Lauren’s work, both in her professional projects and as a leader of Colorado’s Regional Member Community (RMC), providing locally-focused education and fostering connection, exemplifies the collaborative and innovative spirit that defines the Living Future Community. 

Jonathan McLelland (he/him) | Tuscaloosa, AL, USA | McLelland Architecture | The University of Alabama

Though Jon initially envisioned changing the world through diplomacy, it was the discovery of sustainable architecture that truly resonated with him. In addition to his work as an architect, he finds a deep sense of purpose and optimism in his role as an educator. 

Jon uses his teaching platform to inspire students to embrace regenerative design and challenge students to think critically about the future, not only of architecture, but of everything. Achieved through collaborative work on semester-long independent projects, he shared that his students’ work restores his faith [in the movement] every time. Jon describes his small seminar community as “a great wellspring of possibility that keeps [him] inspired,” as he faces the challenges of implementing sustainable architecture in a conservative industry and geographic region. 

In a similar spirit, Jon shared what being part of the Living Future Community means to him:

“Joining the Living Future Community has kept me inspired, even when local projects don’t always align with my vision. The community provides hope and a sense of belonging, reminding me that we can make a difference.”

Despite challenges, he remains optimistic and continues to educate future generations about the importance of sustainable design. Jon’s story is a testament to the power of community and the potential for change when like-minded individuals come together.

Angela Iraldi (she/her) | Philadelphia, PA, USA | Re:Vision Architecture

Angela became involved in sustainability through energy auditing and managing energy systems in buildings as a part of her master’s degree. Later, her experience in HVAC Commissioning led her to recognize the widespread waste of energy and resources, even in projects aiming for high levels of sustainability certification. This fueled her passion for sustainability consulting. 

One of her most impactful projects involves collaborating with a major building product manufacturer to pursue Core LBC certification for their office building. Through this project, Angela has encountered challenges with product sustainability, particularly with materials that lacked Declare labels or contained Red List substances. This challenge led Angela to work closely with ILFI and lean into the greater philosophical framework of ILFI’s programs to approach the challenge by fostering collaboration and open dialogue. As a result, the manufacturer is expanding their product offerings for better compliance with Red List and biophilic design principles. They’ve also increased engagement with the Institute through a Corporate Package and event sponsorship. 

Angela reflected on her involvement with the Living Future Community and the personal and professional impact it has had on her:

“The Living Future community is the best group of ego-free people I’ve ever met. Everyone is in it for the right reason, trying to do better without any competition. It’s refreshing and inspiring to be around people who are genuinely trying to figure things out together. The organization has influenced how I approach projects and even how I live my life. It’s my North Star.”

By connecting professionals committed to sustainability, the Living Future Community empowers its members to foster meaningful change in the building industry.

Shayna Kerkstra (she/her) | Grand Rapids, MI, USA | Catalyst Partners

After first learning about the LBC as a part of her education in the Sustainable Business program at Aquinas College, Shayna’s involvement with ILFI began through her firm, Catalyst Partners, which engaged with ILFI to pursue the Just Label and buildings programs. One of Shayna’s notable projects is the John Ball Zoo Pygmy Hippo exhibit, currently pursuing Materials Petal Certification under the LBC. The project faced unique challenges, particularly with materials and water management, but the resources and support from the Living Future Community played a crucial role in overcoming these hurdles.  

Reflecting on her experience, Shayna shares, “The process of working together with the owner, construction manager, and architect, trying to find sustainable solutions has been an incredible learning journey. Living Future Membership is more than just access to resources—it’s about being part of a supportive, innovative community that empowers us to make a real impact.”

In all the conversations I had, members highlighted ILFI as a source of inspiration and a beacon of hope for the future. The Living Future Community is one that is uplifted and accelerated by education and mutual knowledge sharing. United by shared values and a commitment to a socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative world, this community continues to exceed expectations and drive industry transformation.

To close, I’ll leave you with the words of our CEO Lindsay Baker, shared at the 2024 Living Future Conference:

“We know that it is deeply possible to build buildings that celebrate place, create good jobs, and are built out of the materials of the ecosystem in which they are constructed. Many might think that this vision for the future sounds impractical. We are not those people.”

If these stories resonate with you, we invite you to join us. Our Introductory Membership offers a preview of our full-access Professional Membership with no financial investment. Join the Living Future Community today or open our community door for a friend or two!

Cover photo: Jessica Yurinko Photography

Key Principles for Real Progress

At the International Living Future Institute (ILFI), our mission is to advance the creation of a truly regenerative built environment. In this pursuit, organizations must operate with the same clarity and integrity as individuals—setting clear goals, seeking consistent encouragement, and measuring tangible progress. However, misplaced credit can undermine these collective efforts. Whether building from scratch or renovating existing structures, every action creates impacts on people, communities, resources, and the environment. To ensure genuine progress, it’s essential to claim both positive and negative impacts with integrity.

Identifiable Impacts: Real

To maintain the credibility of Living Future projects, it’s crucial that claimed impacts are tangible and identifiable. Unfortunately, some entities take credit for actions they haven’t actually undertaken. For instance, certain carbon offset programs may claim reductions in emissions simply by preserving undeveloped lands, which can detract from genuine sustainability efforts.

Measured Impacts: Metered

Quantifiable impacts are a cornerstone of ILFI’s programs. We require a 12-month performance period backed by verifiable data to support the benefits claimed. Accurate measurement ensures that the progress reflected in Living Building Challenge, Zero Carbon, and Zero Energy projects is real and impactful.

New Impacts: Additionality

Recognizing only new impacts is essential for continuous progress. Awarding credits for pre-existing achievements can stagnate advancement. Zero Carbon and other ILFI-certified projects must demonstrate that their positive impacts extend beyond what has already been achieved, ensuring that every project pushes the boundaries of what’s possible.

Attributed Impacts: Earned

Proper attribution is vital to prevent double-counting benefits. Credit should only be given where it is due. For example, a project cannot claim benefits that rightly belong to another entity. By adhering to this principle, Living Future projects maintain the integrity and transparency that drive real progress.

In conclusion, ensuring that impacts in regenerative design are identifiable, measured, additional, and correctly attributed is fundamental to sustaining the integrity of sustainability efforts. By embracing these principles, we can collectively advance toward a regenerative future.

.Join us in this commitment to real impact. Explore how you can contribute to a Living Future by certifying your next project with ILFI. Contact us at sales@living-future.org or click here to get started.

2024 Midyear Stats and Takeaways

Living Future is excited to share the latest stats, milestones, and key takeaways highlighting the growth of our programs over the first half of 2024.

Building Certifications

Living Building Challenge, Zero Carbon, and Zero Energy

In the first half of 2024, we celebrated 11 new certified projects, including our 34th and 35th Living Buildings:

• PAE Living Building, Portland, OR – Living Certified 
• Class Of 1966 Environmental Center At Williams College, Williamstown, MA – Living Certified (upgraded from Petal)
• Semans-Griswold Environmental Hall, Chestertown, MD – Petal Certified (Energy)
• The Living Homes on Mill Creek, Moab, UT – Petal Certified (Energy, Water)
• Architectural Nexus Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City, UT – Petal Certified (Water, Materials)
• Muhlenberg College Fahy Commons, Allentown, PA – Core Certified
• Trent University Forensics Training Facility, Ontario, Canada – Zero Carbon Certified
• King County Solid Waste Division – Vashon Recycling and Transfer Station, Vashon, WA – Zero Energy Certified
• Singh Residence, East Greenbush, NY – Zero Energy Certified
• Antigua Solar Cabin, Jumby Bay, Antigua – Zero Energy Certified
• 1042Highland, Oak Park, IL – Zero Energy Certified

Additionally, 8 projects have recently achieved Ready Designation by completing the Ready Audit post-construction. These projects will undergo a Final Audit after a 12-month performance period.

In the past 6 months, 110 projects have registered (7 Living, 7 Petal, 18 Core, 61 Zero Carbon, and 17 Zero Energy), covering 10.8M sq. ft. Worldwide, there are 417 registered projects, representing 41M sq. ft., actively pursuing certification. (Around 900 projects have registered all time.)

Registered and certified projects are predominantly in the US (485), followed by Canada (29), Australia (20), New Zealand (16), and Italy (15), with a total of 38 projects in Europe.You can find most of our certified and non-confidential registered projects on our Project Map. If your project is not listed and you wish to be included, please email maps@living-future.org.

There are now 208 certified projects, ranging from 130 to 990k sq. ft., representing a combined total of 7.8M sq. ft.

Materials

Declare and Living Product Challenge

Currently, there are 42 active certified Living Products and 1,441 active Declare labels (a 20% increase over last year), including 809 Red List Free (RFL) and 407 Red List Approved (RLA).

More than 10% of Declare labels are third-party verified, which is a focus area for the team to grow, adding 5 new approved verifiers in 2023 and another lined up to start in Q3.

Out of the 41 CSI divisions and subdivisions (product types) represented in Declare, the most common are Furnishings (17%), Thermal and Moisture Protection (11%), Carpeting (9%), Electrical (9%), Resilient Flooring (8%), Ceilings (7%), and Openings (6%).

The fastest growth within the Living Future Institute’s Declare program continues to be in the lighting sector. In 2019, there were only 5 lighting products with Declare labels. Today, fueled by advocacy work promoting transparency in the lighting sector, we proudly have over 100 published labels for lighting products.

18 manufacturers published their first label in the first half of 2024, including: A. Zahner Co, ALUZ, Encore Hospitality Carpet, Felt Right LLC, Goodwe Power Supply Technology Co, Heath Ceramics, Kenall Manufacturing, Kirlin Lighting, KPNE Products Ltd, LANTANA LED, Linea Ceiling & Wall Systems, LITON, Pa-Co Lighting, Rubio Monocoat Australia Ply Ltd, Swan Surfaces, Tivoli, Trespa International BV, and Wools of New Zealand.

Manufacturers with more than 25 active Declare labels include Armstrong World Industries, Godfrey Hirst, HMTX, Humanscale, Knauf, Milliken, Mohawk, Q-Tran, Toto, and USG.

Oceania saw growth in 3PV (third-party verified) labels with the addition of verifiers in the region, including labels for Acoufelt, Autex, Brickworks Building Products, and District Australia. Outside of Oceania, Kenall Manufacturing and Moore & Giles achieved 3PV status in 2024.

ORGANIZATIONS

Just

In the first half of 2024, the Living Future Institute registered 30 new and 41 returning organizations in the Just program. There are currently 190 active Just labels, representing a diverse range of organizations and a total of 39,000 employees, with organizational sizes varying from 1 to 8,500 employees.

These firms span 15 industries, with architecture firms representing more than half (59%) of the participating organizations, followed by consulting and engineering firms. The firms are based in 9 countries, with the vast majority in the US (87%), followed by Canada (4%), Australia, and Italy (2% each).

So far this year, we have welcomed nearly 40 new organizations to the Just community and published about 70 Just labels, including new labels and renewals. By July 2024, we had already published as many Just labels as we did throughout the entire year of 2023, putting us on track for a record-breaking year.

Stay tuned for more updates and milestones as we continue to drive transparency and sustainability across industries.

Cover Photo: PAE Living Building
Credit: Jamie Goodwick / PORTLANDRONE

In this insightful interview, architect Jason F. McLennan speaks with publisher Michael Berrisford about the enduring impact of McLennan’s book, The Philosophy of Sustainable Design. Originally published 20 years ago and now in its seventh reprint, the book remains a cornerstone in the green building industry.

McLennan, the mind behind the Living Building Challenge and author of seven sustainability books, shares his journey and the book’s continued relevance.  Berrisford, Editor-in-Chief of ILFI’s Ecotone Publishing, offers his perspective on their longstanding collaboration. Enjoy their conversation as they delve into the principles that continue to inspire and inform the industry.

In 2004, you published your seminal book, The Philosophy of Sustainable Design (POSD). Can you take us back to the circumstances of your career that led to its creation?

In the early 2000s, there was a glaring absence of comprehensive resources on sustainable design in architecture. I was committed to sustainability and saw the need for a book that holistically covered the principles of sustainable design. By 2004, I felt ready to fill this gap, providing a guide that balanced nature, art, technology, and materials.

POSD has been utilized in over one hundred design schools, reprinted seven times, and translated into several languages. Why do you think it remains relevant after twenty years?

The book’s deep green design philosophy and principles are timeless. Concepts like Respect for the Wisdom of Natural Systems, Respect for People, and Respect for Energy and Natural Resources remain crucial. While some technological details may be dated, the core philosophy ensures the book’s longevity in academic and professional settings.

What are the most enduring principles of sustainable design addressed in POSD?

The overarching philosophy of holistic thinking is central. The book is not about checklists or specific aesthetics but about a comprehensive approach to design. I emphasized “respect” to reframe the dominant paradigm of exploitation to one of stewardship. This holistic approach, addressing interconnected issues simultaneously, is still unique and crucial today.

How has POSD served as a blueprint for evolving the AEC industry?

POSD introduced concepts like Living Buildings and material ingredient transparency, which have become industry standards. It has influenced many designers, providing them with tools and language to build consensus with clients and peers. The book continues to impact professionals who were introduced to it early in their careers.

What’s the role of love in regenerative design?

Love and passion are essential for alignment with our values and for creating beneficial changes. Regenerative design professionals must act from a place of love for all life and nature. I encourage consistency in values and actions, highlighting the importance of love in our decisions for a sustainable future.

Why is looking to nature for solutions more important today than ever before?

With ecological systems undermined worldwide, regenerative restoration is urgent. Solutions must be based on working with nature, going beyond minimizing harm to actively healing the environment. This philosophy is embedded in the Living Building Challenge and must be central to any sustainable design approach.

Is there a The Philosophy of Sustainable Design 2.0 in your future?

I envision a new edition with updates on recent approaches and technologies while maintaining the original philosophical framework. Expanding on regeneration and refining the content to reflect current advancements is essential. It’s a matter of finding the time to research and write.

Is your copy of The Philosophy of Sustainable Design dog-eared, “borrowed,” or otherwise missing from the office resource library? Do you know of a colleague who may be interested in exploring the holistic principles of regenerative design? In any case, we have you covered at ILFI’s new Marketplace for all things to do with publications, membership, and education. 

GET YOUR COPY

Featured image: HMTX. Photo by Anton Grassl.

2025 marks the 20^th anniversary of the launch of zHome, the first ILFI certified Zero Energy community in the United States.  This groundbreaking project aimed to make zero carbon living mainstream by demonstrating an array of new, but available, technologies under one roof.  Over the last 20 years, the solutions zHome showcased have become much better, more accessible, and less expensive.  

Today, the climate crisis is advancing, but so are the solutions. Living a near-zero carbon life is now within reach with manageable efforts. Here’s how:

• Energy Efficiency Solutions: From energy monitors to LED lighting and vacancy switches, affordable efficiency solutions are readily available at your local home improvement store. New products are aggressively reducing standby energy use, making vampire loads a thing of the past.
• Renewable Energy: In most parts of the country, generating your own renewable electricity is now cheaper per kWh than purchasing fossil-fuel-generated electricity from the utility. Additionally, many utilities have a 100% renewable electricity purchase option is available for a nominal cost.
• Heat Pumps: Heat pumps are scaling rapidly and decreasing in cost, including models suitable for cold climates.
• Sustainable Mobility: Infrastructure for walking, biking, and micromobility is improving. Public transit is expanding, and electric vehicles (EVs) have become mainstream. EVs, combined with renewable electricity, offer zero-carbon mobility and are increasingly affordable.
• Sustainable Diets: Vegetarian and low-carbon diets are more accessible and easier to adopt, contributing to lower carbon footprints.

For decades, advocacy and professional communities have diligently crafted a range of sustainability and climate-positive solutions that are now ready for prime time. These innovations enable mainstream individuals to adopt climate-positive lifestyles effectively.

Reflecting on nearly two decades since the zHome project, the collective impact of these communities is substantial. However, many climate-conscious individuals, myself included, still struggle with reducing their carbon footprints. Despite implementing a passive house retrofit, installing a solar array, doing our best to live simply, and owning an electric vehicle, my family’s carbon footprint was higher than expected. Factors like air travel, meat consumption, and high material consumption offset our climate-friendly efforts.

Many in the climate movement excel in certain areas while falling short in others—vegans who love to travel long distances by air, beef eaters who drive gas-guzzlers but rarely leave their locale, or climate activists who attribute their footprint to systemic issues. Why is it challenging to achieve a low-carbon lifestyle despite its relative ease?

The one-two punch of COVID-19 and significant social, political, and cultural shifts have undoubtedly played a role. However, I believe the primary barrier is a lack of accessible information. People are busy and often unsure where to start. Even within decarbonization communities, knowing the right actions can be difficult. After calculating my carbon footprint, I found no comprehensive source prioritizing actionable steps. Many resources were either too broad or too specific.

To address this, I created a website which is a one-stop shop for reducing personal climate impact. The platform is organized around two key themes—what to do and why to do it—covering essential areas like home, mobility, food, and consumption. Prioritized action tiers and a downloadable action checklist help users make meaningful progress.

Launched three months ago, Climate Responsible has received positive feedback and recognition from environmental leaders like Denis Hayes and Bill McKibben. Although the platform is Western and North America-centric, it focuses on places with the largest footprints and greatest responsibility. Amidst global turmoil, those who can act must do so. Collective action can create a virtuous cycle of mainstreaming and normalizing sustainable practices, ultimately reducing costs and improving market readiness.

Climate Responsible isn’t about debating the reality of climate change or the ethics of inaction. It’s for those who understand the urgency of our slow-moving crisis and are ready to take responsibility. I hope you find it helpful and, most importantly, use it. Personal decarbonization within our movement can drive market change, set examples, and catalyze widespread transformation.

Check it out: Climate Responsible. Be sure and sign up for my newsletter if you’d like to stay updated