ILFI is excited to announce that online courses are open for enrollment! Living Future Education is your go-to source for education on the Living Building Challenge, Living Product Challenge, Living Community Challenge, and all other ILFI programs, transparency labels, and initiatives. 

Interested in achieving net positive water on your next project? There’s a course for that. Want to learn more about Declare and healthy materials? There’s a course for that, too. Or, are you simply looking to gain a better understanding of regenerative design principles and deepen your expertise? There are many courses for that!

“I love being an early adopter and pushing the boundaries of possibilities for change in our global cultures, diverse as they are, plus driving change in the communities in which I live and have a vested interest as an engaged citizen.” –Living Future Education online learner

All of the courses are available on-demand, which means you can take them whenever you want from wherever you are. The new system offers a much-improved user experience, making it easier for you to find relevant courses for each of ILFI’s programs and keep track of your online course achievements and credits towards earning Living Future Accreditation (LFA). LFA distinguishes leaders in the regenerative design community.

“I wish to showcase the knowledge and expertise that I’ve garnered during my time as a contractor and sustainability advocate. In addition to building my professional repertoire, I wish to help others in their quest to build sustainable projects by acting as a qualified resource.” –Aspiring LFA professional

Earning your LFA also makes you eligible to deepen your involvement with ILFI through Network volunteer opportunities as well as fulfill the LFA professional team member requirement for LBC 4.0.

Ready to start learning? ILFI Members receive a 10% discount on course enrollments with their special member coupon code. Join today! Sponsors of ILFI also receive special education benefits.

Browse our catalog and check out our top 5 picks for online education this quarter (all approved for LFA + AIA credits), below. If you have the opportunity, join us in Nashville this week at the Living Product Expo to continue learning and engaging deeply about these topics.

1. Living Products: Three Case Studies of Regenerative Design*
   1. The Living Product Challenge was launched with a bold vision: Design a beautiful, healthy product that makes the world a better place through its very creation. In this course, you’ll hear how three inspirational companies (Mohawk Group, Humanscale, and Bureo) are leveraging the LPC framework to upend the current manufacturing paradigm, demonstrating that regenerative products are possible.
2. Achieving Healthy Materials*
   1. Learn how to strategically research, specify, and document products to achieve the Living Building Challenge Materials Petal. This course reviews best practices for selecting healthy products, prioritizing ecologically restorative products, and creating spaces that have a positive impact on the human and natural systems with which we interact.
3. Introduction to the Living Product Challenge*
   1. This course will help you understand the business case for manufacturing Living Products, which build soil, create habitat, nourish the human spirit, and provide inspiration for personal, political and economic change. The course also describes how to help consumers make quick and informed decisions about sustainable product selection.
4. Materials Vetting for Affordable Housing
   1. This course walks through team member roles, prioritization, and steps for vetting products for Red List, FSC, and Living Economy Sourcing compliance. The course demonstrates how to identify CAS registry numbers on the Red List and provides examples of acceptable product documentation. Additionally, the course shows how to access and use the Declare and Mindful Materials databases to find and vet materials.
5. Taking Flight: Declare to LPC*
   1. Learn how to leverage the important work you’ve done in transparency and material health with Declare to achieve the Living Product Challenge, the most advanced product sustainability standard in the world. If you have a Declare label and are considering evaluating the life cycle of your products, you’re already on your way to certifying one of the world’s first Living Products.

*Denotes courses contained within the LFA Foundational Curriculum, completion of which is required (along with 16 General LFA CE credits) to achieve Living Future Accreditation.

Happy learning!

Earlier this year, ILFI announced some changes to the Living Future Accreditation process and requirements, including renewal!

The achievement of Living Future Accreditation (LFA) acknowledges your work toward making our communities socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative. Once accredited, you will be able to use the post-nominal initials “LFA” as well as the LFA seal for a period of two years after your accreditation date.

With the LFA, you’ll become an expert on all things Living Future and distinguish yourself as a leader in the regenerative design community. You’ll also be eligible to deepen your involvement with the Institute through Network volunteer opportunities as well as fulfill the LFA professional team member LBC 4.0 requirement under Imperative 20, should opportunities come your way. 

Living Future Accreditation helps to add a level of legitimacy as we advocate for incorporating regenerative design principles in projects, especially when we encourage our clients to pursue certification as well. 

Given the fact that we have a number of LFAs at various levels, from designers to architects and principals, we are able to benefit from everyone’s diverse experiences and roles to incorporate these principles at every level of our projects. 

[Achieving LFA] also allows us to join a community of other passionate and thoughtful people who share a similar vision. –John Byrd, Senior Architect | Overland Partners

In a nutshell, the LFA has been scaled to increase accessibility and now requires:

• 36 LFA CE credits of education (down from 70, nearly half)
  • 20 Foundational LFA CE credits (a set list of courses, outlined here)
  • 16 General LFA CE credits (choose from ILFI’s offerings or pre-approved, non-ILFI-delivered education*)
• Basic Membership (down from Premium)
• Reduced LFA Registration fee (now $125 USD)
• Still allows 2 years to complete education; still no final exam (instead, intermittent quizzes)
• Reduced LFA Renewal fee ($100 USD), reduced membership level maintenance requirement (Basic), and proportionately reduced CE requirement (16 credits)

*As an education provider, you may submit a request to offer LFA CE credits for an in-person educational event that you’ll deliver. Please fill up this form with details and the Education Team will be in touch.

Download the LFA ‘quick reference’ postcard for a concise summary of the process and requirements. For more details, check out our LFA webpage and our FAQ page.

Furthermore, we’ve recently introduced the opportunity for groups of colleagues, Ambassadors/Collaborative members, or university students to pursue LFA together. Groups of 3+ learners receive a 20% discount on individual registrations and resources for completing education together. Groups may also be eligible for membership discounts as part of a corporate membership package, or groups may receive complimentary membership(s) and LFA registration(s) as benefits of sponsorship/Network partnership. 

As a firm, excitement around both Living Building Certification and Living Future Accreditation began to spread as our project developed. Living Future Accreditation has helped spark a wave of interest in regenerative design within our office. 

It all started with a couple of us pursuing accreditation in association with an LBC project. Shortly afterward, groups began to organize to discuss incorporating biophilia and net zero energy design into other projects. Then a number of us began giving formal presentations to our office about various regenerative design concepts and what ILFI is all about. We brought in experts from other parts of the country as well to shed more light on topics like Red List materials, embodied carbon, living machines, and high-performance building design.  

Throughout all this, interest in ILFI grew to the point where our entire architecture team has become accredited … Our growing group of LFAs have become advocates for regenerative design within our office, among our clients, and within the community. This has put us in a position to be better equipped to actively advocate for certification on many of our new projects. Also, a couple of us have recently become Living Future Ambassadors and are starting a Collaborative in San Antonio. –Byrd

Think your group is ready to embark on this educational journey? Submit a request to register your group and find out more. Consider the conditions for success fostered at Overland Partners:

Stewardship is one of Overland’s core values … through our work, we try to lead by example and model how we should live through the practice of architecture. We like to say we design physical transformations that lead to human ones. 

By creating projects that are regenerative in nature, not only are we creating projects that are “more good” instead of “less bad”, but we are also influencing others… from everyone who touches the design process, including consultants, owners, building occupants, and other stakeholders. If we do our jobs well, we hope people will take their experiences home with them and begin to implement changes in their own lives.

Overland is a place that encourages everyone to follow their passions and be the best version of themselves. [In addition to providing professional development funds for LFA costs and attendance at ILFI events], we have an internal education series that we call “The Academy” that highlights a number of topics related to the profession. 

In a recent Academy session (photo below), we held a panel discussion for the entire office on the challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned to date on LBC & LCC Projects and the value of Living Future Accreditation. –Byrd

We look forward to supporting your pursuit of Living Future Accreditation. Tooled with expertise, ingenuity, and passion, you will be equipped to lead the transformation towards making our communities socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative.