Why Your Board of Directors Election Vote Matters!

Gail Vittori, LEED AP BD+C, LEED Fellow
Co-Director
Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems
GBCI Board Member

Your vote in the USGBC Board of Directors election will help shape the future of our movement.

Each year the USGBC member community has a special opportunity to influence USGBC's future leadership, governance and strategic direction by electing its national Board members. Your vote will influence key decisions about how USGBC serves you, our members, educates the industry and advances the mission.

The Election Period for the 2012 Board of Directors is now open through Nov. 1. To those who have already voted, thank you! For those who haven’t, this is your chance to add your voice to those of the more than 14,000 USGBC organizational members and cast your vote today!

The election period runs for 30 days, and closes on November 1st. USGBC By-Laws require that a minimum of 10% of USGBC member organizations vote. That’s why it’s especially important for you to take a moment and cast your vote now.

This year 11 candidates are running for four open Board seats in the following categories, each to a three-year term:

Designer of Buildings


• Anthony Bernheim, AECOM

• Fiona Cousins, Arup

• Will Weaver, Ecotekt, PLLC

Environmental Nonprofit Advocate

• Marge Anderson, Energy Center of Wisconsin

• Dennis Creech, Southface Energy Institute

• Ashok Gupta, Natural Resources Defense Council

Large-Scale Manufacturer


• George Bandy, Interface

• Jennifer Dolin, OSRAM SYLVANIA

• Sholem Prasow, Teknion

• Gabe Wing, Herman Miller, Inc.

Urban/Regional Planner


• John Dalzell, City of Boston/Boston Redevelopment Authority

USGBC provides for proportional voting, so every full-time employee of a USGBC member organization is eligible to vote. By casting your vote today, you will ensure that the USGBC Board continues to represent our organization’s diverse, strategic interests.

Cast your vote today! The election will be open through Nov. 1, 2011.

Thank you for making a difference, and making USGBC the best it can be!

Celebrating Excellence in the Green Building Movement: USGBC's Leadership Awards

Ashley Katz
Manager, Communciations
U.S. Green Building Council

USGBC’s Leadership Awards have become synonymous with the organizations and individuals who signify vision, leadership and commitment to the evolution of green building design and construction. This year’s batch of winners is no different – recognizing leaders in the private, public and non-governmental organization (NGO) spheres. In fact, Rick Fedrizzi said it best:

“As the most influential green building leaders in the world, their achievements are bedrock to our mission of transforming the built environment.”

Celebrating this crop of industry trailblazers at Greenbuild has become an annual USGBC tradition. Join us at the Greenbuild Leadership Awards Luncheon on Oct. 6 as we rally around the successes of the green building movement by honoring these leaders.

The 2011 Leadership Awards recipients are:

Organizational Leadership in the Private Sector: Wells Fargo Bank
As longtime users of LEED, Wells Fargo is a participant in the newly launched LEED Volume Program for Operations and Maintenance, committing to pursuing high-performance for banking and office locations across its portfolio.

Individual Leadership in the Private Sector: Anthony E. Malkin, Malkin Holdings
Through his real estate business, Malkin has been a leader in existing building energy efficiency retrofits, including the $550 million makeover given to the “world’s most famous office building – the Empire State Building. The 80 year old building just announced that it earned LEED Gold, making it green building icon.

Organizational Leadership in the Public Sector: Council on Environmental Quality, the White House
CEQ’s organizational leadership, spearheaded by its Chair, Nancy Sutley, has moved President Obama’s green jobs agenda forward, by pushing for strong investments in high performing green buildings and schools that will help create jobs, build resilience, advance sustainability and stimulate long-term growth. Read Rick Fedrizzi’s take on Obama’s American Jobs Act.

Individual Leadership in the Public Sector: The Honorable Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City
Bloomberg catapulted the “Big Apple” into a beacon for the green building movement, making it safer, stronger and greener. As chair of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Bloomberg made it possible for the largest cities around the world to adopt and implement similar, innovative sustainability policies.

Bloomberg will take to the stage at the Closing Plenary at Greenbuild on Oct. 7, where he’ll also be honored for his leadership.

Organizational Leadership in a Non-Governmental Organization: Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas (DCMCCT)
Take a virtual tour of the first LEED Platinum hospital in the world, and learn how the Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas (DCHCT) is making a difference every day in the lives of the children its serves.

Individual Leadership in a Non-Governmental Organization: Kelly Caffarelli, The Home Depot Foundation
Kelly Caffarelli’s leadership enabled USGBC to fully engage the affordable housing community in the development of LEED for Homes. Her leadership has paid off, as nearly 50% of LEED-certified housing units are affordable.

International Leadership Award: Deutsche Bank AG
With a company-wide goal of carbon neutrality by 2013, Deutsche Bank has worked to reduce its corporate footprint while providing the tools and resources to help others do the same, through investing in alternative energies and low-carbon technologies. This past year, the company earned LEED Platinum for its own headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, which is designed to reduce water consumption and CO2 emissions by 74% and 89% respectively.

President’s Award: Greg Kats, Capital E, Good Energies; and Lynn N. Simon, FAIA, LEED AP Simon & Associates, Inc.
Jayni Chase, Chair of Green Community Schools, a program of the MGR Foundation, was honored as the first recipient of the Center for Green Schools Excellence award for her work as a pioneer in transforming schools into sustainable places to learn, work and play. Jayni is one of the original leaders of the green schools movement, and serves as a valued member of the Center for Green Schools’ Advisory Board. She has been a true champion in making green schools a reality for the millions of Americans who go to school every day.

Congratulations to this year’s winners!

Ray Anderson: Great leader of our time passes

Rick Fedrizzi
President, CEO & Founding Chairman
U.S. Green Building Council

If there was a Dictionary of Green Building, Ray Anderson is whose picture you’d probably see alongside the word “leader.” And I’m saddened to hear that he passed away yesterday, losing a heroic 20 month battle with cancer.

Ray was a legend of corporate sustainability, a man whose personal story – a story of an epiphany that changed a life and an entire industry – could be a metaphor for the entire green building movement. When he started Interface Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1973, his entrepreneurial genius was immediately clear. Before long, Interface was a billion-dollar-a-year business and one of the largest interior furnishings companies in the world.

But Interface is in the business of carpeting, and carpet traditionally uses a lot of petroleum, a lot of water, and creates a lot of waste.

Ray’s epiphany moment, the moment of truth that he has called a “spear to the chest,” was the same one that several of us experienced — reading Paul Hawken’s Ecology of Commerce and getting permission to be both a capitalist and an environmentalist. It launched the transformation of Interface, and of the entire carpet industry, and set the foundation for USGBC.

Under his leadership, Interface was set on a goal of zero environmental impact companywide, a target of eliminating petroleum entirely from its manufacturing process, and a commitment to sustainability as Ray defined it: taking nothing from the earth that is not naturally and rapidly renewable.

But perhaps what made Ray’s leadership so important and so effective was the way he has completely negated the argument that environmental sustainability can only be had at the expense of economic prosperity. Interface’s remarkable success – and the positive business impact that has come as a result of its reputation as a sustainability pioneer – stands as a strong example that without a strong triple bottom line, you’re never truly successful.

Ray was a personal hero of mine, a man who truly changed the world.

I’m grateful that last year, USGBC was able to present him with a USGBC leadership award at Greenbuild. It was a small tribute to a great man, but it meant more to me than anything I’ve done in a long time.

I invite you to share with us your personal and favorite Ray story. He touched us all in one way or another.

Impact Our Movement: Self-Nomination Period Open for USGBC Board of Directors

Gail Vittori, LEED AP BD+C
Co-Director
Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems

GBCI Board Member

Each year the USGBC member community has a special opportunity to influence USGBC's future leadership, governance and strategic direction by electing its national Board members. The Nominations and Election Process for the 2012 Board of Directors - culminating in electing five national Board members to serve three-year terms beginning Jan. 1, 2012 - is officially underway. On behalf of the Nominating Working Group, I encourage you to participate in some important ways.

First, nominations: The call for nominations for the five open perspective seats runs from July 20 to August 18, 2011:

• Designer of Buildings
• Urban/Regional Planner
• Environmental Non-Profit Advocate
• Large Scale Manufacturer
• Public Health/Healthcare

Each perspective, recommended by the Nominating Working Group and approved by USGBC's Board of Directors, enables USGBC to broaden, deepen and diversify its strategic position and influence. Please take some time and review the general and perspective specific criteria. And help us get the word out to your network of friends and colleagues to encourage them to self-nominate - or self-nominate yourself if you're interested and qualified.

When the nominations period closes, the Nominating Working Group will review the nominations to verify compliance with the criteria, and select two to four of the most qualified nominees for each perspective. The election for the USGBC 2012 Board will begin on October 3, and run for at least 30 days - longer, if needed, to achieve quorum equal to ten percent of USGBC membership.


Second: Get out the vote! As with the nominations process, the election will be invigorated by a solid turnout. USGBC provides for proportional voting-every full-time employee of a USGBC member organization is eligible to vote. Opportunities to meet the candidates will be provided at Greenbuild; and remember to look at the USGBC and candidates' websites, and to chapters' and other member organizations' endorsements as the election gets underway.

USGBC's Board of Directors is an important leadership tier. Please ensure that the Board continues to represent USGBC's diverse, strategic interests by participating in the nominations and election process for the 2012 USGBC Board of Directors.