ShareThisWho is your Champion?
Do you know a person or an organization that is reshaping the way people think about green building? We've just opened up speaker nominations for our Nov. 3 Green Day Forum, Portland's premier green building conference. This year's theme is quite different: "Meet the Champions: Achieving the Triple Bottom Line in Green Building."
The theme refers to individuals or organizations whose sustainable building efforts, business models, products, technologies, services or policies have enabled them to provide their communities with social and environmental benefits while generating revenue.
Green Day Forum keynote Nancy Murray is an example of a leader who has made a positive difference in the lives of thousands, lifting people up AND generating revenue for her organization. She founded Builders of Hope in 2006 with an "extreme green" rehabilitation model: to rescue homes from demolition, rehab them using green building principles and sell them at affordable costs to low- and middle-income individuals.
Murray's first project, Barrington Village in Raleigh, N.C., highlighted green rehabilitation and home recycling for lasting sustainable revitalization efforts in urban neighborhoods, and earned the organization coverage in the Wall Street Journal and on NPR. Her subsequent projects incorporated urban transit-oriented design with increased energy efficiency, high quality materials and a green jobs training program for the chronically unemployed. In 2010 her organization was awarded the National Housing Conference's Pioneering Housing Strategies Award. Builders of Hope is headquartered in North Carolina, with offices in Dallas and New Orleans. She is expanding Builders of Hope by implementing the federal HUD-DOT-EPA Interagency Partnership for Sustainable Communities. In an interesting development, she has applied for a patent on the business model that integrates building retrofitting, training and resale. Come to hear her speak in November!
Please take a moment to think about any success stories you've heard -- whether it's green building technologies, business models, services, policies or products -- and nominate a speaker or an additional keynote. The deadline is June 30. Visit the Green Day Forum website and nomination site. You can also make a suggestion on our Facebook page. And pass it on!
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