Last month, I used my space here to encourage you to come to Greenbuild. Given our record attendance - 13,082 - it would appear some of you took me up on that!
But, even since the time that column appeared, a number of things that had been separate threads of initiatives, programs, and solutions came together in an unexpectedly powerful way.
For some time, USGBC has been working to find more (and stronger) ways to have an impact in the critical area of climate change. As we all know, green buildings offer an immediate and measurable solution to reducing C02 emissions, but we need to push further and faster. When it comes to climate change, time is not on our side.
With the singular opportunity of Greenbuild as a deadline, some of our thoughts and ideas began to solidify so that we could make some critically important announcements, challenges, and commitments to the 5,000-plus folks assembled at the opening plenary. Since that time, our eight-point program has gotten wide distribution. But, I thought you might appreciate the context in which the issues were raised and hearing a bit about some of the other exciting programs and alliances that will help us move more aggressively toward our goal of greening the built environment.
Following are my Wednesday morning opening plenary remarks from Greenbuild. As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments.
Opening Plenary Remarks by Rick Fedrizzi
President, CEO, and Founding Chairman , U.S. Green Building Council
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Greenbuild!
We’re in for an extraordinary few days here, and I’m thrilled to see this hall filled with the people who have such a deep, fully engaged passion for our mission of transforming the built environment.
Who here could have conceived of the progress we would make since we left Atlanta last year? The metrics are astonishing ...
USGBC now has more than 7,200 member organizations representing millions and millions of employees.
92,000 people have actively engaged with us this year in workshops, Web sessions, Greenbuild attendance, and more. And, to date, we’ve accredited more than 33,000 LEED APs (that’s five to 10 every business day).
Today, we have more than 6,000 registered and certified buildings and have certified buildings in all 50 states and 16 countries around the world. Eighteen of those states and 59 cities (along with some of the biggest and most prestigious names in our industry) have made serious commitments to LEED - HOK, Gensler, Turner, Durst, Hines, and Silverstein, to name a few - even the General Services Administration, the country’s largest landlord, along with 10 other federal agencies, endorses LEED as its tool of choice.
No big surprise. Thanks to the amazing dedication of our technical committees, our steering committees, our staff, every one of you who offers us feedback, our LEED rating system has evolved into a sleeker, more streamlined tool. That tool provides a rigorous roadmap to building green. And, thanks to our good friends at Adobe, we’ve moved from stacks and stacks of paper-based binders to being totally online and offering a more efficient user experience.
We’ve broadened our scope beyond new construction to include building operations and maintenance, commercial interiors, and core and shell. We’re working hard to make sure our LEED for Homes pilot will enjoy the same confidence at a national level throughout the residential community. And, our Neighborhood Development program is moving rapidly to pilot.
Our cornerstone of success is due to the breadth and depth of the community we engage.
Sixty-eight chapters, affiliates, and organizing groups are the front door of USGBC across the United States. Here’s where the work is delivered - in schools and communities, on university campuses, in central cities, in hospitals, in city halls, and in shopping malls. Here’s where the network is forged that allows a single voice for green building to be shaped and used to move the transformation forward.
From our rapidly growing emerging green builders network to our CEO Roundtables, federal summits, NGO briefings, and member circles, we link common interests in ways that can advance the larger common good.
Working together is always a noble goal, but when you respect each other’s values and when you’ve earned the trust of your peers, open collaboration becomes one of the most powerful tools known to man. One good example is our work to create a new baseline green standard for buildings. USGBC, ASHRAE, IESNA, and AIA have joined together to develop a new minimum standard for high-performance green building - Standard 189. To be finalized in 2007, the standard is being written so that it can easily be incorporated into building code, raising the bar in building construction by setting a higher entry point.
Another example of the high level of partnerships we’re pursuing is one with the American Society of Interior Design (ASID). Together we’re undertaking the development of sustainable practice guidelines and educational resources for existing homeowners, residential design professionals, suppliers, and contractors. This joint effort is intended to raise awareness and accelerate the adoption of home renovation and remodeling practices that minimize impacts on the environment and human health.
Another very important collaboration this year is with the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA). Through this agreement with BOMA, we will work cooperatively to promote energy efficiency and environmentally responsible building operations and maintenance practices. This collaboration will extend throughout the BOMA community of building owners, operators, and property managers who collectively represent 9 billion square feet of commercial real estate.
Among the shared educational sessions, we will work to deliver at BOMA’s New York conference and at Greenbuild next year in Los Angeles - programs that will focus on the financial value of green buildings, tools for greening the existing building market, and a look at how some owners and operators are starting to use LEED as a tool for greening their entire portfolios.
This partnership represents the culmination of a lot of work on the part of BOMA and USGBC members and staff, and we are extremely pleased to be working together to transform the existing buildings market.
Are you seeing the pattern here? Virtually all of our important work rests on a foundation of interlocking partnerships as unshakable as the buildings we build.
Our goal draws together and inspires the best efforts among us all. It’s what allows us to join together to wrestle to the ground some of the larger critical problems of our time. Two of these are front and center on USGBC’s agenda and they are interconnected in a very important way. These are the health of our cities and the impact of climate change.
The development and implementation of big programs that help America’s cities embrace - and enact - sustainable building strategies is one of USGBC’s strategic imperatives. But, those programs must help cities deliver the benefits of green buildings for all their citizens. Two places where USGBC is having a major impact are our work on greening schools and our work in the area of affordable housing.
Let’s look first at schools. In America, more than 55 million students and more than 5 million faculty, staff, and administrators go to school every day. That’s over 20 percent of America’s population that spends about 6 hours a day in a school building.
Now you know how it works. Schools are built with tax dollars. In fact, in 2007, over $35 billion of those tax dollars will be spent on K-12 construction. Typically, they are built to meet code and nothing more. They have poor ventilation, inadequate lighting, horrific acoustics, and antiquated heating systems.
We send our kids off to prisons every morning and expect them to come home with As and Bs.
When you’re a school superintendent or a school board member, maintaining your facilities takes a back-of-the-bus seat to doing something about improving education standards and test scores.
But, what if you could do both?
What if I told you we could show you how to save $100,000 a year on the average school? That we could help you save one-third of the dollars you spend on energy costs for that school this year, and a third of the water costs?
For every school, you could hire two more teachers with that money. Or buy 150 new computers or 5,000 new text books.
What if we told you that the total ROI on this school could be 20 to 1?
What if I told you that all you had to do was build your school green and you could cut costs, improve test scores, and enhance student health? After you got over your skepticism, you’d probably say: Prove it.
We have. I’m extremely pleased to announce that, today, we are releasing a comprehensive report that demonstrates a direct and scientific correlation between building design, materials, HVAC, operations, maintenance and cleaning practices, and the health and development of students and staff.
Sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers, the American Institute of Architects, the American Lung Association, the Federation of American Scientists, and the U.S. Green Building Council, the report shows that the total financial benefits of green schools are 20-times greater than the initial cost, and include significant energy and water savings, and improved student health and test scores.
If all new school construction and school renovations went green starting today, energy savings alone would total $20 billion over the next 10 years. It would create over 2,000 additional new jobs just from increased use of energy-efficient technologies. It would improve teacher retention and reduce dangerous air-pollutants that cause respiratory disease.
And, now, thanks to the hard work of Greg Kats of Capital E and all the organizations that sponsored this critical study (called Greening America’s Schools), we have the kind of overwhelming, rigorously produced information that will help us help parents, teachers, school superintendents, and school boards make the right decisions. When it comes to schools, the question is no longer “Why would we build green?” It’s “Why wouldn’t we build green?”
An awful lot of people agree with us ... the American Federation of Teachers, the Federation of American Scientists, and the CDC, just to name a few ...
“The choices we make in new construction have huge implications for the health of students, faculty, and staff. This important study persuasively demonstrates that it costs little more to build high-performance, healthy schools and that there are enormous financial, educational, and social benefits to students, schools, and society at large.”
- Edward J. McElroy, President, American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
“This carefully documented study conclusively demonstrates the financial, environmental, and other benefits of using green technologies in schools. In fact, failure to invest in green technologies is not financially responsible for school systems.”
- Henry Kelly, President, Federation of American Scientists
“For the more than 50 million students and the more than 5 million teachers and staff who spend their days in schools, these [health] benefits are substantial and precious. Health professionals, educators, parents, and policymakers should carefully consider the conclusions of this report and do their part to support environmentally friendly, healthy, and sustainable schools.”
- Howard Frumkin, Director, National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
I want to publicly thank Capital E and all the organizations who have worked so hard on this study. It’s given us a tremendous amount of momentum on this important topic, and I’m pleased to announce that we’re sending our LEED for Schools program to a member ballot in January; we expect it will be transforming schools across the country by the first quarter of next year.
Building more green schools is an area where all of us have a great deal of passion. This is not a “nice to do.” This is a must do, if I’ve ever seen one.
For cities - for all of us - it’s not just schools where green buildings matter. It’s also in the area of affordable housing, a big issue for every city seeking to extend a better quality of life to all its citizens. The long-term cost savings associated with energy alone should get everyone’s attention, but think about the even more-critical benefit of better indoor air quality that leads to better health.
Today, it's my very great pleasure to introduce Bart Harvey, the president, CEO, and chairman of Enterprise Community Partners, who will outline a major new partnership between our two organizations that is designed to expand the benefits of green building for the developers, operators, and residents of affordable housing.
See related story: New Initiative Bolsters Green Affordable Housing Efforts: Enterprise Community Partners and U.S. Green Building Council
Announce Partnership
http://www.usgbc.org/News/PressReleaseDetails.aspx?ID=2748
Thanks to Enterprise Community Partners for its long-term commitment to changing the way Americans think about affordable homes, helping us all to better understand that citizens in every economic bracket should have access to the tremendous benefits of green building.
As we see from our work with schools and with affordable housing, USGBC is clearly dedicated to improving conditions for humanity and for nature. It's part of our mission. It's embedded in our guiding principles. It echoes across our core values.
And, among our core values are consensus and transparency across the organization. As much as LEED validates green building practices, it is equally important to validate our processes - to ensure that they incorporate consensus and transparency. So, last year, we began the process of becoming an accredited standards developer under the auspices of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
I'm pleased to report that we have been advised that USGBC has been officially designated an ANSI-accredited standards developer. This important step will ensure continued responsible development of all USGBC programs and initiatives and help us more rapidly advance the green building agenda.
We build green buildings because they matter. But, nowhere do they matter more than in this epic battle we've just begun with ourselves relative to our output of CO2 emissions that are responsible for global climate change. We know that the greatest sources of those emissions are the very things that have helped us prosper - the cars that we drive and the electricity that we generate to run the buildings we need. They are also the primary cause of the climate changes that have begun to significantly affect our quality of life.
By now we know these changes by heart. Melting ice caps causing rising sea levels. Monumental storms that take or change forever the lives of people we know and care about. Changing temperature patterns are changing our economic and social fabric at an alarming rate.
Today is not a day for apathy, passivity, denial, or feigned ignorance ... their costs are too high.
We are fortunate ... each and every one of us in this room. We have the resources and the know-how required to achieve immediate and measurable results in our efforts to reverse global warming.
What we do is build green buildings; in doing so today, right now, we're reducing carbon emissions by about 40-percent more than those who continue to build conventional buildings.
But, even that's not enough. We need to build more of them. And, we need to renovate the ones we have already built because they are energy hogs of the first order. And, time, unfortunately, is not on our side here.
So, to affect greater change in shorter time we approached another partner, a long-time industry leader that has made its mark by helping companies visualize the buildings they intend to build with graphic-based technologies that have helped move design and architecture to the forefront of innovation.
That company is Autodesk. Its vision is that if sustainable design is to hit the mainstream, we must embed its principles into the operating system of the industry and then deliver tools and knowledge to every desktop of every person involved in a project. Not only can this give designers real choice, it gives them power. If they have modeling tools that help them visualize and evaluate a building's carbon footprint while it's still on the drawing board, imagine how that will change the buildings we build and the communities in which we live.
If the industry can move from traditional CAD tools (like AutoCAD) that show you what a building looks like, to model-based tools (like Revit), that show you what building performs like, remarkable things can happen.
Here to tell you about this exciting new technology partnership between USGBC and Autodesk is Vice President - Industry Strategy and Relations for the Autodesk Building Solutions Division, Phil Bernstein.
See related story:Autodesk and U.S. Green Building Council Partner on Technology Initiatives to Move Building Industry Toward Greener Future: Companies to Collaborate on Initiatives to Transform Practice of Sustainable Design and Reduce Causes of Climate Change Through Expanded Use of Building Information Modeling
http://www.usgbc.org/News/PressReleaseDetails.aspx?ID=2749
This kind of tool will have a tremendous impact on this industry's ability to effect immediate change at speeds that were probably inconceivable even a year ago.
Our commitment is to use what we know and build on it together, then share what we learn with the entire industry so we're all moving forward.
Even as we sit here today and celebrate how far we've come, we all know that, as leaders, we can never be satisfied. We have to keep pushing. And, as an organization dedicated to leadership, we are today raising the bar for the building industry by launching a series of new initiatives that acknowledge our unique role in slowing climate change and eventually reversing the direct causes of climate change.
Recognizing the need for urgent action USGBC earlier this summer signed the Wingspread Principles on the U.S. Response to Global Climate Change. These principles are an outgrowth of the National Leadership Summit on Energy and Climate Change and part of an initiative to review and update the 140 recommendations submitted to the nation in 1999 by the President's Council on Sustainable Development.
The Wingspread Principles were developed to review these sustainable development goals and to create a roadmap for moving beyond words to action. The principles respond to two questions:
- What is our nation's responsibility as the largest producer of the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause global warming?
- Can the many individuals and groups concerned about climate change be better heard if we begin to speak with one voice?
The result is intended to guide the nation in taking comprehensive, immediate action to address the threat of climate change.
In August, USGBC's Board of Directors unanimously endorsed the Wingspread Principles as part of a broader resolution on our organization's commitment to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. This resolution recognizes two facts: 1) that buildings and transportation sectors are the two largest sources of greenhouse-gas emissions, and 2) that USGBC, through the LEED rating system, is both capable of and responsible for making substantial improvements in both.
To that end, USGBC's board and the LEED Steering Committee have this week put forth a proposal that, beginning in 2007, all new commercial LEED projects will be required to reduce CO2 emissions by 50 percent when compared to current emission levels.Because LEED drives performance through the synergistic integration of whole building systems, these results will be achieved by looking at all four of the categories that can lessen a building's carbon footprint: energy, water, transportation, and materials. This important proposal will go to our membership for ballot in December, and it will become A “LEED law"? effective the date of member approval.
We will begin to develop a similar recommendation for residential and neighborhood markets.
Because of the universal impacts of climate change, and to ensure a sustainable future for our children, USGBC is underscoring this challenge with a commitment to the following:
By 2010, there will be 100,000 certified commercial buildings and 1 million certified homes.
By 2020, there will be 1 million certified commercial buildings and 10 million certified homes.
This is the future we intend to deliver, and that future has global implications because climate change is a global issue.
Additionally, the LEED Steering Committee and the Board of Directors will also put forth to the USGBC membership a tremendously important recommendation that specifically targets LEED's energy-reduction prerequisites. Our recommendation is to require all commercial LEED projects registered after the date of member approval of this change achieve at least two energy and optimization credits. This calls out specific action to improve energy performance in buildings, evolving our rating system in an important way to align with our deep commitment to climate.
Further, we will work to develop robust and meaningful metrics to track and accurately quantify the CO2 emissions and reductions from LEED certified projects. To help educate our owner-developer customer base and encourage design excellence, USGBC is developing an innovative carbon offset program that relies on the verified performance data from LEED projects that deliver solid proof of LEED's significant contributions to the reduction of C02 in the atmosphere.
This program will capture actual energy performance data along with the associated C02 emissions for those LEED-certified buildings that have achieved energy-efficiency points beyond the LEED prerequisites. This offset opportunity will help drive owners to make more aggressive and creative decisions around the design and engineering of buildings that will reduce their C02 emissions. And, as the cost of offsets increase, so will the value of these buildings.
The energy optimization credit in LEED for Existing Buildings already addresses actual energy use, and our continuous process improvement practices allow us to make significant strides in our mission. So, we're offering another incentive for 2007 that you can add to a growing arsenal of energy- and carbon-reduction focused solutions: LEED for New Construction and Core and Shell buildings that reach certification will automatically (at no cost whatsoever) be registered for LEED for Existing Buildings. This includes all projects, including those currently in the certification process and those that have already been warded their certifications.
This change will drive a continued focus on building operations and maintenance, and the sustained performance that it drives.
Making these kinds of continuous improvements to LEED is part of our normal vigilance in making sure we continually strive for excellence by delivering buildings that perform at the highest level. These proposals help frame LEED's contributions in the context of our increasing focus on the delivery of buildings that have the greatest impact on climate change.
In fact, the time and effort we've put into evolving LEED to the next level encompasses a great deal of discussion not just about climate change practices, but also about how we incorporate into LEED many recent advances in science and technology, in bio-regional weightings, in any and all ways that LEED can continue to set the leadership standard for green buildings.
And, nothing pushes the envelope further than LEED Platinum buildings. We want to make the incentives for LEED Platinum hard to resist. LEED Platinum buildings are worthy of striving for because they contribute so profoundly to C02 emission reductions. So, beginning in 2007, we will fully rebate certification fees for any building that earns LEED Platinum status.
Let me say that differently. If your building achieves the Platinum level, the certification is free. You heard this right - absolutely free. We believe so strongly that quantum leaps must be made to address climate change that we are willing to shake things up a bit and we dare you to put us out of business.
We hope this will encourage owners and developers to reach ever higher, thereby making greater contributions to carbon reduction.
Here in the Mile High City, we've attained some new heights as well. You can feel good about your trip to Greenbuild, where weÃÆ’¢ââ€Ã...¡Ã‚¬™re in the fifth year of putting on a carbon-neutral conference, no small feat when you consider our attendance is at a record high of 13,000 people.To date, we've offset over 38,000 tons of CO2 to cover emissions from the conference and attendee travel over the past 5 years. Thanks to our offset sponsors Milliken and DuPont, we have already offset more than 200 percent of the carbon for Greenbuild Denver alone. We urge you to visit one of the kiosks in the Convention Center here to donate your offsets, as we begin to look forward to hosting more than 20,000 people in Los Angeles next year.
Additionally, as an organization, USGBC will do its part. We're committing this morning that by the end of 2007, USGBC as an organization will be 100-percent carbon neutral. As the first step in carbon reduction is actually using less energy - not just purchasing offsets - the most important thing we could do in reducing our carbon footprint is to move. So, next week, USGBC will relocate our 80-plus city-dwelling, mass-transit riding, passionate, committed team of professionals into a soon-to-be-certified LEED Platinum commercial interiors space that's fit-out within a LEED Gold building in the heart of Washington, D.C. We are expecting a lot of visitors.
To gain even further traction on C02 reductions, we are piloting our USGBC Portfolio Program, introduced last year, with organizations all over the nation, an effort that will begin an amazing transformation of the built environment and spike our immediate and measurable impacts. The long-term goal of this program is to recognize companies for high environmental performance across their portfolios. And, the first step of this effort is to help companies achieve LEED certification quickly on a large number of buildings. A great example is PNC bank, who, by working closely with USGBC to pilot this process, has just this week certified 18 bank branches, for a total of 28 with many more to come.
The Portfolio Program is a significant way to compress the period of time needed for certification, meaning we'll have more LEED buildings out there performing at top levels and reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. To launch the pilot, USGBC has been working with these market leaders to implement LEED on this scale.
In addition to PNC, other signatories into the program at this time include HSBC North America, Bank of America, Syracuse University, Cushman & Wakefield, Thomas Properties Group, and USAA Real Estate Co. Leading this group are representatives from the university and government sector who have made specific building commitments, including American University, California Department of General Services, University of California Santa Barbara, University of California Merced, Emory University, and University of Florida.
These companies and institutions collectively have 50,000 buildings and more than half-billion square feet of real estate, an amazing opportunity to significantly reduce C02 emissions.
This is an aggressive list. It reflects how seriously we take our leadership responsibility in delivering buildings that will have profound and significant impact on our planet.
Yesterday at our Members Conference, the Cascadia Region Green Building Council issued a very important challenge called the Living Building Challenge; its goal is to bring us to a place of true sustainability in the built environment.
Today, USGBC is answering that challenge by announcing the Living Building Design Competition. The first design award winners will be announced at Greenbuild 2007 in Los Angeles.
This is just one more program USGBC is implementing to help drive change in the built environment and an excellent example of the importance of our equal partnership with our chapters.
Separately, each of these initiatives is important. But, the power of their combined impact will demonstrate without qualification that LEED projects are an immediate and measurable solution to carbon reduction. And, USGBC is continuing to do its part to make sure LEED as a tool can help the industry achieve even more reductions.
I want to thank and acknowledge the hard work from the TAGs, the LEED Steering Committee, the chapters and our board, the LEED APs and the LEED faculty, mayors, governors, homebuilders - everyone who supports us with their courage and commitment to change.
But, let me be clear. Even in the face of all these positive changes, nothing will get us to our goals faster than building more green buildings. And, ladies and gentlemen, we've much more to do.
Someone once said that the difference between catastrophe and hope is education.
To that end, today, I'm pleased to announce that USGBC will be launching an important new educational program designed specifically to help industry professionals gain the knowledge they need to apply design and construction practices that have immediate and measurable impact on CO2 emissions. To be launched in the first half of 2007, this professional curriculum will dramatically enhance the expertise of every building professional around practices that can help us deliver on our efforts to slow climate change across the globe. Regardless of the level of LEED knowledge, regardless of your role in the industry, we offer an opportunity to learn, then to contribute to this critical agenda.
That's the commitment we're making. Now we want one from you.
Today, USGBC challenges every architect, every contractor, every builder, every interior designer, every facilities manager, every student on a college campus, every CEO and CFO in Corporate America, every tenant broker, every building owner, every governor, every mayor, every city council member and every county commissioner, every consultant, every real estate director, everyone - everyone - to commit to learning about how they can do more to limit C02 emissions from the buildings they build.
Look around you. For every architect in this audience today who has been involved in a green building, seven to 10 of your colleagues have not. For every building industry professional that has LEED AP status, 25 to 30 people do not. For every homebuilder that's built a green home, thousands have not. For every one of the nearly 7,000 buildings that have registered their intent to pursue LEED, many thousands more have not.
Today I challenge youto challenge them and hold them accountable, because design for the sake of design is no longer an option. Design for performance sake is our pathway to a better future.
And, that future has global implications. China will soon surpass the United States as the leading contributor of greenhouse gasses. India isn't far behind. Our challenge is to help these emerging economies step over our mistakes and make better decisions sooner.
One organization that's been instrumental in driving green building globally is the William J. Clinton Foundation. It is applying its unprecedented ability to bring together people and resources to address some of the planet's most worrisome problems - AIDS, religious conflict, poverty, and climate change.
In response to the need for action to address global climate change, the Clinton Foundation this year launched the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI). They asked USGBC to become a partner in this effort because buildings represent the greatest opportunity for immediate and measurable results. In association with the World Green Building Council (WGBC), USGBC is partnering with the Clinton Climate Initiative to share LEED with the world's 40 largest cities - laying the groundwork for positive change on a truly global scale.
We'll also be collaborating with the WGBC to help create new green building councils in each city where one does not already exist. We'll support these cities' efforts by sharing best practices, expertise, and the same member-driven, consensus-based structure that has been the foundation of the green building movement's success in the United States, India, and Canada, among other countries. Addressing buildings as a part of this broader context holds the future of the green building movement.
Ladies and gentlemen, from the Clinton Climate Initiative, please welcome its chairman, Ira Magaziner.
Do you know how lucky we all are to be here together, at this moment, in this time of unprecedented change?
With a foundation of partnerships like these, how can we notseize this moment, this moment that finds us atthe edge of the most significant, uncharted, critical societal shift in generations? The possibilities are exhilarating and endless. But, perhaps most importantly, we'll finally begin to act on the knowledge we've acquired that proves that better health and improved productivity and slowing climate change are absolute immediate outcomes of the green buildings we build.
At USGBC, resultswill always matter more than intentions. Our unique ability is to convene the best minds, build consensus for direction, and inspire a bias for action. Immediate and measurable is our mantra. We're an organization on a mission. And, that mission matters.
The impact of climate change, of explosive population migration to cities, of culture clash, and resource balance is felt across the globe.
But, we can do something about it. We can build and operate greener buildings, more green schools, greener homes, and greener communities. We can make our vision of a planet powered by renewable energy, populated with sustainable communities and driven by clean, green innovation, a reality.
And, as we think about this moment, this moment where our choices are narrowing and the clock is ticking ...
I leave you with two questions:
If not us ... who?
If not now ... when?
