This past Friday, the 5th annual Cascadia Green Building Council's Living Future unConference wrapped up in Vancouver. The amazing three day event, attended by delegates from multiple countries worldwide, featured keynote plenaries by Eco-Entrepreneur Majora Carter who discussed some truly inspiring community-based urban environmental recovery projects she has been involved in (in the Bronx);; Cascadia CEO Jason McLennan & Systems Organizational Consultant Margaret J. Wheatley who spoke about her new book "Walk Out, Walk On: A Learning Journey Into Communities Daring to Live the Future Now". Thursday night's Big Bang Dinner featured an awesome music set by folk singer Sarah Harmer and a brilliant presentation by the Jasper Sustainability Club on educational reform. In addition, the winners of the Living City Design Competition were announced. A major theme of the conference was moving beyond thinking about designing green buildings and communities, to enlarging the vision to take in a broader range of initiatives. Thus Cascadia has decided to change the name of their recently launched Living Building Institute to the International Living Future Institute. CEO Jason McLennan said in a press release, "As our pioneering project teams have discovered, 'green buildings' don't exist in a vacuum, they are part of a web of influences moving from the materials we build with, to the structures we create and maintain, and on to the communities we inhabit." David Korten from the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) was on hand in and around the conference and spoke to the need to connect two movements as well. Expect some "big stuff" from Living Future coming soon to a community near you!
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