The Great Turning and Living Habitats

The built environment has a powerful, but commonly ignored psychological, social and environmental impact on how humans relate to one another and nature. The Great Turning Initiative is developing a partnership with several key players in the increasingly influential Green Building movement to take the movement to the next level through a focus on living buildings and living communities.

We are connected to this work through two leaders in the Green Building movement: Jason McLennan, leader of the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, whose mission is to "promote the design, construction and operation of buildings in Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live, work and learn," and Sandy Wiggins, Past President of the US Green Building Council.

In "Believe! - Green Building as a Model for Rapid Change," a presentation Sandy delivered to the Potomac Watershed Trash Summit in June 2007, he credits a "massive shift" toward green building, in part, to the thousands of people who are promoting it in local governments, schools, businesses and communities across the country. And, at the Living Future Conference in Vancouver in April 2008, Sandy talks about the birth of the idea, "Of Living Buildings."