With the increasingly popular trend of green building construction in 21st century, Green Architect Action Group (GAAG), a national environmental organization specialized on strengthening the connection of green building stakeholders within the professional field, was founded by Lafayette College students in 2018. As a niche organization with ambition to extends its impact to national scale, GAAG sets a greater goal of influencing green building construction regulation from federal, state to local level by acting as a connecting point among multiple players in this policy realm. It utilizes limited capital and constantly adapts to changes to fulfill the mission of pursuing a higher priority of green buildings construction on environmental issues agenda.
As Smith said, “Social movements are a way in which civil society can change state policy, the private sector and cultural norms. These movements consist of citizens sometimes in connection with political leaders and NGOs, rallying around a shared goal (Smith, 2014).” The contemporary green building movement firstly emerged in late 1970s due to the need for more energy efficient and environmentally friendly building practices (Wines, 2008). Since then, a lot of organizations have been working on establishing voluntary green building codes and advocating governmental regulation on building energy efficiency standards. As buildings became one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emission in United States and took up 39% of the total energy use (Park, 2016), the need to improve the quantity and quality of green buildings in the nation gets more urgent. Against this social background and increased demand, GAAG was founded with a unique approach to influence federal regulations on GHG emission of existing and prospective buildings in the US through construction professionals education and persuasion.
In the “post-environmentalism” age, seeking structural opportunity, or niche, became the premise of many environmental organizations’ foundation including GAAG (Bosso, 2005). The global movement toward greenhouse gas emission requires a reformation in building sector. However, green building promotion needs the collective efforts of multiple key players who are currently less incentivized and segregated from each other. Governmental policy could mandate green standards for new construction and renovation. But so far there is no nationwide regulation. Without green processes and standards are legislated, most green building practices depend on individual property owners’ choices (Craven, 2017). These green practices could also be confined by the architects’ experience and expertise in applying integrated design approach and nontraditional technology (DOE, 2001). As a result, the success to improving green building construction scale in the nation needs an increased awareness of the issue and effective communication on action plan among all these players. This gives GAAG an opportunity to bridge the information gap between these players through a series of activities, such as forums and discussion panel, to facilitate their collective effort and carry out more green building projects.
The origin as a niche organization sets the scope and trajectory of GAAG’s activities and development (Classnote, 2018). Its main targeted audience are current and future professionals in construction industry. Therefore, three different web pages are designed to appeal to architects, architecture students and property owners respectively. Because of the nature of target audience, GAAG communicates in more professional manner by providing insightful opinions and reliable information. One aspect of GAAG’s activities is to provide a platform, such as Project Gallery, for green design construction experience sharing and networking . Beyond that, GAAG intends to alter some stereotypes on green buildings (i.e.expensive and inefficient) by presenting successful and long-term economic precedents of green building projects. Furthermore, to serve the greater mission, we also initiated an open panel discussion of effective green building code in the nation to inform the legislators on public opinion on green building national regulation.
What distinguishes GAAG most from the current green building organization landscape is its indirect and non-confrontational method. Although proposing national mandate of green architecture, GAAG as a 501(c)(3) doesn’t lobby heavily to achieve its goal. In comparison to Architects Adcocate, GAAG is more of an accommodationist on Bosso’s ideological topology (Bosso, 2005). GAAG adopts a more persuasive and educational approach to transform the current green building practices. By serving professionals’ needs rather than forcing changes of policy, GAAG could attract larger membership (bonding capital) and donation(financail capital) at its early foundation stage. Through educating the design and construction professionals of practical solutions of green buildings, GAAG could fundamentally eliminate some technical barriers in green building construction.
Another unique feature of GAAG is its focus on people and connection. As an organization with limited financial capitals, GAAG place a high priority on human capital. While USGBC, the largest non-profit green building organization mainly serves certification for green projects, we support individuals’ growth ranging from current building professionals to future generation professionals, providing them a platform to support and cooperate with each other. By spreading information and updating news on green architecture topic, GAAG hopes to improve the environmental literacy of construction industry and create more bridging capital. Meanwhile, GAAG increases its linking capital by gathering and displaying latest achievements of other green building organizations, i.e. posts featuring a LEED certified project or a book written by green building leaders. Throughout this process, GAAG could also better position itself at the organization networking, discover and adapt to new changes.
The third distinctive feature of GAAG is its alignment with environmental justice. The educational programs at GAAG would hold construction professionals and property owners more accountable to reducing bulidings’ negative impact. The geographically and ethnically diversified programs grants more equity in process. Through our Abroad Programs, architecture students could participate in weeks long program to research on alternative green building methods and material with experimented board members in a developing country. They would have chance to hear about the barriers for green architecture in regions of different economic level, which helps their understanding of diversity and inclusiveness in green building construction. The ethnically diverse group represented by our staff members also dedicates to improving our inclusiveness as a national organization.
Using a non-confrontational and educational approach where equity is accounted, GAAG features “Education, Connection, Building, Science, Energy” as core value. While the physical structure, limited capital and niche origin confined its activities scope to construction professionals only, GAAG plays its unique role on environmental organization landscape and could be categorized as an experiment of making greater environmental policy changes through inter generational environmental education targeted at key players.
References
Bosso, C. (2005). Environmental Inc, From Grassroots to Beltway. Kansas.
Craven, J. (2017, December 4). A Primer on Green Architecture and Green Design. ThougtCo. Retrieved from www.thoughco.com/what-is-green-architecture-and-green-design-177955
Department of Energy (2001, July). Low-Energy Building Design Guidelines, Energy-efficient design for new Federal facilities. Federal Energy Management Program. Retrieved from: http://www.solaripedia.com/files/755.pdf
Smith, Z. (2014). Changing Cultural and Social Beliefs. In The Environemental Policy Paradox (7th ed., p. 32).
Wines, J. (2018). Green Architecture: Building for the 21st Century. Britannica Book of the Year. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Green-Architecture-Building-for-the-21st-Century-1382132