Dovetail Partners Addresses Green Building at National Conference

More than 250 architects and builders attend session at Greenbuild

Minneapolis, Minn. (12/4/07) – Green building is a growing trend in the United States. Concerns over energy prices, real estate values, and corporate responsibility have moved green building into the mainstream. In 2007, the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) membership has increased by 60% to over 10,000 members. Over 8,000 projects have participated in the LEED-Homes pilot program, over 1,100 commercial projects have achieved LEED-certification, and more than 60,000 people have taken educational seminars through the USGBC.

“The growing interest in green building creates exciting opportunities as well as some challenging questions,” says Alison Lindburg, Director of Dovetail's Eco-Affordable Housing Program and a presenter at Greenbuild.

The Greenbuild conference, an international green building gathering, brought more than 22,000 people to Chicago to learn about all things related to green building. The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) organizes the annual Greenbuild conference. Dovetail Partners participated in a panel presentation at the event.

The presentation by Dovetail addressed strategies for sourcing local certified wood resources.   Several green building programs encourage the use of certified wood products as a preferred green building product. The sourcing of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified wood products, particularly from a project's local area, has been one of the most difficult challenges facing green building project teams.

“Wood has a number of green attributes including the fact that it is renewable, it stores carbon, and requires little fossil fuel energy to produce,” says Lindburg.   “When that wood is also certified, the homeowner has an extra level of assurance that responsible forestry standards are being met.”

More than 250 conference participants attended the panel presentation.   In addition to the presentation by Alison Lindburg of Dovetail Partners, the session included Warren Gaskill of Rapid Improvement Associates as the moderator for the panel, Ian Hanna of Northwest Natural Resource Group, and Ryan Temple of Sustainable Northwest.

###

Dovetail Partners is a 501c3 nonprofit organization based in Minneapolis, MN. Dovetail fosters sustainability and responsible behaviors by collaborating to develop unique concepts, systems, models and programs.   For more information: http://www.dovetailinc.org