Green Roofs - Living Architecture Monitor - Winter 2016 - 6

FROM THE FOUNDER

A YEAR OF FIRSTS!

t has been a year of firsts for Green
Roofs for Healthy Cities and our charitable arm, the Green Infrastructure Foundation. I am quite proud of the team here
that has accomplished so much with such
great dedication, and of the many volunteer board members, general members and
Green Roof Professionals who dedicate
their time and resources to building the
green roof and wall industry. Here is an
overview of our collective firsts over the
course of 2016:
San Francisco became the first U.S.
jurisdiction to require green roofs and/
or solar panels on new buildings as part
of their Better Rooftops Ordinance. Since
CitiesAlive® 2013 in San Francisco, GRHC
has spurred and supported this effort
(pages 28-29).
Congratulations to the 2016 Awards of
Excellence Winners profiled in this Winter
Issue of the LAM for their inspiring and
innovate work in research, business, policy
and design (pages 11-24).
On the heels of CitiesAlive in New York
City last year, a new group of dedicated citizens co-founded Living Architecture New
York. The group is currently raising seed
funding to develop organizational capacity
to improve the use of living architecture
technology in New York City and the surrounding region and are currently seeking
charter members. Contact Melissa Daniels,
Melissa@myplantconnection.com for more
information.
We published the first North American
Green Wall Industry Survey, which sets a
benchmark for the size, quantity, type
and location of green wall installations
across North America. Check out a summary on page 33 or contact Blaine Stand,
bstand@greenroofs.org for a copy.
We 'stormed' the annual StormCon
Conference in Indianapolis with multiple
presentations on various aspects of green

READ THIS ISSUE ONLINE AT LIVINGARCHITECTUREMONITOR.COM

roof design, stormwater retention and
policy. Thanks to StormCon organizers for
working with us to bring the benefits of
green roofs to civil engineers.
An Association Partnership Agreement
was forged with the American Society of
Civil Engineers and GRHC attended the
Low Impact Development Conference
in Portland, Maine with a booth and presentations.
More people are reading the Living
Architecture Monitor™ magazine than ever!
Digital and print readership of the Living
Architecture Monitor magazine now reaches
over 40,000 readers per issue. Thanks for
your readership and advertising support.
Advertising rates are frozen for 2017
and back issues are available online at
www.livingarchitecturemonitor.com.
We held CitiesAlive: 14th Annual Green
Roof and Wall Conference in Washington,
DC. It was a huge success thanks to our
sponsors, exhibitors and local host committee. More than 35 hours of conference
recordings are now available for purchase
to earn CEUs at CitiesAlive.org.
GRHC introduced the Stormwater Technical Workshop at CitiesAlive.
More than 150 professionals attended
this workshop which was developed by
a team of corporate leaders as a product
neutral, science based course for those
wanting to understand the nuts and bolts
of green roofs and stormwater retention
and policy.
GRHC participated in the first South
American World Green Infrastructure Congress in Bogotá, Colombia where more than
350 attendees gathered from more than 20
countries to work to advance the use of living architecture. See worldgreenroof.org for
more information about the World Green
Infrastructure Network.
This year we welcomed new board
members to both Green Roofs for Healthy

Cities and the Green Infrastructure Foundation. Congratulations Elizabeth Hart,
Sustainability Program Development Manager, Tremco and new GRP Committee
Co-chair; Christian Mahlstedt, President,
Ginkgo Sustainability; Melissa Daniels,
Co-owner, Plant Connection and Green
Walls Committee Co-Chair, all of whom
have joined the GRHC board. David
Yocca, Principal, Conservation Design
Forum; Wendi Goldsmith, Co-Founder,
The Center for Urban Watershed Renewal; and Lois Vitt Sale, Chief Sustainability Officer, Wight and Company have
all recently joined the Green Infrastructure
Foundation board. An even stronger team
for 2017!
Every year the business case for living
architecture grows stronger, both from
a public and private perspective, as we
sharpen our analysis of the many social,
economic and health benefits these technologies provide building owners and communities. In the future, cities that do not
embrace policies and programs that result
in the massive deployment of living architecture will likely suffer. For they will increasingly become places where intelligent
and creative people, the human 'engines'
of our economy, will no longer choose to
live. So let's continue on our journey and
work together to ensure we future-proof
our buildings and communities and make
them as healthy, equitable and prosperous
as we can!
Sincerely yours,

Steven W. Peck,
Founder and President

LIVING ARCHITECTURE MONITOR / WINTER 2016 / 1

http://www.livingarchitecturemonitor.com http://www.CitiesAlive.org http://www.worldgreenroof.org http://www.LIVINGARCHITECTUREMONITOR.COM

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Green Roofs - Living Architecture Monitor - Winter 2016