Every November, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) throws their big "State of the Green Building Industry" gathering, the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo.  This week, the 25,000 or so attendees are converging on Boston, packing the local convention center to the gills for three days of speakers and panels, educational and LEED training courses, and a truly massive product and business expo.  

Let's start with the forgettable:  the Expo.  I'm sure that for the builders and architects and trade specialists (who, after all, this event is really catering to), there's plenty to be learned, scores of connections to be made, and lots of potential business to be found in the vast field of 800-plus exhibitors that coated the enormous exposition hall.  There are LEED consulting companies, builders, designers, trade groups and more building product manufacturers than you could ever digest.  The latter--which make of the lionshare--are a loose and not-particularly-well-vetted collection of building supply products, plenty of which seem to be of questionable "green" value.  A couple of exhibitors that I spoke with--one from a building firm, the other a countertop maker, neither of whom wished to be pinned to this statement--claimed that of the products shown at the Expo, about 25-percent seemed "legit," the other three-quarters representing some degree of greenwashing.  (Treehugger has an interesting post up on this.) 

It's hard to fault Greenbuild for this--and the 25-percent figure is pure conjecture--as the exhibitor fees are no insignificant chunk of the conference's income, and help the USGBC (a non-profit, it should be noted) push their vision and book some truly impressive speakers.  

On that note--this year, Greenbuild has aimed to reach outside of its trade-industry silo.  From the opening remarks, it was particular exciting to hear of the USGBC's newfound commitment (or, at least, newly annunciated commitment) to social equity.  Apparently the Council has recently added a formal plank to their governing platform and altered their mission statement to reflect the importance of an inclusive focus on social equity.  This was best reflected in Greenbuild's first day by the lineup of speakers and panel themes that prove once and for all that "green building" is in no way strictly a "white" discipline.

So after a performance by the African Children's Choir came the much-anticipated keynote address by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African civil rights and religious leader who helped bring about the end of apartheid in South Africa.  The Archbishop spoke of Obama's election, and the importance of remembering those less privileged--not only the world's most destitute, but those who are quietly suffering here in America, lower class, marginalized communities who couldn't care less about a LEED score, but for whom energy bills are a nightmare lived daily.  

I've seen Van Jones, who spoke in an early afternoon slot, a few times now, and every time he brings the house down.  Jones is the founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and, more recently, Green For All, a "national organization dedicated to building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty."  (You can watch Jones' talk here.)

Jones took some time to diagnose the current economic problem by defining three simple fallacies that we've build our economy on:  

1. We can have an economy that can run forever based on consumption, rather than production.
2. We can have an economy powered by debt but not savings and thrift.
3. We can run the economy based on environmental destruction, rather than environmental restoration.  

Then, thankfully, he prescribed some solutions:

1. Put a cost on pollution, specifically a price on carbon.  "We need to stop paying the polluters, and start making the polluters pay."   
2. We need to retrofit America.  With this solution, Jones offered perhaps the best line of the conference (and, dare I say, the best line yet of the emerging "green collar" economic movement): "The first high tech tool of a new green economy is the caulk gun."  Energy efficiency is clearly the lowest hanging fruit in "greening" up the American built environment, but it also creates good, career-track jobs and saves homeowners money on heating and electric bills.  That's not to mention that home energy retrofits pay for themselves in a short few years. 
3. Lastly, we need a new national "smart grid."  (I wrote about the smart grid for GOOD a few weeks back.) It's the highest priority breakthrough that needs to happen--the backbone upon which a clean energy economy can grow.  We have "the Saudi Arabia of wind" in the Plains states and a "Saudi Arabia of solar power" in the Sun Belt, but the current grid can't connect those potential power sources to that urban population centers that have the highest energy demands.  Basically, Jones proposeds, we need an Apollo-scaled research and development effort to figure this smart grid out.

It's significant--and not lost on Jones--that all three of these solutions are described on the website of the President-Elect.  

Jones spent the most time on the second solution, as in the "retrofitting" of America lies the biggest potential for providing job opportunities to disadvantaged communities and helping create pathways out of poverty.  Before leaving the stage, Jones recognized the work of a number of non-profit, community organizing groups that are working to develop job training programs for underprivileged urban youth.  To train them to caulk windows, perform home energy audits, blow in non-toxic insulation, install double-paned windows, put solar panels on rooftops--to prepare them for the estimated two million jobs that are imminent as we begin the long, productive task of retrofitting America.  

Up next: Majora Carter and a panel on "The Greener Good" show more examples of the marriage between the green building movement and social equity.