At the beginning of the millennium,which now seems like a lifetime ago in
terms of green building chronology, I happened to meet another engineer
as we were beginning to embark on a new wave of buildings and nextgeneration
green design. At the time I had just become president of my
former Šrm, the Canadian-based Keen Engineering, and I was articulating
the vision we had set, to change our focus from“blue” to “green,” from
traditional building service or mechanical engineering to a more enlightened
direction.
We talked about the imperative of the design and construction community
making the shift to a new paradigm and how could we do this
quickly, eªectively and economically.My biggest challenge was not only to
train a new generation of thinkers but to Šnd many more, as the market
demand for green building know-how was beginning to explode, along
with the rapid growth of our own business.
As I described my frustration at not being able to “Šnd” enough good
folks but noted that I had no di‹culty in Šnding clients, the engineer
across the table looked atme calmly and said,“Kevin, your solution is simple—
recruiting and marketing are the same thing, two sides of the same
coin.” In an instant I realized that not only was he right, but all I needed to
do was apply the same ideas and conviction in dealing with potential recruits
that I was using withmy clients. It worked: our Šrmtripled in size in
Šve years and becamemuchmore proŠtable.
That engineer’s name was Jerry Yudelson. Jerry has a unique gift, one
that few of us possess, to take a series of complex and often conšicting
data, make sense of it, then boil the message down to its essence. In my
opinion, he is one of the great communicators of our time.
In recent months, thanks to a conšuence of events, we have seen the
momentum build globally around a shared concern for the future of our
planet. Climate change has shifted from being a purely scientiŠc discussion to a mainstream concern in a short period of time. Even in recent
weeks, we have seen new information from the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change conŠrming the part that humanity has had in creating
this problem. Business and government leaders returned from the 2007
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, united in their resolve to
lead the Šght against climate change. This is an historicmoment.
We now know that residential and commercial buildings are the
biggest single contributor to producing carbon dioxide emissions, intimately
linked with global warming. At the heart of the building industry
are designers, builders, developers and product manufacturers who are
now committed to working together to change the way we do business.As
former chair of theUSGreen Building Council and now incoming chair of
theWorld Green Building Council, I have had an opportunity to observe
how industry and government are coming together to dramatically reduce
the impact of buildings on the environment, using new technologies and
systems that help in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, improving the
quality of stormwater and reducing the habitat destruction caused by
urban growth.
This book is a valuable resource for those who want to know more
about the full range of issues tackled by the green building movement. It
weaves the global issues, the historic perspectives and precedents for green
buildings, current and emerging technology and trend data that lead the
reader, not only in understanding the principles and business case for shifting
to green practice, but also in shifting themindset fromservice provider
or supply-chain player, to concerned and knowledgeable advocate.
I often ask people, “Who was the greatest engineer—Thomas Edison
or Henry Ford?” For me, the answer is “both”: Edison, the greatest inventor
of his time, and Ford, the great replicator, the industrialist. In the late
19th century, Edison developed many inventions that led us into a new era
of technological advancement.He created the Šrst industrial research laboratory
that systematically looked for solutions to pressing problems. Ford
took some of Edison’s inventions, as well as those of Harvey Firestone
(tires) and others, and focused on replication, reŠnement and simpliŠcation,
so that we could all aªord the inventions through mass production.
Nearly 100 years ago, Ford developed the modern system of mass production
that beneŠts all of us to this day.
Today we need to take the innovations created bymany architects and
engineers on a building-by-building basis in every region of the country
and around the world, then replicate these best practices rapidly throughout
the built environment.Written in simple language, easily accessible to
the non-specialist, and backed up by data and common sense,
Kevin Hydes,
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