the
green living
manifesto
Created by
Greg
Searle
Executive Director, BioRegional
North America
Greg is responsible for building partnerships to create ambitious Zero
Carbon, Zero Waste neighborhoods in Canada and the United States - part
of the One
Planet Communities global network of advanced green community developments.
He is an experienced facilitator and entrepreneur, and leads teams in
the development of Sustainability Action Plans and Green Lifestyle programs.
He recently lead a team to create a research methodology for "Wa$ted",
a sustainable lifestyles reality TV show on Discovery
Planet Green. By implementing BioRegional's recommended changes in
behaviour and home improvement, participating families achieved a 30%
average reduction in household ecological footprint.
Greg's focus on green lifestyles builds upon BioRegional UK's pioneering efforts to create sustainable lifestyle programs for neighborhoods. He lived at the BedZED eco-neighborhood in London, UK, while studying the long-term impacts of the sustainable lifestyles program that operated there 2002-4.
Greg is deeply involved in North America's first official One Planet Community, Sonoma Mountain Village. This deeply ambitious 1,900-home project aims to reduce direct carbon emissions from buildings by 100% and total direct carbon emissions from households (including food, waste, and transportation) by 83%. Specific green lifestyle strategies for the project are outlined in its recently-released Sustainability Action Plan Report.
Greg previously served as a consultant to the United Nations (FAO - Rome), the World Conservation Union (IUCN - Brussels), the International Development Research Centre, and Industry Canada. He is also the co-founder of award-winning knowledge management firm Tomoye Corporation and inventor of its enterprise software.
Greg has lived in London, Rome, and Boston, and consulted extensively in Brussels and Washington, D.C. He is in training for a black belt in Shorinjiryu Karate, and was a 2006 Canadian Ultimate Frisbee Masters Champion. Greg lives in a 60-year-old log cabin (an ongoing DIY project) northwest of Ottawa in one of Canada's greenest municipalities, Chelsea, Quebec, on the banks of the beautiful Gatineau River. the electricfrog is his personal weblog.
with
Geof
Syphers, B.Eng., LEED AP
Chief Sustainability Officer, Codding
Enterprises
Geof is committed to the principle of living well, within our means. Since 2006, Geof has served as Chief Sustainability Officer of Codding Enterprises - a small, forward-thinking property management and development company in Sonoma County, California. Codding builds deeply sustainable mixed-use communities and invests in companies which create a profitable and responsible future. The company envisions a world in which development has a restorative impact on both nature and cities. Geof is responsible for defining the environmental and social sustainability goals, and overseeing Codding Enterprise's successful transition to "sustainable developer" by challenging the company to rethink fundamental practices and managing Codding’s sustainability education program and policies.
Geof has provided the on-the-ground leadership in planning North America's first official One Planet Community, Sonoma Mountain Village. This deeply ambitious 200-acre project aims to reduce direct carbon emissions from buildings by 100% and total direct carbon emissions from households (including food, waste, and transportation) by 83%. Geof is responsible for the plan to reduce the ecological footprint of the entire 1900-home community from a U.S. average of 5.3 down to a truly sustainable, one planet level by 2020. Specific green lifestyle strategies for the project are outlined in its recently-released Sustainability Action Plan Report.
Geof began his career as a physicist, and then earned his combined masters degree in solar/nuclear engineering only to find out through trial-and-error that the technological aspects of sustainability were the easy ones. His focus shifted to creating new cultures that support change. He has advised more than 40 governments and 100 companies on creating positive cultures.
Geof founded KEMA's green building consulting business in 1998. Under
his directorship, KEMA consulted on 160 construction projects, from homeless
shelters to airports, including 40 LEED buildings.
Geof is a founding member of the Frogsong cohousing community in Cotati, California, where he lives with his wife and can bicycle to work. He is a 3 dan Go player, a registered mechanical engineer, and a LEED® Accredited Professional with degrees in applied physics and solar energy engineering. http://geofsyphers.com/
Rodney
Wilts, LLB, LEED AP
Senior Consultant, Loop Initiatives
Rodney is an entrepreneur, LEED Accredited Professional and respected
green building consultant and writer with specialized expertise in the
green products supply chain. Rodney is also founder of the
Healthiest Home & Building Supplies, Canada's first and largest
green building store. As CEO of the Healthiest Home, Rodney regularly
was engaged by developers and procured green products for LEED certified
projects. The Healthiest Home and Building Supplies was sold in the fall
of 2005.
Prior to his green building consulting career, Rodney served as an environmental lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law in Vancouver, where he studied regulatory barriers to green building.
Rodney writes a column on green building products for Building Magazine. The magazine is distributed bi-monthly to all of the registered architects in Canada and is available on newstands.
Rodney was recently invited to sit on the selection committee for the
Net
Zero Energy Healthy Housing Initiative. This government program encourages
developers to compete in creating healthy, green, net zero homes. Sixty-five
developers have entered the competition, with the winners receiving technical
and marketing assistance as well as financial support.
Geneva
Guerin, LEED AP
Co-Director, Sustainability
Solutions Group
Geneva is the brains behind much of BioRegional's work developing the
research methodology for "Wa$ted",
a sustainable lifestyles reality TV show on Discovery Planet Green.
Geneva is a sustainability consultant and LEED AP. Her skills in the
field consist of sustainability assessing and reporting, greenhouse gas
inventories, LEED green building and sustainable community development
design, integrated design process facilitation, food security planning,
program coordination, strategic planning, research, and communications.
She has experience working in and facilitating multi-stakeholder groups;
development and use of sustainability indicators; LEED green building
certification; project coordination of multiple stakeholder teams across
long distances; public presentations and teaching/trainings on sustainability;
research; policy development; and the use of multi-media (video and web)
for communications.
Geneva is also an instructor in Concordia University’s Continuing Education department and has over ten years experience delivering presentations and trainings on various topics related to sustainability to a variety of audiences including college and university classrooms, bureaucrats, senior citizens and youth. She is based in Montreal, is French-English bilingual and is pursuing a Masters in Architecture and Sustainable Development
.