Connect COMMUNITY RESOURCES & OUTREACH
BIG IDEAS Hannah Bruegmann, Program Director of New Initiatives for Build It Green, shares what the organization does, how it does it and how rental housing providers can join in its mission to revitalize individuals, communities and bioregions.
14 MARCH+APRIL 2021 / EBRHA.COM
What is regenerative development? Regenerative development can be thought of as an approach that considers not only how to make the built ecosystem more sustainable, but also considers how we might use projects to improve the capacity of what are termed “whole” systems that nest in one another. We are thinking about building positive feedback loops where the capacity (skills, abilities, knowledge) of individuals in a community, the community as a whole (to create more opportunities and improvements), and the local environment (often termed “bioregion” for this purpose) can self-generate over time. This might look like a project that includes training local homeowners in how to maintain and improve their own properties, then leads to a group of them coming togeth-
DAVID BEACH. OPPOSITE: BUILDINGANADU.COM
What are Build It Green’s top priorities, and how have they evolved since the organization was founded in the early 2000s? Build It Green was founded to bring green practices into the mainstream residential building ecosystem through credible and accessible resources and training programs such as our GreenPoint Rated certification program. Our priorities still include encouraging more sustainable residential building practices. In addition to that foundation, we’ve realized that truly tackling the housing and climate crises will require focusing on not just individual homes, but also the larger neighborhood and community, including the local bioregion. To do that, we’re exploring how to bring a regenerative thinking approach to communities and the residential building sector. We’re starting by encouraging ADUs and the emerging ecosystem supporting them.
