Green Building

The Green Roundtable has shown up twice in the media in the last 24 hours. First I happened to see an interview with Executive Director Barbra Batshalom (yes, correct spelling of Barbra) in Boston Magazine's Design publication, and then I heard that Green Roundtable staff are volunteering at the local NPR station fundraiser this morning.

The Green Roundtable (GRT) is, according to their website, "an independent non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and support healthy, efficient and sustaining development and building projects through strategic outreach, education, policy advocacy and technical assistance."

I love the second part of the mission statement:

The GRT strives to mainstream 'green' and ultimately become obsolete.

By my definition, a "movement" is an ideology or philosophy whose proponents aim to move their vision from marginal to mainstream. Once it is mainstream there is no need for a movement, and it does become obsolete. For example, the organic food movement is pretty much obsolete now, and is being overtaken by local food, slow food and other ideas (see this previous posting).

We are lucky to count Barbra as a close friend. She is modest and unassuming about her work, but is a driving force behind a real movement. Boston is a national leader in green building, and Barbra was a driving force in Boston Mayor Tom Menino's Green Building Task Force.