I’ve spent the last two days at two very different but very intersting conferences. The first, King County’s Green in Place: From Policy to Practice conference, featured Gary Lawrence as the keynote speaker and during his talk (discussed at length in an article in the Sept. 19 DJC.. read it if you’re at all intersted in ths subject) he said something a little out of the typical routine:

 “If you’re involved in sustainable design and (not) addressing issues of equity and justice, you’re not involved in sustainability.”

Arup's Treasure Island project in San Francisco

He defined social equity or social justice as considering the impact your building and designing choices have on other humans. So instead of putting on that green roof, you consider how the extra steel needed to reinforce the roof will affect the lives of the people who will mine the steel. Basically you look at your choices from an all inclusive roundabout way.

It takes a lot of thinking. And for those people just entering into green building or sustainable design, it might be too much work to add on (at the beginning stage of the game).

But intrinsically, is Lawrence right? Can you, Mr. Architect or Ms. City Planner really call your work sustainable if you don’t consider all the different people your choice will affect both in the past and in the future? Or is it just too much to handle?

The question in itself is fascinating, and one that I, by my lonesome, cannot answer. What do you think?

P.S. (Lawrence’s resume could make most people’s eyes widen. He has been a former DPD planning director, UW professor, adivsor to the Clinton Administration’s Council on Sustainable Development, the United Nation’s Habitat II, the Brazilian President’s Office, the British Prime Minister’s Office, not to mention currently running Arup’s sustainable urban development globally.)

For more information, it turns out King County Executive Ron Sims has already tapped this topic in a keynote talk of his own. Read the press release. I don’t know much about the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction, but it has some interesting definitions here.

Tags: Arup, King County, Ron Sims, Social equity

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 3:55 pm and is filed under Business and technology, King County, Measuring performance, Seattle Department of Planning and Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.