Predictions: green trends for ’09

The Internet has been awash with green trend predictions for the last year, so I figured I'd show you where the predictions are in case you missed them.

What do you see in green's crystal ball?

First, there's Jetson Green's Seven Green Trends to Watch in 2009. The post from one of the top national blogs in the country calls out broad idealogical trends for the most part, like "non green will not survive," "change leadership will thrive," and "everything will shift." For more on what that means, check out the post.

There's Jerry  Yudelson's Top 10 Predictions for the Green Building Industry 2009. Culled from conversations Yudelson's had with building leaders in the U.S., Canada, Europe and the Middle East, it's a wide range of predictions (that might be worth paying attention to, considering Yudelson knows almost everybody that's worth knowing in green). Among the predictions, Yudelson says green building will benefit from the Obama administration, the focus of green building will begin to switch from new buildings to greening existing buildings, awareness of the coming global crisis in fresh water supply will increase, LEED platinum rated projects will become more common place and zero net energy designs for new buildings will gain increasing acceptance in both public and private buildings.

And earlier today, I listened to the Sustainable Industries Webinar on its nine trends for 2009. Among the trends, it said the smart grid will take off, this will be the year of the carbon market, green building sets the code (meaning it becomes a larger part of city's building codes), and there will be a green jobs hiring blitz. While I can't find this information for free on the Web, it is in next month's edition of the magazine, and will likely be available online at some point here.

As for Seattle, I'm a reporter so I'm not going to predict what this year will bring in green building. It could bring a living building or a passifhaus to the city. It could bring more incentives. Or all new initiatives could dry up, due to the economy.

On the city side, the year will likely bring an official priority permitting program (rather than just a pilot program), and a deconstruction permit that is decoupled from the demolition permit. On the state side, Ecology might revamp SEPA to specifically include greenhouse gas emissions in its measurement requirements (for more on this, click tag SEPA below).

What do you think this year will bring to Seattle? And what do you think will be the biggest trends in the region?

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