From Living Buildings to Vermont politics -- and now also back. wait but why?
2023-08-11
Dear friend,
Good morning! What’s new in your Wednesday?
“Your newsletters are nice, but I don't live in Vermont,” wrote Kelly back to my last email.
Especially as I've shared stories from my constituents with many subscribers to this who are from my sustainability professional world, I've heard -- why now? And is this relevant? Consider this an FAQ sheet…
Six years ago, even three years ago, you’d be more likely to hear from me with tips on how to earn MRc1 in LEED than about what went on last week in a corner park in Brattleboro, Vermont.
Perhaps this revived newsletter would make more sense to the sustainability professionals I’m staying in touch with if I “stuck to my lane,” as they say to do — in my case, stick to being “Mr. LEEDuser.”
But my life on a homestead in Vermont has always been the bedrock on which my sustainability telescope to the future has been grounded.
Me with puppy Oliver last year
I’ve been challenging myself to live a life that is regenerative for our Earth since I bought my little spot of it in Halifax, Vermont in 2005 and built an off-the-grid homestead — before I worked at BuildingGreen from 2006 to 2017, or went to the HPD Collaborative in 2018.
Those jobs have been limited by how much overlap I could achieve between what I’m uniquely capable of and what my employer wants from me and will pay for.
Venn diagram of "What I'm uniquely capable of" and "What my employer will pay for."
Today, I’ve diversified and found more overlap in doing so.
I keep one foot grounded in international green building standards as Chief Technologist at HPDC, while serving in the Vermont House of Representatives.
Here’s a post you might like when I was running for election on why: How I went looking for my unique duty.) I also farm with a lot of my waking hours (https://www.quillnookfarm.com/.
And, I've been reengaged with writing about it all to you, friend, attempting to speak to global issues with a Vermont vantage point.
One thing that gets left out of a lot of sustainability conversations is what is working on the local street corner — one of the reasons I highlighted what was working one afternoon on one Brattleboro, Vermont street corner in the newsletter that Kelly replied to.
The urban-controlled media, corporations, and NGOs talk more about deploying renewables and heat pumps to those of us living in the sticks, and spend less time giving us the talking stick.
It’s also time to share the talking stick with new and challenging voices in our communities, as well to continue to learn from the challenging voices of older generations. It's a great time to take next the step forward in the honesty of our dialogue.
I remember when some of the leadership at the International Living Future Institute called to have a talk with me and the co-author of a feature article about the Living Building Challenge.
Environmental Building News - January 2015
Even though we wrote "how to succeed with LBC" into the headline, they took issue when we noted how several of LBC’s imperatives override what makes sense on the ground in a specific community.
The idea that it made sense to talk sternly to someone who's talking sternly about shortfalls with a critical international standard was toxic, if you ask me. But (if you ask me) that kind of emotional intelligence has been prevalent.
If I still worked at "BG," I can easily imagine be encouraged about now to say something positive about ILFI, to make clear we mean well and want to stay friends. I was mentored to write in an “objective, unbiased” way, but also not to disrupt organizational relationships integral to the business model.
Writing under my own name, can I avoid all bias -- conscious and unconscious? Probably not, but it’s become clear that all the well-meaning efforts out there for sustainability and DEI are doomed to fail in exactly the areas where eggshells aren’t being walked on.
So if I can’t beat bias, I’ve added a couple. I keep attuned for it and then move toward eggshells on the topic when I sense them. We grow as a culture when we encounter each other as we truly are, as I wrote about in the Legislature with The infancy of infinity.
Should an employer be able to fire someone for questioning unconscious bias? If you ask me, it’s not socially responsible behavior. (But how to get unstuck from that? I suggest, Play with your history.)
I’m writing this newsletter simply under my name because you don’t often get to ask questions like that if you don’t self-publish.
To be clear, I intend the highest level of respect to organizations such as those mentioned when I talk about them with honesty and directness. (And if you’re not familiar with my approach, I want you to know I hold myself to this standard more than anyone else — for example, when I wrestled with my depression, and the privilege of it, after my visit last year to George Floyd Square.)
Oliver with "Buses do not stop here" sign at George Floyd Square, Minneapolis - April 2022
Today, I write to you standing for integration:
Embodying full-self-responsibility. Bringing our full selves to what we do, and looking for ways to integrate our bodies and full emotional selves into our professional presence.
News from rural communities and small towns that’s equally relevant to global issues.
Why did the PowerPoint cross the road? To get to the other slide.
Yes, dad jokes included at no extra charge.
Alright. I felt like it would help to lay out for you today where I’m coming from. What’s your feedback? I’d love to hear.
Also, what are you up to on your spot on Earth? There's something to learn in every person's story.
Here's a reply I got from Isolda Strom, Sr. Sustainability Consultant at Royal HaskoningDHV:
I think you make a good point regarding motivating people to do the hard work. Unfortunately sustainability is often oversimplified, and as a result the hard work needed is often not acknowledged.
In response to your question how I cope, I thought I would send you what I’ve worked on this year: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7075461608503701504/
The link is cool -- "Microscopically small molecules containing rare earth materials have been greatly magnified into large brightly colored ceramic objects."
Warm regards,
Tristan Roberts
P.S. Above is my whiteboard of that venn diagram of what you want to do vs. what your employer requires, and the push and pull that occurs.
I was curious to start with that and see how each of the following changes to it made feel. It was more nuanced than I expected.
