1. Shift your message to inspire action
USGBC’s Living Standard campaign seeks to expand the conversation around sustainability beyond just the green building community to a broader population. The campaign aims to connect the dots between healthy people, healthy places, and healthy economies, and in doing so, help raise the standard of living for communities around the world.
Since Living Standard’s launch at the end of 2018, we’ve produced two Standard Issue reports, and Action Toolkit, and, most recently, research that explores how best to engage Indian consumers outside of the green building industry.
Action Toolkit
We present an Action Toolkit to amplify the learnings and messages from our Living Standard campaign. The purpose of this Toolkit is to give everyone in our community — from LEED professionals and practitioners to USGBC members, to advocates to developers to teachers — tools for how to carry our message to a wider audience.
Standard Issue, Vol. I
Standard Issue Volume I showed us there’s real confusion around buildings and their profound impact on the intersection of healthy places, healthy people, and healthy economies.
We’ve learned that we have to start engaging wider audiences to convince the public of the reality of climate-related threats. We’ve got to illustrate the importance of small, everyday actions. And we’ve got to connect the dots between public health and the planet we call home.
Changing public perception will take nothing less than a radical re-framing of our communication methods, particularly our heavy reliance on data and numbers to prove our cause. Scientific language and startling statistics have their place. But if we are ever to reverse the dangers of climate change, we’ve got to bring more humanity and health centric arguments into our conversations.
Standard Issue, Vol. II
To mobilize those outside our community, we need to shift their sense of urgency. But first, we need to shift our own.
Changing public perception will take nothing less than a radical re-framing of our communication methods, particularly our heavy reliance on data and numbers to prove our cause. To be clear, scientific language and startling statistics have their place. But if we intend to reverse the dangers of climate change, we’ve got to bring more humanity into our conversations. Standard Issue Volume II reveals new research and ways to get started. Individual and collective efforts will lead to giant leaps forward, where intention becomes action and action becomes lasting change.
India consumer market research: Living Standard
When it comes to engaging the Indian consumer around green buildings, the starting point has to be the pandemic. COVID-19 hasn’t replaced climate in the importance of sustainability initiatives — it has amplified it.
In a global, post-COVID survey of eight countries, including India, we found that 70% of the public now makes the connection between human activity and the climate. And in India by itself, 65% say they are as concerned about health as they are with the economy. Not only are they are making this connection, but they are also even more aware of the environment.
So the question becomes: How do we tap into this awareness to move to adoption of green communities, buildings, and cities? Our research indicates that buildings are part of the solution and are connected to both how we spread the virus and collectively fight the virus.
2. Community-specific actions
As we announced at Greenbuild 2020, we’re expanding Living Standard, which includes adding a series of new pages to this website over the coming weeks and months. These pages will provide resources and message framing specific to our different programs, communities, and values, so you can best leverage our tools and information in a convenient, localized format.
Check back often, and let us know what tools or resources would be helpful for you!
U.S. Green Building Council
TRUE program for zero waste
The Sustainable SITES Initiative
3. Become a member
At USGBC, we believe the greatest investment we can make is in each other. That’s why we’re an inclusive and diverse family of green builders from across the globe. We are a community of real estate leaders, developers, contractors, architects, engineers, educators, innovators and companies working to build healthy, efficient and equitable communities for all.
Because of our members, USGBC has evolved as an organization and as a green building community. We have pioneered a green economy that is redefining modern leadership. We are partners in each other’s successes.
Our members are the reason why we have USGBC, LEED, Greenbuild, a globally distributed staff and so much more. Their support and leadership give us the ability to advance our vision for healthy people in healthy places and a healthy economy: a vision which we believe will help guide our world back to prosperity and equity for all. Our members’ investment makes possible everything that we do.
4. Support our work
Support USGBC’s vision as we work to raise the living standard through our people, programs and products.
5. Share your story
Every single person’s story matters. And when you feel that about yourself, that you have a right to matter, that you have a right to live a healthy, sustainable life, you will want that for others. Share your story, and explore others’ stories on how they’re raising the living standard through green building, and showing how changing one life can change the world.
If you have any questions about how to use these resources with your audiences, please contact [email protected].