Welcome to the inaugural post of the Green Building Services’ Inc. blog. Not only is this an opportunity for us to better share things happening within GBS but it should also serve as a forum to expand our views on the amazing events that are so rapidly impacting our industry and the green building movement.
It is an exciting as well as challenging time for our industry and our business, thus, I feel it is an appropriate time to address the economics that have so greatly impacted the design and construction industry. We have many excellent clients who have had to make difficult choices with regards to eliminating or delaying projects and even and even more difficult choices around letting go of staff. It is tough to see these events unfold, especially as the forces behind so many of the issues feel very distant from the honest, value-driven businesses that we and our clients have tried to operate on a daily basis.
Working through these events, I think we all hear comments such as “when one door closes, another opens.” While in essence I would agree that these economic events have sparked activity in certain markets, I do not think it is enough to imply that in the face of these times we all should simply set out to seek these wonderful open doors. These events have unfolded around us, or perhaps right on top of us. In my opinion, this has provided proof of the reality that large components of the economic system we have historically relied on to direct and reward our efforts as private businesses are broken.
In sharing this view I may be opening a can of worms regarding free market economies and an array of other issues that very likely escape my own, experience and intellect. To that end, I encourage any of you who would challenge this perspective to please share your opinion. Before preparing your response however, I do ask that you consider the basis of my view.
I believe that core components of our economic system are broken because somewhere along the way we decided to that the ability to make money and the ability to create value were the same thing. Additionally, in our race to align revenue with value we decided to exclude the external negative impacts of this revenue creation from the equation. What we are left with today is with a system where margin is all that matters and there is far too little pride taken in the value that private business can or should contribute to our community. We have actually taken this model a step further to allow the delivery of margin to supersede all else. E.g. if in delivering this margin it is necessary for you to further damage the environment and forego the well-being of the workers that facilitate your success, well, as long as you don’t break the law, that’s just fine. In other words, the externalities of the well-being of the people and planet have not been made a priority within the current economic equation.
My rant aside (I assure you this is not what my marketing manager was hoping for) lets get back to these wonderful opening doors. GBS, like many businesses, is pursuing new opportunities being generated via the current economic circumstances. Our existing building and energy practices are thriving. It seems that every day we are discovering new and even better opportunities to help clients enhance and document the performance of their existing buildings and our training business is growing by leaps and bounds. To the credit of our industry, in the face of the downturn more and more companies seem to be preparing themselves for the opportunities to come by ensuring that their staff has access to the knowledge necessary to design, construct and operate better and better buildings. As great as is it is to share even small bits of these success stories, the question I want to present is, are walking through these open doors enough? Is it okay, when we know the system is broken, to simply cherry pick opportunities for success? In my opinion, no.
If you ask me the one thing that that GBS does that makes me most proud, it is not where we show the insight and flexibility to pass through an open door, it is when we, partnering with our businesses, nonprofits and people in the public sector help to actually kick a few doors open. Just as I sit here today, there are multiple pieces of legislation and various policies that span the gamut, from the City of Portland all the way up to the US Congress where GBS is investing time and even financial resources. Fortunately, our investment is only a very small part of the resources. Many, many amazing people and organizations are putting forward these same efforts. Unfortunately, I question if it is enough.
Hearing, Thomas Friedman speak recently in Portland, he reaffirmed for me a fundamental fact. We are in a fight not just for the well-being of our individual businesses but for the whole planet. If you don’t know that we are in a fight you better figure it out fast before somebody cleans your clock. So, looking ahead we will certainly use this blog to talk about our business, our great clients and our projects. But also, I think we will also being using it to keep pushing on some doors, to invite all of you to start pushing with us and hopefully, to see if together we can actually knock a few more down.
Jay Coalson, Principal, Green Buildings Servics, Inc.
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