I’ve been talking a lot lately about the future of our industry. How we might see more “going green,” and more money from the government that funds environmentally friendly building and construction.

But how do we get there?

“Going green” isn’t just something that you do once and never think about again. If this is to be our industry’s future, and if we’re serious about it, then “going green” is a change in our mindset, the way we view our jobs from the ground up.
And it’s not just about us – our clients, manufacturers, and the general public has to understand the concept of “going green” as well. Of course none of this is easy to do. It’s hard work to shift our own ways of thinking, and even harder work to change the public’s view of what we do. We need to find a way to work together.

That’s why we’ve launched Sustain Alabama, www.sustainala.com, a new social online community for architects, builders, and others in the construction industry to interact both with one another and with the general public in order to promote environmentally friendly construction. People can log on, ask questions, gain information, and work together to find “green” solutions to their building and constructing needs. In other words, we can learn from each other, and we can learn together. And maybe even find a few new clients in the process.

We can “go green” together.