In response to the growing need for sustainability solutions that move across industries and scales and better address the social and environmental crises humanity now faces, the International Living Future Institute™ has created the Living Future Challenge ™.
Based on the elegant and profound architecture of the Living Building Challenge, utilizing nature as the ultimate end-game metric for success, the Living Future Challenge will extend to all aspects of society as various programs are launched over the next few years: Living Buildings, Living Communities, Living Products, Living Food, Living Enterprises, Living Lifestyles.
“As our pioneering Living Building Challenge project teams have discovered in the past seven years, green buildings do not exist in silos. They are part of the web of influences moving from the materials we use to build to the structures we create and maintain, on to the communities we inhabit and the lives we ultimately live,” says Jason McLennan, CEO of the Living Future Institute and author of the Living Building Challenge. “The Living Future Challenge builds on our years of interdisciplinary research, education and advocacy that bridge industries, individual behaviors, organizational culture and sectors in the economy. This new framework positions us to aggressively address the issues that will define the remainder of this decade, and beyond.”
Within this new framework are the first programs (with others to follow):
- The Living Building Challenge, This remains a building certification program, advocacy tool and philosophy that defines the most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment possible today. The 3.0 version of the program continues to raise the bar and is being released today.
- The Living Community Challenge, The Living Community Challenge helps planners and developers rethink how they design their community-scale projects, providing certification at both the master planning stages as well as for fully built community or campus-scale projects. Formerly nested within the Living Building Challenge, the program now has its own emphasis and framework.
- The Living Product Challenge, Just as the Living Building Challenge transformed the building industry’s perception of what was possible for building performance, the Living Product Challenge will transform the design and manufacturing of products of all types – from building materials to consumer goods, clothing and more. The Product Challenge will be launched later this year.
The framework will eventually comprise:
- Living Buildings
- Living Communities
- Living Products
- Living Food
- Living Enterprises
- Living Lifestyle.
“The Living Future Challenge is an opportunity to rethink and redesign all our systems and provide a vision for a truly regenerative society” McLennan says. “We believe that taking the principles that have informed the Living Building Challenge and applying them to our products, our lifestyles, our communities provide a powerful and inspiring framework for all aspects of society.”
The Living Building Challenge 3.0 and Living Community Challenge 1.0 launched at the Living Future unconference, and the Living Product Challenge will roll out later in 2014.
Check back to learn more as each program is launched.
