I was able to attend the Green Build Conference in Chicago this November. I have mixed feelings about my experience, but there is no doubt of the positive investment it has had on me and on my company.

The conference and USGBC is still primarily targeting commercial building. The money is there, and like anything in the building world, things hit the commercial arena first. I can’t wait until it trickles down to residential homes, and I know it is on the near horizon. Leed, which is a benchmark for green building has already developed a program for homes . I am looking forward to becoming Leed accredited.

The best thing about the conference though was the capacity to define a target. Not only for the many building owners there, but also those in charge of hitting that target. I am one of those individuals that wants to direct my company towards that, towards a smarter way of building.

Conferences are just one way of investing in your company. In reality what you are doing is changing yourself. The ability to change is essential to running a dynamic company. One that excels at meeting and creating demand.

Why am I choosing this method, especially since I pride myself in working on historical homes? It seems like a departure from the methods of old. Well it is! But it goes along with the reasoning of making not only compact cars hybrids, but also making the vehicles that currently only manage to squeeze ten miles out of a gallon a hybrid. I personally have lived in a home that had a gas bill of $500 a month in the winter! It was actually a duplex, so imagine doubling that! That could probably pay for 5 homes of a better build. So what if we can reduce that in half, in a third? Just because you can budget in the cost doesn’t mean you should.

I have long held it as a priority to make the lives of those individuals that I come in contact with better. But I want that to be applied to homes as well. As professionals in our field, we are at fault for not leading. How can we demand change? We demand it in ourselves. Remember, its not about having the answers, it is in the journey.