Using Social Media to Rise Above
For at least the last 6 years, I've been focused on green building, either as director of communications for a third-party certification firm or through Planet Relations. Well today that has finally paid off! According to Grist.org, "green building is the new black".
Apparently, the press is just gushing about all aspects of green building. Stories abound about cities adopting green building ordinances, landscape designers pursuing green building practices, and manufacturers designing products for the green building market. For example, Glenn Hasek in Green Lodging News discussed a recent study by Autodesk and AIA indicating that "70 percent of architects say client demand is the leading driver of green building and that the primary reason these owners and developers are demanding greener buildings is for reduced operating costs."
In my work as a freelance writer for eco-structure and Environmental Design+Construction magazines, and also as the newsletter editor (1200 recipients) for the Northern California Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, the level of interest in green building is at a level never before seen. Green building is the new cool kid at school with which everyone wants to associate.
Which raises the question: now that green building has come of age, how do companies rise above the fray? My prediction is the increasing use of social media in green building circles to develop meaningful conversations about what works, what doesn't, and what's plain greenwash. More posts in the coming weeks to explore this topic. Bye for now, I'm off to Twitter.
