In just one week, about 1200 people will head to Portland for Living Future 2018, an “unConference” hosted by the International Living Future Institute (ILFI). The event is a “leading event in regenerative design” – a “forum for leading minds in the green building movement to make strides toward a healthy future for all.”
Once you attend one of ILFI’s larger-scale events, it’s hard not to think of them as part of a larger movement ILFI is nurturing – highly inspiring, and broad in scope but also targeted in its approach to action. This year, they’ve actually themed the conference Authenticity In Action, intending to recharge attendees toward authentic, in-real-life action. We caught up with Amanda Sturgeon, CEO of the ILFI, to see what the team has in store for Living Future 2018 attendees.
Living Future ILFI maintains an attendance of about 1200 for the malleability of connection, inclusivity and overall experience that number can support.
“We like to keep it that size because we’ve found that’s where people can have the best total experience,” says Amanda Instead of actively growing this conference bigger and bigger, we’ve developed a few other great events throughout the past few years.”
ILFI also hosts a Net Positive Symposium, and the Living Product Expo, held annually in Pittsburgh. As expected from the title, the Living Product Expo is more products and manufacturing based (which is why Pittsburgh is such a great fit), and it attracts an intimate 400-500 people.
But Living Future is ILFI’s keystone event – covering energy, water, health, products, biophilic design, beauty, and many more topics – with a more diverse attendance.
“Living Future began as a way of figuring out how to push buildings further for the benefit of all. And now, it’s really a time to address everything else too. It’s an intersection of environment, culture and social justice.”
Past conference themes include Truth & Transparency; Beauty & Inspiration; Empowering Women; and Genius Encouraged. Since the Truth & Transparency themed year, ILFI has developed three transparency labels. And many of ILFI’s previous conferences have followed a similar suit with thoughtful, real-life action.
Last year at our Living Product Expo, one of our keynotes was Paul Hawkins, who really outlined the impact food has on our environment. At Living Future this year, we wanted to bring that more into focus and understand how our work in the built environment might be helpful to the food industry.”
Raj Patel, a writer, activist, academic and notable food expert, will offer his insights on how food and design might intersect.
ILFI will also use Living Future 2018 to draw attention to its new Zero Carbon Certificationprogram, launched just last week.
A Slice of “unConference” Life: What to Expect at Living Future 2018
In addition to a line-up of celebration parties set throughout the four-day conference, Living Future is jammed full of events, all baked with a recipe of intrigue, thoughtfulness, surprise and intellect. Below, you’ll find a tiny fraction of what attendees will be experiencing.
>Workshop: Designing for Vibrant Communities with Majora Carter.This interactive workshop builds the sensitivities and competencies to reveal and address equity considerations and opportunities in planning communities of all scales. The project moves the audience towards a holistic and inclusive model for driving toward a pro-equity approach to design and planning a project. Table exercises and group work push participants to build competencies in equity assessment, inclusive engagement, equity impact review, and the array of design and development considerations that bear on equity outcomes.
The session will guide attendees in developing a heightened awareness of equity and social justice issues and an understanding of how to integrate strategies in their green building projects. Attendees will come together at the end of the session to hear from the panel of experts and discuss how they will apply strategies they learned from the interactive session.
>Water Summit: Igniting Conversations and Ideas for Net Positive Water for All.This year, the Water Summit will focus on four of the stickiest brain-teasers facing Net Positive Water and Healthy Watersheds. Each topic will feature an “Ignite talk,” bringing a fresh perspective, a spark of inspiration or reframing of the issue from a leader in the field. Attendees will then break up into discussion groups and tackle one of these knots, in the hopes of finding some new paths forward and new strategies to try in our journey for holistic, net positive, and watershed approaches to meeting water needs. The four “big” topics are:
1. Achieving Net Positive Water in arid climates
2. Achieving Net Positive Water in high-density contexts or with high-intensity use types
3. Finding the right scale and kind of system for each project
4. Up front and long-term affordability and equity
>Tour: Sustainable Wineries.Wending through Oregon’s bucolic wine country, this tour incorporates stops at Anne Amie Vineyards and Stoller Family Estates for wine tastings and a look at their unique operations, including the world’s first LEED Gold Winemaking facility. Anne Amie and Stoller demonstrate a deep commitment to sustainability and craft, winning accolades for both the quality of their wines and their green initiatives. You will see firsthand how these businesses worked to achieve Salmon Safe, LEED gold, and LIVE Viticulture certifications, all while producing world-class wines.
>Session: Just B: Cultivating an Authentic and Impactful Workplace.It’s possible to use business for good and sustain a successful company while being a socially just, environmentally beneficial and equitable organization. Workplace frameworks such as JUST and B Corp challenge mission-driven companies to be authentic by putting their principles into action.
Join firms who translated company values into actions and embarked upon the journey of JUST self-disclosure and B Corp certification. Learn about the fundamentals of the JUST label, and journeys of a team in their certification beginnings, a well-established engineering company, and a firm continuously pushing the envelope in social equity initiatives. Learn of their experiences and challenges and how they’ve successfully engaged employees, reimagined the business, and implemented holistic change internally and externally. Then walk the journey yourself and identify where your company values can evolve to JUST and B Corp programs. Collaborate with the presenters to reveal actionable tasks to implement change at your organization that can be taken in the next 30 days. Track: Organizational Best Practices
>Tour: Portland Neighborhood Tour – The Evolution of the Lloyd Ecodistrict.This tour will showcase the world’s first official EcoDistrict and one of Portland’s neighborhoods poised for the most growth in the coming decades. The Lloyd EcoDistrict reflects an increasing consciousness in our cities and communities that environmental performance improvements are only successful if they are done in a way that equitably distributes their benefits and burdens. Join EcoDistrict leaders for a 2-mile tour that starts with a brief presentation and then a walk through the district to see some of the visual successes of the EcoDistrict as well as gaining an understanding of the challenges that lay ahead. Tour leaders have all been involved with the Lloyd EcoDistrict from its conception.
Ms. Sturgeon notes that ILFI designed Living Future 2018 to be one of the few conferences in North America that will really get you out of the conference ballroom and into some pretty cool experiences.
“We call it an “unConference because we try to shake up the idea of a conference. We build-in performance elements, tours, off-site events, demonstrations, food trucks, and conference sessions that are truly interactive.”
Living Future typically sells out the week before the event, so snag a spot.
“International Living Future Institute is an environmental NGO committed to catalyzing the transformation toward communities that are socially just, culturally rich and ecologically restorative. Composed of leading green building experts and thought-leaders, the Institute is premised on the belief that providing a compelling vision for the future is a fundamental requirement for reconciling humanity’s relationship with the natural world.”