West Coast Green Early Adopter’s Workshop Interview Questions

David Johnston, Consultant

What’s Working

www.whatsworking.com

8/22/08

1. What inspired or caused you to get involved in green building & how many years ago was that?

I had been building since High School. In 1970 I went to a lecture by Buckminster Fuller. At that talk he said that if you want to predict the future, then you need to design it. That moment changed my life.  After that I went to study with him and got a degree in Environmental Systems Design.

2. 2 or 3 examples of what do you do to keep you on your edge.

My edge is ever moving. I’m always looking for the practical solutions for sustainability that are marketable, business based, and functional. I’m always looking at what are the flows that go through a building in and out puts. What we do with that is the key to becoming more self-reliant as a country.

I look at four quadrants:  Why I do; Why we do; What I do; and What we do. Why I do has to do with what I’m committed to transforming. What I do has to do with my practice. Why we do has to do with engaging people in a community basis & doing collectively. Spiral-do on a higher & higher levels, spiritually, consciously, with local & national government, growing in realms of effectiveness. Bringing all of us into it…

3. What are the next steps for you to get to the next level?

My daily life; West Coast Green; being involved in philanthropy; workshop in Pennsylvania; facilitating transformation in every waking moment as a constant process globally and locally. The Bucky Mission-the planet is calling. I have said yes to that mission.

Choices-what are the highest and best use of each moment? Helping a business start; working to get a master plan approved; or economic development in Costa Rica?. I make choices based on whether the results are measurable & whether I’ll look back on that being a good day spent, impacting someone’s life in a meaningful basis.

4. What feelings come up for you when you think of these steps?

I lookout over Boulder from my home & think about how we can do all of this without oil & sucking the earth to an empty shell. I feel the enormity of the challenge. How do we get people’s attention when we only have 5-10 years to make the transformation happen? It may already be way too late due to the shopping mall mentality. How do we get their attention & in-gauge them in the solutions in the practical applications of sustainable culture?

5. What are a couple of success stories of bringing along your network to their next level?

The California Green Building Program. It started out as the popcorn effect-scattered interest; no cohesiveness to tie it all together. My job was to put a pan underneath the popcorn and to define the collective aspirations of a green building program. I spent 5 years with  everyone involved in delivering a home to a customer.

6. If you were to describe your network as a metaphor, what comes to mind...what would it be…?

A telephone tree-each person calls 5 people & so on; also in conjunction with the whole Pay It Forward concept (as in the movie by that name).

7. Resources you’d suggest.

Pay It Forward movie

Bioneers

Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth by R. Buckminster Fuller and Jaime Snyder

A Theory of Everything by Ken Wilber

Green From the Ground Up by David Johnston & Scott Gibson

8. Anything else you’d like to tell me that I haven’t asked?

Sustainability is in everyone’s self interest. We don’t need to change anyone’s perspective, but empower them to live into their own ownership and interest.