Three Defining Moments in the birth of the Global GreenTag Certification Program

Global GreenTag International CEO and Program Director David Baggs was recently interviewed by the green building directory, network and information sharing platform - Rate It Green.  The story about the genesis and evolution of the Global GreenTag Product Certification Standard and Certification Mark starts here:

QUESTION:

If the backstory of the Global GreenTag Certification Program were to be articulated by three defining moments, what would they be?

DAVID BAGGS:

Actually, there are three easily recalled 'moments' each in different time periods that do explain how the Global GreenTag Certification Program came about and evolved.

Firstly, and somewhat broadly from a time period point of view, the genesis of the Standard at a deep level was already emerging during my early career path, which involved nearly 20 years as a passive solar and healthy buildings architect. I had designed over 300-earth wall, green roof and straw bale buildings and more than 35 earth covered buildings in the years before 1995. I guess the first turning point into the domain came when my company and I was appointed, through 1995 and 1996, as Sustainability, Energy, Materials and variously Government and Media Liaison for 10 of the Sydney 2000 Green Olympic Games Venues.

With those project teams, we went on to use Integrative Design Processes to develop and win bids, strategize policy, facilitate sustainability outcomes, audit the projects against their original commitments and report to Government and oversight NGOs. Along the way, I undertook hundreds of mini-Life Cycle Analyses (LCA) and created a number of 'Designer's Guides to the Eco-rating of Materials' documents to assist the architects and engineers for those projects choose the most appropriate sustainable materials for each project.

However, the second and single most defining individual 'moment' towards what eventually became Global GreenTag was when my co-founder Mary-Lou Kelly (whose core value is a love of this planet) approached me in 2002 shortly after our businesses joined forces and pointedly asked: "What are you doing with all that LCA product information that you developed for the Olympic Projects?" My response? "Using it on our projects"... and her reply was "that information is too important to be sitting on our shelves. It needs to be got out, so the broader industry can use it".
READ THE FULL INTERVIEW - ON RATE IT GREEN