If the global green building movement were a human body, it would be showing troubling signs of chronic illness. Despite decades of collective effort and achievement, it remains more peripheral than its scale and promise warrant. What would be your diagnosis? Here’s mine — identifying what is and isn’t working across the three vital dynamics of transformation: catalytic, nurturing, and recalibrating.

Over the past two decades, I’ve worked on transformation projects across six continents and devoted my PhD research to understanding why change efforts succeed, fail, or stall. My vantage point is not that of a casual observer or passive consumer, but of an insider who has been hired again and again to diagnose movements.

In a recent post, I outlined a framework for building world-changing movements. It may sound esoteric at first, so my aim here is to make it practical by applying it to a transformational movement that has touched us all — whether we realize it or not. Namely, I diagnose the global green building movement, asking why something so vital, so universal, has remained marginal — inviting you to consider what can be done to unlock its potential. This post builds on this introduction, which you may want to review first.

The 3 jobs every movement must master

Think about any smooth experience — a successful trip, a seamless project, even just a good day. What makes it work is that all the key functions are covered. Miss just one, and the whole thing can wobble.

Movements are no different. My research suggests that every effective movement depends on three interlocking dynamics: catalyzing, nurturing, and recalibrating. They don’t happen in sequence but in synergy, reinforcing one another.

Why does this matter? Because when we design or diagnose transformation, these three dynamics give us both a checklist and a troubleshooting guide. If a movement is thriving, all three are firing. If it’s stalling, you can bet at least one has broken down.

I aim to challenge

Agreement with me is always optional — but in this case, I doubt I can offer a diagnosis without offending people I hold in very high regard. Even a full book wouldn’t capture it all. Perhaps that’s because the green building movement, like the civil rights movement, is not one thing but a fleet of movements moving (sometimes colliding) in parallel.

Yet, this conversation is more important than our comfort, including my own. My aim is to professionalize changemaking and help position the global green building movement to fulfill its tremendous potential.

* I do hope to provoke our collective thinking—but with care.

* I share only three examples for each concept. Add yours. Between us, we span at least 30 countries, and the co-creation will make this richer.

* You also have a front-row seat to my unfolding PhD research into changemaking. Until the dissertation is complete, my terms and groupings will continue to evolve.

So — how has the global green building movement fared when it comes to creating the transformation it seeks? Let’s dive in.

Image created with assistance from ChatGPT.

1. Catalytic

An effective movement is like a spark that catches dry tinder — it doesn’t just glow, it ignites. It awakens urgency, clarity, and conviction. It presents a vision of the future that feels both bold and within reach — something we must be part of. But this catalytic force goes further. It translates the movement’s deeper intent into terms people can grasp and act on. It bridges the radical and the practical, the emotional and the strategic, the outsider and the institution. In doing so, it creates a force strong enough to attract not just believers, but unlikely allies.

Where sparks caught

* The global green building movement has been highly effective at energizing professionals. In the early years of the Green Building Council of Australia, we even described ourselves as “undercover.” Suddenly, those on the margins of academia and practice weren’t just invited to the “cool kids’ table”—we felt like superheroes.

* Through rating schemes and associated accolades, this movement bridged vision and reality. The Living Building Challenge defined success as a built environment that gives back more than it takes while enhancing delight and social cohesion. Meanwhile, other awards encouraged incremental improvement. By making the ideal both credible and actionable, the movement activated self-interest: boards of leading Green Building Councils represent market diversity, and major corporations compete on “greenness.”

* This movement has also translated itself across cultural, political, and sectoral boundaries. Having started among engineers and architects focused on non-residential buildings, it has at times successfully onboarded manufacturing, facilities/asset management, and home builders.

Where sparks failed to catch

* Too often, instead of catalyzing broad engagement, the movement has judged, shamed, or excluded — repelling the very people it sought to inspire. By policing purity and drawing us/them lines, it has failed to connect with how people actually want to live, leaving both newcomers and veterans isolated. Despite the fact that buildings shape everyone’s life, the movement leaned on moralism instead of self-interest, speaking mostly to a narrow, educated elite. What could have been a universal cause fractured into insular debates, drifting at the mercy of stigma and public opinion rather than sparking wide-scale change.

* Modern slavery and ultra-processed foods are much “younger” concepts, yet they feature in Nobel or Pulitzer prizes, industry awards, political strategy, and cultural recognition. By contrast, not a single celebrity serves as a spokesperson for green building, nor has a politician stepped forward as its champion. Even President Obama’s keynote at Greenbuild 2019 (Atlanta, GA) failed to demonstrate strategic understanding or nuance. This is astonishing: if green building is a no-brainer, why hasn’t it secured more high-profile advocacy? Even far more complex issues (crypto, for example) command greater political support.

* While the movement has built a shared language of carbon, light pollution, and IEQ (aka, indoor environment quality), to most people it remains a specialist’s code rather than a common cause. Its milestones have blurred — once-bold “platinum” standards faded into baseline best practice, while awards multiplied without resonance. The movement has done little to shape public imagination, leaving minimal cultural imprint. It has rarely aligned itself with defining moments — fires, pandemics, air quality crises — that might have cemented its relevance, nor has it translated global deadlines into stories people can follow. Unlike civil rights or conservation, its wins are neither widely known nor woven into cultural vernacular: where are the children’s books, songs, or heroes? Who are the Erin Brockovich, Nelson Mandela, Greta Thunberg, or Rosa Parks of the green building movement?

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2. Nurturing

If catalyzing is the spark, nurturing is the hearth. An effective movement isn’t just fire—it’s the warmth that keeps us gathered, the glow that makes struggle bearable. It doesn’t just move us forward—it holds us together. It creates a sense of belonging so deep that, even in hardship, we feel we’re among the best company of our lives. At its strongest, this bond becomes an intimate emotional relationship — not just with people, but with the movement itself. We feel seen, supported, and sustained. Often, this is made real through genuine, life-altering relationships with like-minded others. These are not casual connections; they are the social fabric that helps us stay in the work even when it gets hard.

What took hold

* A Thirst for Meaning is one of the ten megatrends I have identified as reshaping the world (see earlier posts). The global green building movement has offered a sense of purpose to countless people, infusing meaning into otherwise cheaper-by-the-dozen tasks and professions. Overall, this movement has leveraged metrics effectively to let individuals feel like a part of something bigger than themselves.

* This movement has also inarguably built community! Like many, I owe it life-long relationships. Enduring friendships that were formed before “green building” became a smart career move and that were fueled by trusting each other’s intentions in a way the world rarely allows. Connections that transcend work titles and make us giddy about industry events because we will bask in the nourishing embrace of our tribe.

* Within its fringe community, this movement has offered clear competitive advantage for individuals, publications/media, products, and businesses. Countless ideas have taken flight due to the direct support of this community, cultivating excellence that ultimately benefits everybody.

What failed to resonate

* While an enjoyable prerequisite for a movement, community is not the same as a movement. Fueled by passion, movements can suffocate in the very amity meant to protect belonging. The global green building movement, like many of its peers, has too often mistaken community for movement — unwittingly sacrificing what brought people together in the first place. Over time, this has reduced even the most fervent causes to Monday-night bingo. Whenever it achieves community, each movement must decide to go to the next level. Too often, this one has not.

* Perhaps because it hasn’t been clear about which systems change it targets, this movement has demanded martyrdom for far too long. Being underpaid has served as a rite of passage. Somewhere along the way, overwhelm became a proxy for commitment. Burnout has at times been boasted of, as though it were the ultimate proof of competence. Needless to say, this is a problem. Any movement that fails to adjust expectations after the initial self-sacrifice will burn through its people and fizzle out.

* Harmony is vital, and yet the global green building movement has run gravely low on cohesion. In-fighting may signal potential, but once witnessed by the world it becomes a liability. Too often, this lack of consensus has given decision-makers a ready excuse to dismiss the movement in the halls of power. With rare exceptions like ASBEC (Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council, the peak body representing the entire movement), this movement has demanded wholesale acceptance by the world without first finding common ground within itself.

3. Recalibrating

A movement is not just a feeling — it’s a force. To last, it must forge change both outward and inward. Outwardly, it changes laws, norms, and markets. Inwardly, it refines vision against reality, tempers conviction with humility, adapts to conditions, and evolves rather than calcifies. We often resist this work because it is slow, technical, political— and humbling. It is also rarely glamorous. Yet this is how we measure movements when all is said and done. We are mobilized by energy and connection — but we remember whether it stuck the landing. It is in the forge that moments become movements, and movements become turning points.

Where systems forged

* The global green building movement has played a critical forging role in discrediting the “old normal.” Across the system, even its critics can now name what green building stands against.

* Despite the magnitude of its task, this movement has also forged new norms. Incandescent bulbs are outlawed in many countries, appliances disclose energy and water performance, green premiums have often disappeared, and sustainability is now a professional baseline. Whether or not individuals notice, society expects and receives more from the built environment over time.

* Resilient movements defend themselves and adapt. Against stiff headwinds, this one persists. Its decentralized structure has proven an asset — much as Visa’s distributed leadership or the U.S. military’s shift from “command and control” to “flexive command,” as Bob Johansen notes. Its survival also owes much to having enlisted enough of the right allies, some in positions of power, and to the moral conviction at its core. Even its underbelly of moral superiority has, paradoxically, helped sustain momentum: it appeals to many who crave the clarity of a righteous cause, and it has kept enough believers in the fight to ensure the movement never fully disappears.

Where systems change has faltered

* A persistent gap between intended and actual performance continues to splinter this movement. Most certified buildings fail to operate to their potential. The problem is not unlike owning the best car yet neglecting basic maintenance — or accepting that neither nature nor nurture can singlehandedly guarantee a great person — yet this movement remains stuck debating the superiority of one over the other.

* This movement has fallen short of the systems change it requires. While the ceiling has been raised, the floor remains stubbornly low. Too much rests on voluntary uptake, procurement nudges, or scattered incentives. The global green building movement also lacks a creed, hierarchy, or pathways for novices (unlike Girl Scouts, the Association of Realtors, or the Catholic Church) or a forging institution like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Worse, it has misapplied shame, turning it on people instead of practices. And yet shame, wielded well, is a powerful forge: it made ivory, furs, and blood diamonds unthinkable. A future post will explore how the “healthy buildings” agenda may yet seize this tool.

* This movement also shows signs of an auto-immune disorder—defending itself in ways that turn destructive. Overrepresented by geeks and outsiders, it has often guarded belonging with exclusion, creating echo chambers and canceling dissent. Its moral superiority, which at best fuels resilience, at worst hardens into rigidity. Instead of celebrating imperfect pioneers, it polices flaws; where other movements uphold figures like Mandela or Parks despite contradictions, the green building movement struggles even to credit Frank Lloyd Wright without disclaimers. When purity outweighs progress, a movement risks stalling into cultishness rather than evolving.

Building movements is hard. And it’s harder still because, until now, we have lacked the language, frameworks, and tools to launch, scale, and evaluate them with the same rigor we apply to markets, technologies, or buildings themselves. The global green building movement has already accomplished much against the odds, and its struggles are not signs of failure so much as reminders of how complex this work truly is.

By learning to see movements for what they are — living organisms that must catalyze, nurture, and forge — we can give them a better chance not just to survive, but to transform the world they set out to change. The green building movement is dear to me, so I hope that through the reflection this posts starts, we might just help it fulfill its promise to reshape the world we all live in.

Questions for you:

* Help flesh this out! What’s your vantage point — expert, consultant, policy-maker, builder, or simply someone who lives in buildings every day? From where you stand, what does the green building movement have going for it — and where is it falling short?

* When you think about movements that have stuck the landing (civil rights, #MeToo, conservation), what lessons might green building borrow?

* If you could catalyze one shift, nurture one bond, or recalibrate one system within green building — what would it be?

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