Building blocks of sustainability

In recent years, standards such as the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and Energy Star have done a lot to advance green building, proving that good design doesn't have to cost more -- and, in many cases, can save money.

But green buildings are often just "'islands of sustainability' -- excellent case studies in what's possible, but ultimately unconnected to their surroundings," according to a recent report in RMI's Solutions Journal (PDF).

The world's cities are now home to half the earth's population. By 2030, that figure is expected to mushroom to 5 billion people.

With all this anticipated growth, how can we take the experience and know-how from the green building community and scale it up?

Answer: "compassionate competition."

That's a term coined by an innovative San Francisco non-profit, Urban Re:Vision. By sponsoring a series of contests, the group hopes to spawn visionary ideas for "what can and should be in the design of urban space."

Previous competitions have focused on energy, transportation, community economic development, and sustainable building materials.

This fall, with RMI's help, the organization will launch its sixth and most ambitious competition to date. The challenge: design a sustainable city block. From the website:

Urban Re:Vision is re-thinking and re-designing all the components that make up a city block. We see the city block system as the building block of a city, and one that holds all the necessary pieces of the larger puzzle.  We believe that if we can create a truly sustainable city block model -- one that addresses existing infrastructures, integrates emerging community needs, utilizes the latest technologies, maximizes energy efficiency, and remains economically feasible -- then we can use it as a guide for all urban communities. And if our cities can become sustainable, then so can our world.

RMI and Urban Re:Vision will be hashing out what criteria make a city block "sustainable" later this summer. That framework will guide the competition when it launches this fall.

For more info and a brief video about the contest, check out this site.

Noah Buhayar is a fellow at Rocky Mountain Institute.