Director of the Resource Efficiency and Sustainable Communities Program
Global Green USA
SPEAKER INFORMATION
Email: wwells@globalgreen.org
Website: www.globalgreen.org
SESSION DESCRIPTION
Los Angeles LEEDs the way?
With a stroke of Governor Schwarzenegger’s pen Executive Order S-20-04 mandated that all California state-owned construction and renovations comply with LEED Silver standards. Smaller municipalities have taken further steps towards mandating LEED, among them the City of Los Angeles where an ordinance, authored by Council President Eric Garcetti, was just voted into law, calling for all buildings over 100,000 square feet to be LEED certified. Malibu is considering whether to waive certain permit fees if construction meets LEED standards. What does this mean for developers and architects? Does it go too far or not far enough? Can a building be green without the imprimatur of LEED? How far can, and should, the government go in the service of green building? Are incentives preferable to mandates?
Los Angeles city councilman Eric Garcetti, architect Roger Kurath of Design 21 and Walker Wells, Director of the Resource Efficiency and Sustainable Communities Program for Global Green USA take up just that question in a discussion that will address the affordability of citywide green design, the boundaries of government intervention in the private sector, and if it opts to, how precisely the city of Los Angeles ought to go about greening things up.
SPEAKER BIO
Mr. Wells is Director of the Resource Efficiency and Sustainable Communities Program for Global Green USA, a national non-profit organization headquartered in Santa Monica. He works with affordable housing developers, municipalities, and school districts across the country to further green building and sustainable development practices by providing technical assistance, conducting charrettes and workshops, and developing public policy. Mr. Wells is an editor and a co-author of the 2007 book Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing and the 2006 publication Creating Successful Green Building Programs.
Prior to joining Global Green Mr. Wells was a Senior Urban Design with Gruen Associates in Los Angeles, an Associate Planner with the City of Santa Monica, and an Urban Planner for the City of Malmo, Sweden. Mr. Wells holds Bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and Environmental Studies from the University of California Santa Barbara and a Master’s of City and Regional from the California Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo. He also studied at Lund University and the Lund PolyTechnic Institute School of Architecture in Swden. Mr. Wells is a certified urban planner, a LEED Accredited Professional, an advisor to the AIA National Housing Committee, a member of the US Green Building Council’s LEED for Home Committee (representing the affordable housing sector), an invited contributor to the Planetizen web site, and a lecturer on Green Urbanism at the Claremont Colleges.
