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Martha Graham, the great dancer and choreographer, once described the creative process as “blessed unrest.”
The same could be said of David Gottfried. Despite his good fortune in the conventional world of real estate development,
he was blessed with unrest, his unceasing curiosity and concern. Anyone who knows or has met David can feel the energy. It
is a toe-tapping, eye-flashing kinetic that takes on any challenge. What he took on was the building and construction industry
and its relationship to living systems. He took on the biggest industry in the world. As I said, blessed unrest.
Sustainability is about the relationship between the two most complex systems on earth—human and living systems. The
interrelationship between these two systems marks every person’s existence and underlines the rise and fall of every
civilization. While the word sustainability is relatively new, every culture has confronted this relationship for better or
ill. Historically, no civilization has reversed its tracks with respect to the environment but rather has declined and disappeared
because it forfeited its own habitat. For the first time in history, a civilization—its people, companies, and governments—are
trying to arrest this slide and understand how to live on earth. This is a watershed in human existence.
To
say this book is about the power of one person to change the world, though true, would be a cliché. This book is not
about David, sustainability, or even green buildings. It is about the mystery of change. Although it is axiomatic that everything
changes, it is a mystery as to how things change. What we have here is a first-person and animated account of how things have
and did change. When you read it, you will draw your own conclusions. It is about pluck and determination. And it is about
timing, hard work, and manufactured luck. But it is about conviction above all. Not the conviction that makes others wrong,
but the affirmation of what is right and what is possible. I have heard David speak several times in my life, and without
doubt, what he shares above all is enthusiasm, a word that comes from the Greek roots en theos meaning “within God.”
I have said that if this movement toward a green and just world is to succeed, it will be because we will build a more interesting
sandbox for everyone to play in. That is what David did: He founded and helped build the most important green trade organization
in the world. There is virtually no second place. Thousands of people and companies are playing inside it, creating the best
standards in the world. Nothing compares with the growth, magnitude, and import of the U.S. Green Building Council. No one
has done the metrics, but I believe it is safe to say that no organization has had a bigger impact on the environment than
this one in terms of energy and materials saved, toxins eliminated, greenhouse gases avoided, and human health enhanced. And
it is just the beginning.
It could be said that every person has the responsibility to live in their time.
This is our time: stunning in its promise, terrifying in its direction. David is living now. In Greed to Green he shares this
passage. He is brilliant, yes. But he is also Everyman. He has weaknesses and longings and aversions just as we all do. In
sharing himself and the fabric of a life well directed, we can find ourselves and know that little or nothing exceeds our
grasp if we love the world as well as David has.
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