• EcoMethod
• ReMethod
• Carbon Challenge
  • 2030 Challenge
  • Living Building Challenge
  • Oregon Carbon Challenge
  • The Big Look Task Force
  • Portland Development Commission - Strategic Plan 2008-2012
  • ODOT - Context Sensitive and Sustainable Solutions Approach (CS³)
  • Western Climate Initiative
  • USGBC LEED - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design^®
• Goals
• How We Work Together

The Carbon Challenge

The Big Look Task Force

The 10-member Oregon Task Force on Land Use Planning was announced on January 23, 2006 by Governor Ted Kulongoski, Speaker of the House Karen Minnis, and Senate President Peter Courtney. Since then, the group has endeavored to evaluate Oregon's Land Use Planning Program and make recommendations for how it should be adapted to address the challenges of the future. Recent voter measures 37 and 41 have made it abundantly clear that there is not a consensus opinion about the effectiveness of our land use policies.

The original policies were crafted in the 1970's due to concerns about the loss of farms, sprawl, coastal development, water pollution and litter. Today's challenges have evolved to include population growth, climate change and global competition. EcoLogistics has a specific role to help with these new issues.

In the Stakeholder Group Briefing Booklet Draft dated 5/30/08, the task force makes a number of recommendations to deal with and mitigate the effects of climate change in Oregon.

"...Oregon's competitiveness as a state depends on continuing to make its communities more efficient. That can only be done by locally-led changes that make communities more efficient..."

"One of the major impediments to addressing carbon reduction is that the related tools to measure the effect of land use changes on carbon emissions are new, fairly complex and may not be easily available. It's important to improve these tools quickly to ensure that resources are invested wisely in planning for lower carbon impacts."

"As Oregon responds to climate change, documenting the benefits to the local economy will be as important as the benefits to the environment."

"Oregon should establish benchmarks for reducing greenhouse gases from all sources... There should be a corresponding effort to create better analytical tools to predict carbon emissions resulting from different land use, building and transportation alternatives."

"Other known strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that should be considered include: ...Developing tools for cities to calculate a "climate impact" for proposed land use actions including sustainable building practices."

"These actions should be initiated through development of better tools, incentives and demonstration projects. In addition, the state should provide technical services and promotion, marketing and education a, and other resources to local communities so that they can carry out threes strategies at the local level... All of these climate change strategies should come under the umbrella of a new state business plan, which would include staying abreast of new research and best practices occurring elsewhere, and monitoring its progress regularly."

All of these quotes seem to predict that the EcoMethod and tools like it should be developed and widely used to develop the habits, economy and communities of the future. We are currently talking with public agencies at every level to help them understand the availability and potential of the EcoMethod in the construction sector.