Being Green Is Just Not Enough
The other day someone asked me how I felt about being a green lawyer. I thought about it for a few minutes and responded, "I'm not a green lawyer, I'm a business lawyer." Sustainability is so much more than just being “green.”
We hear about the triple bottom line (depending upon your vernacular): people, plant, profits; or community, environment, business; or equity, environment, economics. If you imagine the triple bottom line as a three-legged stool, as it is often characterized by Dick Roy, founder of Oregon Lawyers for a Sustainable Future, Northwest Earth Institute and the Oregon Natural Step Network, then you realize we must achieve balance among all three components. Remove one of the legs of the sustainable stool and it topples over. We can't achieve sustainability for the community or for the environment if we don’t achieve sustainable economic interests, too.
I recently returned from the Green Building Conference in Chicago. No doubt Portland is very good at building green buildings. But, if Portland wants to establish the standards of the sustainable economy and continue to demonstrate leadership in the sustainability movement, then Portland needs to incubate, develop and promote businesses that create the products and services that actually go into green buildings.
If Portland is happy with just being green, then Portland won't be sufficiently sustainable.
