About Us - Build It Green

About us

Most Californians would agree that there are better ways to build homes and develop and maintain the neighborhood in which we live. Build It Green (BIG), believes that regenerative communities—which are not extractive, go beyond sustainability, and build potential for adaptation and resilience—are the way forward so that everyone can live in a place that’s affordable, equitable, and healthy.

In our first two decades, via our GreenPoint Rated system and other programs, BIG worked with builders to normalize green homes throughout California. After a successful history focused on individual homes, BIG expanded our focus to transforming neighborhoods more broadly. We saw a need to address intersecting environmental, social equity, and affordability issues in the places we live, which are larger than the four walls of our homes. We also saw that if these issues are not approached in a holistic, integrated way, we will fail to address these pressing needs or reach our vision.

Just as 20 years ago we catalyzed California’s residential green building sector, today we can, and must, spark California’s regenerative neighborhoods field. Regeneration enables us to see the potential of our places, to understand how homes fit into bigger human and natural systems, and to discover how to approach complex, interwoven issues in ways that deliver a multitude of benefits to both people and nature. What’s more, regeneration enables us to evolve ourselves, develop new patterns of thinking, and to see possibilities that we would have never envisioned before; regeneration enables us to become nurturers of people, places, and nature.

That’s why today we connect and inspire changemakers — like developers, neighborhood advocates, nonprofits, government officials, and more — from all over the state to break down silos, form new partnerships, and come up with innovative approaches to the places and homes in which we live that don’t compromise on the things that matter most.

Foundations of Our Work

Regeneration is an approach and a mindset, not only a set of specific outcomes. It’s not a destination, or just a single destination, but a process we continually apply to make the places we call home better at creating well-being for both people and for nature.

Through a commitment to equity, we strive to support and uplift the capabilities of those marginalized to engage with, tackle, and decide on issues relevant to themselves and their neighborhoods.

Our work is rooted in the wisdom inherent in ecological systems and we strive to respect and advance the interdependence between the natural and built worlds as we transform the housing system into one that nurtures people, places, and nature.

Collaboration means never working in isolation, and, instead, always thinking about how we can include others, involve diverse viewpoints and bring our collective intelligences and abilities to the work of transforming California’s housing system.