A Huge Milestone on our Shared Journey

The seeds of what is now BuildingGreen were planted nearly four decades ago, when Alex Wilson started the company in his home in Dummerston, Vermont. Alex and his wife, Jerelyn Wilson, created this company and have nurtured it ever since.

Both Alex and Jerelyn are retiring from BuildingGreen at the end of 2023. This is momentous—the departure of both our visionary founder, Alex; and Jerelyn, our CEO of the past five years.

Although we’ll continue to have their guidance and wisdom as the majority owners, our small, tight-knit organization will feel their departure deeply. We owe the existence of this company—my employer for almost my entire career—to them, and I am tremendously grateful for the trust Alex has placed in me and the transformations we’ve catalyzed and supported together as pioneers in the green building space. 

Alex’s passion for nature and his prescience about the nascent green building industry’s needs have always motivated us. These passions, now shared by our whole BuildingGreen team, continue to fuel our work.

The first issue of Environmental Building News arrived in a few hundred mailboxes in July 1992, shortly after I joined Alex, and with that the BuildingGreen train really got rolling. That first issue included a deep dive on how CFCs—chemicals then widely used as refrigerants and as blowing agents used to make foam insulation—were destroying the ozone layer and contributing to climate change.

With that first article, we established three basic principles that have been core to our work ever since: 

1. A commitment to looking holistically at the impacts of our choices: the foam insulation that we were using to reduce energy loads had a downside. That didn’t mean we should stop insulating well—quite the contrary—but we needed to find better options. Our early reporting pioneered the use of life-cycle assessment for building products, always seeking to make sure that we were considering the whole picture. 

2. A focus on the products and materials that comprise our buildings. This seems so obvious now, and is at the core of our consulting practice, but at the time it was rarely given the attention it deserves. 

3. The long-form “feature article” format, which persists to this day on BuildingGreen.com and as our Spotlight reports. This form affords us the space for the context and background you need to understand the issues, and to entertain the nuances of every topic. Over the years of researching and writing these articles with Alex, I realized that if anything looks simple, I’m not looking closely enough. Conveniently, this long form also meets the requirements for an AIA or GBCI continuing education unit, so our readers can even earn CEUs while they learn from an independent media outlet that isn’t trying to sell them on a product or technology. 

We have an amazing team doing all of these things every day. 

BuildingGreen has always been a mission-driven company, long before B-Corp certification even existed as an option for demonstrating that commitment. Our mission was—and is—about transforming the building industry into a force for positive change. In the early 1990s, a limiting factor in that pursuit was a lack of good information. By providing that information, we like to believe that we helped advance the industry.

We’re no longer the only source of green building guidance: we have many great peers in this space. But we’re proud of our reputation for integrity and relevance, a trusted voice that comes from real people with expertise and passion for the material.

Our research and writing are also informed and guided by our hands-on consulting work and our engagement with sustainability leaders in our Peer Networks. We’re inspired by the amazing work and creativity we experience with all of you—our readers, our network members, and our consulting clients. 

We also believe strongly in taking care of our team; to that end, we’ll be closing our offices on December 22 for a holiday break and returning on January 2.

We hope that you also get some well earned time to relax and refresh, and we look forward to reconnecting with you in 2024 as we continue to champion Alex’s original mission and strive for positive change, together. 

– Nadav Malin, CEO, BuildingGreen