We are pleased to share our 2022 Impact Report!

I deeply believe that as a society we are going to make the transition to a resilient future. That said, the path to get there may not be smooth or pretty. However, if the pandemic has taught us anything, it is that when faced with crisis, we can adapt and rise to the occasion.

At Green Canopy NODE, we stand at the forefront of this movement, fully aware of the magnitude of the problem and the immense potential for positive change. Through our commitment to building carbon-negative, healthy homes, we strive to regenerate communities and environments, demonstrating that housing can be a catalyst for transformation.

We are a deeply committed community of teammates, board members, shareholders, impact investors, institutional investors, homeowners, landowners, developers, affordable housing groups, architects, real estate agents, and sub-contractors.

Together we are building the future of housing!

I invite you to join us on this journey. Please feel free to start by sharing with me your insights and reflections on this report.

 With deep gratitude,

Susan Fairchild
Chief Marketing & Impact Officer

The Spring season begins a beautiful process of birth and renewal. What once was dormant, begins to awake, slowly unfurl, and reveal its true purpose. To be called to purpose with such intention is not to be taken lightly.

Amidst the ongoing strain of the pandemic and global crises, Green Canopy & NODE took the concept of purpose further. Rather than tackle the challenges of the construction industry separate from each other, we recognized that we could accelerate transformation of the construction industry towards greater sustainability, health, and affordability together. Today, Green Canopy NODE is a collective of investors, innovators, changemakers, makers-at-heart, and people living their lives aligned to purpose. Our shared vision is to provide more healthy and sustainable housing for people of all income levels across the nation.

I am grateful to not be alone in this work. At Green Canopy NODE we come together in a coordinated effort to do more than one person could on their own. I am blessed with a deeply committed community of teammates, board members, shareholders, impact investors, institutional investors, homeowners, landowners, developers, affordable housing groups, architects, real estate agents, and sub-contractors; all playing an important role in achieving our collective mission and vision.

I welcome you to engage with us on this journey! Please feel free to start by sharing with me your insights and reflections on this report.

With deep gratitude,
Susan Fairchild, Chief Marketing and Impact Officer
Green Canopy NODE

By Aaron Fairchild + Bec Chapin, Co-CEOs of Green Canopy NODE

Green Canopy and NODE have merged into one company! We are excited to share why Green Canopy NODE, a Social Purpose Corporation, has combined – and it is not simply because we can do more together than on our own.

In the weeks leading up to the 2020 spring equinox, the virus was rapidly spreading through our region; restaurants closed, employees were laid-off, markets gyrated, investors panicked, and the collective human consciousness paused in cautious curiosity and awe. It was at that time, as an unraveling was occurring, that we, Bec and Aaron, came together to explore how we could help.

Today, in the knowledge that a seismic psychological and physical quake continues to tremble across the globe, we have come together in hope. In this hopeful work, like so many of us, we are asking how long will this go on? Will the impacts of COVID transform our society for the better? What more can be done to pull a better future forward?

Where do we source hope?

We have a right to be in as dark a mood as we want, because things are indeed bleak. But hope is a virtue – which is to say, it’s an excellence that we aspire to. No matter how dark your mood is, you still have a responsibility to aspire to the virtuous. Hope is a refusal to succumb to despair and nihilism.”
– Cornel West, Sun Interview, September, 2018

“I should say that hope for me is distinct from idealism or optimism. It has nothing to do with wishful thinking. It is a muscle, a practice, a choice: to live open-eyed and wholehearted in the world as it is and not as we wish it to be.”
– Krista Tippet

“Hope, in a deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, but, rather, an ability to work for something that is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed … Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
– Vaclav Havel

Within these reflections, we find an active hope, not simply a refusal to succumb. Hope is an inner conviction, within darkness, to pursue a pathway toward light. Hope does not require optimism, nor should it be confused with optimism. Hope is all the good that individuals do in the face of uncertainty and a surrounding sense of despair. To be hopeful is to be actively compassionate during times of uncertainty; to be virtuous in the face of uncertainty is to be hopeful.

During a pandemic, NODE and Green Canopy merged in hope. With a bias to action and a determination to be of service to communities and the environment, the team of Green Canopy NODE is not just looking to change the cost and sustainability equation of housing, we also want to change how we work together to build the future, and how we live together in the future we all build. We believe that through a wholesome and active hope we can help society and a planet in need.

In this season, we, Aaron and Bec, are grateful to combine forces within one dedicated company of people to help transform ourselves and the world around us. Thank you for supporting us, cheering us on, investing in our shared sense of active, virtuous hope, and for your unacknowledged acts of kindness that help us all heal.

The year 2020 will go down in history books. We navigated through a pandemic and participated and observed civil unrest due to the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and others. During this time, an additional 200,000 small businesses permanently shuttered, while at the same time the largest tech companies grew and billionaires profited such that their wealth grew by 27% during the peak of the crisis.

Perhaps we needed 2020 to rip the band aid off our perception that the world is just fine, and that status quo is good enough. Yet, the built environment is still responsible for 40% of our global carbon emissions. And, amidst a housing affordability crisis, the nation is 3.8 million homes short of demand and growing.

Fortunately, people did come together to reimagine a more resilient and vibrant future. We hope that by sharing this report we can create further inspiration and market transformation towards a brighter, more resilient, healthy and equitable future that in our hearts know is possible. While 2020 was a particular challenging year, Green Canopy continues to position itself to disrupt the industry to ensure a better alternative to the current paradigm of housing.

With deep gratitude,
Susan Fairchild
Director of Investor Relations & Impact

By Aaron Fairchild

Green Canopy’s Mission:
Building relationships, businesses, and homes that help regenerate communities and environments.

Last year for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, I wrote that I hoped that observing Earth Day during a time of historic global crisis would perhaps draw greater attention to the need for society to transform to be more just, equitable and resilient. It was an observation that the purpose of Earth Day needs to expand to include justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.

Today, as the dawn broke on the shoreline of spring in America, accountability for the injustice of George Floyd’s murder was served. It reminds me what can be accomplished when a large collective comes to agreement that justice can be achieved, justice in voting and representation, housing, education, policing, health care and the environment. When we come together and demonstrate compassion through accountability for injustice, we create the conditions required for justice in all its forms to emerge into the radiance of our collective demonstration, and we are blessed.

When we collectively exercise restraint of our worst and consumptive impulses, our better versions have more space to emerge throughout our lives.

This ongoing social justice movement offers an opportunity to deepen and expand the original purpose of Earth Day. Created in 1970, “Earth Day is an event to increase public awareness of the world’s environmental problems.”

I believe that examples of aligning environmental and social issues point the way to reconsider what Earth Day should be about. Environmental organizations run the risk of being seen to appropriate social justice issues as merely a means of advancing environmental agendas. Their approach must be grounded in genuine partnership and compassion and focused on the equitable and just behavior of humans in all the environments we occupy.

 Can we adjust the aperture of Earth Day’s intent to be more wholistic and inclusive of social justice, equity, diversity and inclusion?

Throughout the pandemic I have felt hope when seeing several social and environmental impact organizations and projects outwardly share the observation that the environmental movement can and must be more inclusive. Perhaps when looking back fifty years from the future, we will be able to point to this moment of enhanced social justice awareness as the catalyst of greater societal unity and positive transformation across the planet.

Below are data points of hope from many different organizations that highlight positive alignment at the intersection of social and environmental issues.

I look forward to attending both the Nobel Prize, Theater of War production as well as the MoMA exploration!

• Nobel Prize Summit: Our Planet our Future
  Theater of War productions presents at the Summit: Sophocles’ Oedipus the King on Zoom as a catalyst for powerful, constructive, global conversations about climate change, ecological disaster, and environmental justice.

• MoMA Event, 4/22 2:30pm PST: Black Reconstructions: Environmental Justice
  Architecture and community development that explores liberating possibilities for Black communities and how architecture can nurture people and communities.

• Zero Hour: Youth led intersectional solutions to climate change

• Climate Justice Alliance

• Sierra Club: Growing Stronger Together

• LEEP: Building equity from the ground up!

 
Locally:

• Carbon Leadership Forum has written several pieces highlighting the need to focus on the intersection of social justice and regenerative community development and climate change.

• Climate Solutions has been realigning their approach for a number of years now and should be acknowledge as leading many within the environmental movement toward positive social justice and equity outcomes.

  • Climate justice and the movement to end police brutality

  • Black Lives Matter

  • Why solving the climate crisis is more urgent than ever

• Washington Environmental Council should also be highlighted and acknowledge for their broadened awareness

• Washington Nature Conservancy: We're Here For A Resilient Future

• Ecotrust: Forward Progress

• Forterra

• Seattle Foundation

• Social Justice Fund

Natural Flow
af
 
Sit just above a stream, and
Listen to water flow.
Wind dances on your skin, and
Gently tickles tremoring licorice ferns
Up the spine of a mossy maple tree.
Sound, feeling, and movement harmonize
With birdsong blessings
Sprinkled into the air.
Feel this wilderness
Within you
To carry you
Throughout the day.

By Aaron Fairchild

The combination of Dr. Martin Luther King Day and the Presidential Inauguration happening this week, just after crossing the threshold into a new year, offers plenty for reflection.  

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

As we embark into 2021, our anticipation is fueled by all that has come to pass over the last year. 2020, at least in part, lived up to its promise of improved vision. Last year revealed with clarity an inequitable and unjust racial caste system at work throughout America. We watch as the physical, financial and emotional suffering brought on by COVID-19, and the outgoing Administration, disproportionately impact some Americans more others.

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Kahlil Gibran  

Where do you find joy?

Leading up to this Presidential Inauguration I have watched the replay of violent scenes at the Nation’s Capital disheartened, aghast and yet hopeful – I am sure this is an emotional mixture many of you share in degrees. To remain hopeful and perhaps even positive while feeling aghast and disheartened is to achieve a certain symmetry; balance and wholeness come to mind. The hard work of holding competing forces simultaneously becomes even harder given the uncertainty our Nation is experiencing.

How do we hold our collective need for accountability for violence and violent rhetoric, with love and empathy at the same time? What will you say to your friends and family that support(ed) Donald Trump the next time you see them?

Dr. Cornel West offers some hope.

“We come from a people who have been terrorized for four hundred years. And we’ve learned a lot from being terrorized. We’ve learned a lot from being invisible, spit on, dishonored, and devalued. One thing we’ve learned is that when you have been terrorized, it is spiritually empty to terrorize others back. We need to take it to a higher moral and spiritual level … In the age of terrorism, you can learn a whole lot from people who’ve been terrorized for four hundred years but who have taught the world so much about freedom; from people who’ve been hated for four hundred years but who still teach the world so much about love.” (The Quote is from an interview with Dr. West, Prisoner of Hope, in the Sun Magazine)

This quote calls me to look for role models in Dr. Martin Luther King and other peace activists of the civil rights era and their commitment to hold to love and peace in the face of violence. It asks me to follow the current agents of change within the African American community as examples of the possibility of holding empathy and love simultaneously with the need for accountability and justice. Black voices matter now as much as ever. Black safe spaces matter now as much as ever. Black lives matter now more than ever if we have any hope of coming together in harmony.

Listening to Black voices, for me, means I must be in listening proximity. Join me and Green Canopy in 2021 as we attempt greater proximity so we can better listen and continue learning the many ways real estate, the development of real estate, the financing of real estate, the construction of real estate and the ownership of real estate are being utilized as a massive turbine for African American community empowerment and positive environmental outcomes. Partnering in right relationship with and supporting Black owned, and/or Black led organizations, creates a force multiplier of positive social outcomes for everyone. When aligning issues of equity and justice with green real estate development methods and materials, greater social balance, sustainability and perhaps symmetry can be achieved.

Green Canopy looks forward to partnering with all of you and its many stakeholders throughout the region and ecosystem of real estate to advance its mission and Theory of Change in 2021.

Lastly, I leave you with a list a friend shared with me last week of 10-positive things of 2020. This list calls me to imagine even more positivity. It anchors me in considering how we show our love for each other. 

May the American community we inherited be blessed, and may we continue the hard work of bringing this community together in wholeness and with our love.

This past Sunday morning the Goodwill Missionary Baptist Church held a special, Beloved development Service. The Church, with members of the Nehemiah Initiative, launched an inspirational endeavor to empower the African American community by re-developing community land owned by the Church for affordable and sustainable housing. Black churches combined are the largest African American community landowners in Seattle. The epidemic of displacement has often forced them to sell their assets. The Nehemiah Initiative is a Beloved and inclusive initiative helping advocate for the retention and renewal of land owned within the African American community.

On behalf of the Nehemiah Initiative and the Goodwill Baptist Church, we would like to say thank you to those of you who joined the Facebook livestream of the Service! If you would like to watch the full service you can do so here. We have also recapped the service below.

Sunday Service at the Goodwill Missionary Baptist Church

The morning was a moment of wholeness and coming together on behalf of the African American community and Goodwill Church. The service began with the Praise Team soulfully lifting our spirits in preparation for a message of empowerment and purpose (Facebook Live minute 2:26)

Nehemiah Initiative Members each shared their perspective on the importance of the work

• Donald King, president and CEO of Mimar Studio | FB Live minute 23:34 | Full Text

  • Spoke on the Black church as “key to building our community and empowering and sustaining it.”

• Dr. Mark Jones | FB Live minute 30:27 | Full text

  • Spoke about Beloved Community and the importance of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words.

• Kateesha Atterberry, CEO Urban Black | FB Live minute 37:30 |Full text

  • She shared a deeply powerful story about a Black woman leader and the role of the church.

• Aaron Fairchild, CEO Green Canopy | FB Live minute 46:02 | Full text

  • Made the invitation to join this inclusive effort, to take one step towards wholeness, and asked for contributions to the pre-development planning effort (x2!)

• Bishop Garry Tyson, Pastor | FB Live minute 1:15:00

  • Gave a Sermon on Purpose

Thank you to everyone who was able to join the Sunday Service and to those of you who have already contributed to the pre-development planning efforts. We are pleased to share that as of today, we are just over halfway to our $50,000 goal!

If you haven’t already, we would like to invite you to join us by contributing to the Goodwill Church’s Building Fund.

Development site rendering

Development site currently

We will continue to share more about this project and the work to regenerate our communities in the weeks and months ahead. Thank you for joining us on this journey!

With Gratitude,

The Members of the Nehemiah Initiative that spoke at Sunday’s Service.

• Bishop Garry Tyson, Donald King, Dr. Mark Jones, Kateesha Atterberry, and Aaron Fairchild*

*Green Canopy is grateful for the opportunity to join members of the Nehemiah Initiative in advocating for Goodwill Missionary Baptist Church.

For Contributions by Check or Donor Advised Funds:
Name: Goodwill Baptist
Purpose: Building Fund
Attn: Bishop Garry Tyson
EIN: 91-1249502
Address: 126 15th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122

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For further recommended reading:

-   McKinley Futures Nehemiah Studio Book (download PDF)

-   Learn about the importance of the Black Church in the African American community and the reason the need is profound.

-   Building Beloved Community While Working to Decarbonize Buildings

-   Green Canopy’s blog on Wholeness.

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Full Livestream Recap Text:

Donald King:

First meetings with Bishop and Aaron and the founding of the Nehemiah Initiative – it was more than a project opportunity; this is bigger than that

Project goals and guidelines – to be designed on this nearly blank canvas thru participation of the Beloved Community to embed these qualities:

HUMILITY – Modest , but elegant

HUMANITY – An example of being a shepard of God’s people and stewards of their environment

HISTORY – Expressions of our African origins and our people’s resiliency

Primarily, the design is about the juxtaposition of traditional and contemporary. Green design as a spiritual responsibility and representative of Bishop Tyson’s declaration that:

“Goodwill will no longer be just a church in the community, it will be a community church”

The design of the structures and provision of spaces is and outward manifestation and integral with the mission of the church for Beloved Community.

In closing, I’d like to say that:

All lives matter

All communities matter

All churches matter

However:

Black lives have been in jeopardy and under threat in this hemisphere of the world since 1619 – Black lives matter

Black people didn’t build communities to be separate from others, they were legally segregated for over a century – Black communities matter

The traditional Black church was key to building our community and empowering and sustaining it – in these challenging times, Goodwill, with these projects is delivering on that legacy of the community church and we seek your support to help us do that

Thank you and God bless you.

---

Mark Jones:

Genesis 4:1 [Cain and Abel]

God asked him where his brother was. Cain answered, “I know not; am I my brother's keeper?”

When you build Beloved Community, the answer is “Yes you are."

Matthew 40 (NIV)

"The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'"

In June 1957, in a speech on Beloved Community entitled “The Power of Non-Violence” Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King replied:

The aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of non-violence is the creation of Beloved Community, so that when the battle is over, a new relationship comes into being. The end is reconciliation. The end is redemption. This is the love that may well be the salvation of our civilization.

Nehemiah Initiative

Nehemiah Initiative is not just about erecting buildings:

It is about Building Beloved Community(s) that transform oppressive behavior (“Othering”) into “Belonging”

It is about Building Beloved Community(s) that create safe and supportive environments within organizations, neighborhoods, and communities.

It is about Building Beloved Community(s) where YOU are Consumer-Producers as residents, property-owners, business owners, and investors — not renters and wage-based employees, and customers

It is about Building Beloved Community(s) where YOU can depend on your Brothers and your Sisters to create and sustain a just economy that allows you to thrive

It is about Building Beloved Community(s) where YOUR life overflows with Mercy, Love in the form of Joy, and deep Compassion for yourself and for others

Conclusion

Let me repeat Dr. King said:

The aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of non-violence is the creation of Beloved Community, so that when the battle is over, a new relationship comes into being. The end is reconciliation. The end is redemption. This is the love that may well be the salvation of our civilization.

Research Briefings

• Briefing 1

• Briefing 2

• Briefing 3

• Briefing 4

• Briefing 5

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Kateesha Atterberry:

1.  Importance of Black Institutions

1.1.    History of Black Church

1.2.    Institution of Faith, Fellowship, Healing & Hope, and Economic Safety Net

1.3.    Dismantling of the Black Institution; loss of Legacy

2.  Black Leadership & Black Women in Leadership

2.1.    Black Women are at the helm of change and innovation

2.2.    Showing up in 90%+ in voting, leading Seattle Police depts, building corporations, or ascending to the highest position in the land as Vice President.

2.3.    We make things happen. But it’s not easy

3.  Story of a Black Woman in Leadership

3.1.    Horrific car accident Thanksgiving week of last year;

3.2.    Underwent brain & skull surgery, along with face reconstruction; 20 neurosurgeons, plastic surgeons, ENT doctors, nurses, and physical therapists.

3.3.    It was the church that saved her and these kids. The Body of Believers. An institution.

3.4.    That woman was me. Now, let me return the favor.

“Behold! I will do a new thing

Now shall it spring forth; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert

The beasts of the field honor me, the jackals, and the owls,

Because I provide water in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert

To give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself

That they declare my praise.” – Isaiah 43:18

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Aaron Fairchild:

My Name is Aaron Fairchild and I am so honored to be up here to make an ask. But before we get into that all the rest of it I have a couple, few people I would like to recognize and thank.

Thank you to the Goodwill Baptist membership. While our first meeting down in the fellowship hall was at times tense and uncertain, what has never felt uncertain since is your commitment to living into your faith on those Sundays when you open your arms to my children, my wife, and me to join you in this sacred house of worship; the very beating and living heart of this community. You have opened your hearts to me and I am so grateful and humbled and I will be forever blessed. If it weren’t for all of you, I would not be here today advocating for your pastor and this community. None of us would be here. You have blessed me and all of us, and in so doing we share a blessed space.

I would also like to thank the members of the Nehemiah Initiative. You have been steadfast and committed. Meeting Tuesday after Tuesday, month after month and year upon year. The Pastors! Thank you for your participation in this journey of renewal – Pastor Noble, Broughton, Ransford, Maize and so many more, thank you. Without all of you we would not be here today.

I would like to thank the folks at the UW, starting with Renee Cheng the Dean of the CBE who caught the vision of the Initiative and its potential and championed it within the University creating the Nehemiah Studio. Al Levine, Rachelle Berney, Brandon Borne and of course Donald King thank you for your inspiring energy and passion for the effort you put into curating an amazing quarter of field work and discovery. And of course the students who poured their hearts and minds into the work that we are now building off as the catalyst development project at Goodwill begins to come to life. You all have been so inspiring to me and certainly without your efforts none of us would be here on this stage today. And of this Nehemiah family, I would especially like to recognize, Anne Stadler, our soul sister. You are an amazing force of positive energy and a well of deep wisdom. When you speak, everyone stops what they are doing and we listen, because what you bring adds so much value. Thank you Anne.

I would finally like to say thank you to Bishop. Bishop Tyson, my pew walkin’ preacher friend. What to say… what to say? I have been thinking about this conversation a lot over the last few days and my mind and my heart continue coming back to you. Over the last few years I have known you, you have demonstrated amazing courage and humility and at times the gifts of a fighter. But more often I see on displayed the gift of grace, love, and patience and understanding for those around you. You have trusted and remained open to me, your congregation and your community, and to our Nehemiah members - never forcing things. Rather you allow a heavenly energy to flow and guide you in a methodical and meditative manner. You are following flow my friend. With love and acceptance you invited me, all of us on this stage and many others to join you on this inclusive journey, and we will do whatever we can to not let you down and to be deserving of your love, patience, trust and understanding. Thank you, brother.

So now we can get into who I am, and all the rest of it…

So, who am I? My name is Aaron Fairchild and I am a PnW boy, and I run a company called Green Canopy. I came to my work through an earnest and sincere desire to help resolve the dichotomy between our civilization’s behaviors and the environment of which we are called to steward. However, along my journey I continue to learn more, and become more aware of the multitude of issues our civilization is facing that perpetuates this dichotomy. The most significant of these I believe is our inability to compassionately come together and to be whole.

In this historic year as we look out into the world it can often seem so dark. Recession, illness, voter suppression, death, and hardship seem to abound. This makes us feel anxious and at our worst, helpless. The system we live in is so massive and can feel crushing. In our little corner in the PnW, I know many of us are asking what can I possibly do that would have any impact on the unrelenting and often cruel march of world events? And so often the answer that we come to is, nothing. “How can I change the course of history for the better?” And so we reside back within ourselves and our privileged ability to join the largest majority in the world; those that acquiesce. Believing we are helpless and unable to positively change the world for the better, we hand our power to the powerful and the structures they control that then go on to act in our names. And so the world continues its brutal march, with those of privilege and power putting their beliefs into action – and more often than not those actions are destructive and designed to maintain powerbases of privilege and they work to separate us from each other.

We live in a time that the call to vulnerable, active, and critically aware citizenship could not be more urgent! A time where much needed inspiration has the ability to invoke in us the courageous, yet powerfully simple act of that little child who yells out in a mind numbed multitude, “but the emperor wears no clothes!” Often when a simple yet courageous action such as that is taken, it can have transformational power. However, when we yield to that feeling of helplessness, and say or do nothing, we conspire with cynicism and despair. When we yield to helplessness, we strengthen the hand of those that seek to hold us down and separate us for their own power. But when we take back our power and choose to see the healing possibility for renewal and transformation, we open up with greater clarity and our creative energy swells up and flows outward as an active force for good in the world. In this way, we, in our small and tucked away lives here in the PnW, can become powerful agents of transformation in an American culture that is broken and in a dark time. We need to counter this current culture with a movement of wholeness.

One of the counter-culture gurus of the 1950s and 60s – Gary Snyder, who is still alive today in his 90s, once said…

To resolve the dichotomy of the civilized and the wild [the environment we are called to steward], we must first resolve to be whole.

Gary Snyder

This is what I am talking about! This is what Black Lives Matters is talking about. The simple and courageous desire to be whole. When we know that something isn’t right, and we feel helpless, we aren’t whole. But here is a pathway to wholeness… Luke Chpt 15, the parable of the lost sheep! Jesus says, when you have 100 sheep and you lose one, don’t give into helplessness and say, “well at least I got my 99!” No, he instructs us that it is really quite simple. It requires just one foot in front of the other and the courage that true compassion inspires to take that step and walk out into a dangerous world and lift up the sheep that has been left behind. Not because the 99 don’t matter! But because the one life left behind matters. And we are not whole until we come back together.

The story of how Bishop and I met is for another time. But I will share that when we met, he invited me to join him on a journey that is counter to this current ‘gotchya’ culture of separation; I would like to invite you as well. It is a journey that Bishop Tyson began 27 years ago when he answered God’s pastoral calling, to go from one coast of this country to the other with love, compassion, patience and tolerance and to inspire within all of us, and those that have been left behind, the courage, born from compassion, to have faith and to not give into to our sense of helplessness, but to join him in a Beloved journey of empowerment.

Within the broad and inclusive approach the Bishop has taken to develop this community’s land is an opportunity for us to share wholeness. It is an opportunity for all of us, to take one compassionately courageous step and join this effort by committing ourselves and our money to see this vision through. So please, this is important, projects like this are important for healing. And they don’t come around very often! When they do, they point the way for others to counter this current culture. When a great body of people such as us come together in love and compassion to demonstrate what we can build together, it has the ability to create a great wave of love to wash over others and inspire them to throw aside their helplessness, to take that first courageous step forward, and to lift up those that have been left behind and be whole. Please join us by contributing whatever you can afford… X2! J Go to the Church’s Givelify site and give. Write a check and mail it to the church. Call me or Bishop or someone you know associated with this community and take one step closer to being whole by giving to this community. Thank you.

By Aaron Fairchild

I am excited to share the most inspiring collaborative effort I have been a part of. Goodwill Baptist Church, an African American church in Seattle’s Central District, is hosting a conversation during their Sunday morning service to talk about their community development vision. Their approach and vision has opened my eyes in many ways. You see, I came to my work at Green Canopy through an earnest desire to help resolve the dichotomy between our civilization’s behavior and the environment upon which we rely. As I continue my journey, I become increasingly aware of the many issues facing our civilization. And the most significant of these, I believe, is our difficulty coming together to be whole.

To resolve the dichotomy of the civilized [world] and the wild [environment], we must first resolve to be whole.
- Gary Snyder

This is what people call for when explaining Black Lives Matter. Not that everybody else doesn’t matter, but that society is not whole until we collectively lift up Black lives and bring them into a shared wholeness of opportunity and prosperity. Lifting up the Black Church is a regenerative effort in many aspects. By helping to empower this community to develop their land, we help lift up a cornerstone of the African American culture and contribute to our collective wholeness! Learn more about the importance of the Black Church in the African American culture and why helping the Black Church is so important.
 
I would like to invite you to join this conversation during their normal Sunday service via a Facebook livestream, this Sunday, August 16th at 10am. I hope you can join me in this regenerative effort that expands outward beyond Goodwill Baptist Church. 

RSVP for the Livestream

The Goodwill Baptist Church Development Plan

In 2017 I had the pleasure of meeting Bishop Garry Tyson of Goodwill Baptist Church. He reached out to Green Canopy to discuss a property owned by the church. He shared with me that over the last decade, 12 Black churches in the Central District have felt forced to sell their land as victims of the ongoing epidemic of displacement. At our meeting Bishop Tyson invited me to join him on a journey of empowerment, collaboration and friendship that continues today with routine meetings to identify partners and iterate development approaches. 

Through a collaboration with the College of the Built Environment at the University of Washington, the Nehemiah Initiative, and Green Canopy; Goodwill Baptist has developed a generative approach to help build a more beloved community in the Central District. Goodwill Baptist will develop their property in three phases as an example of what we can accomplish working together. Phase One, at a high level, will focus on affordable housing for families in a deep green apartment building constructed on a their vacant, grass parking lot. Phases Two and Three will focus on sustainable mixed use and mixed income projects.

The development decisions for all three phases are led by the Church and African American led organizations, with the shared desire to hire second chance employees to construct these projects through the general contractor, Square Peg Developers and their partner WELD. Green Canopy will continue in support of Goodwill Baptist and the development team to help ensure the highest degree of quality and sustainability can be most cost-effectively achieved.
 
In order to advance the work of Phase One, the Goodwill Baptist’s development team, led by developer and property manager Urban Black and architect Donald King (members of the Nehemiah Initiative), need to complete the pre-development work. Until now, the work has been a labor of shared commitment. So, Goodwill Baptist Church is seeking charitable contributions to help raise a minimum of $50,000 to complete the pre-development work.
 
I would like to invite you to consider contributing to Goodwill Baptist’s Building Fund and joining us on Sunday’s livestream at 10am.

Contribute to the Building Fund

$50,000, a relatively minor sum, is necessary to fund the initial part of the pre-development work required to complete the community engagement, development plan and concept design. Once there, the church’s development team will continue to raise any additional funds needed to complete the full permit package and pay permitting fees. This will also allow serious conversations for construction and long-term financing to begin. A collective giving effort to help empower this community to develop their land is the first step toward building the broad base of support necessary to activate the Beloved Community of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision for the Central District and our region.
 
Dr. King’s Beloved Community is a global vision of wholeness, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In Dr. King’s vision of Beloved Community, poverty, hunger, and homelessness will not be tolerated because the structures of our collective human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood; wholeness. Only through the wholeness a beloved community has to offer can the dichotomy of the civilized world and our environment be resolved. The approach that Bishop Tyson has taken is a restoration to wholeness; a beloved community development approach. Contribute and be a part of helping to midwife a future that generations to come will be grateful to inherit.   

Contribute to the Building Fund

RSVP for the Livestream

By Aaron Fairchild

In the heart of Ballard, arguably one of the region’s most opportunity rich communities, seven newly constructed, affordable homes will soon be available to rent for families earning 60% and 80% of the area median income. In partnership with many others, Green Canopy will complete these Net Zero Ready, all-electric, healthy, Built Green certified and affordable homes this summer.

At the front end of the COVID-19 pandemic the crossed the equinox and entered into spring and I wrote,

“As the earth crosses the threshold of equinox into spring, humanity finds itself awakening to the reality that society too is crossing a threshold.”

Shortly thereafter, in the fullness of springtime in bloom, much of America, and many parts around the world, experienced a secondary awakening, crossing yet another threshold. Mr. Floyd’s brutal passing was the moment the world recognizes as a threshold’s leading edge into new societal territory. The future our hearts know is possible, feels possible. The better version of our society and interactions feels possible. I am grateful for those in the streets protesting in favor of ushering in that better version of ourselves. They march for change and transformation, for justice, for equity, for the young, the old, for Black lives, for the left behind, marginalized and excluded; they march for humanity’s better version to bloom.

The work needed to realize this time’s greater purpose takes courage.

Indeed, we are all linked by our common humanity and feel that we must do something. In 2017 Green Canopy officially changed its mission to, We build homes, relationships, and businesses that help regenerate communities and environments. The journey since then has been filled with learning how to navigate rapidly changing markets, learning what regenerating communities requires, and learning how to cost effectively build the best-in-class housing that regenerative communities deserve. It has also been filled with attentive listening into new relationships and deepening existing ones. Through it all I have come to understand that for Green Canopy to realize its full potential, those relationships are the most critical component to our regenerative approach.

In this moment, can we let go of fear, listen and collectively focus on what action is needed to create more equitable, healthier, and resilient communities and relationships?

Taking the difficult yet necessary steps to explore the white supremist American culture begins with the listening and vulnerability required to let empathy flow in. From there a personal journey can begin. One that is full of exploration and learning the history that undergirds the present, and how we contribute to injustice and inequity. With lessons learned and relationships built throughout Green Canopy’s history, our team continues to learn and improve its ability to respond with compassion. May we prove ourselves worthy of this work, and may you hold Green Canopy accountable to the work our future requires. Below is but one example of this work.

Can we consider new and more equitable ways to provide for society’s basic needs such as, health, food, housing, education, security, and employment?

In the heart of Ballard, arguably one of the region’s most opportunity rich communities, seven newly constructed, affordable homes will soon be available to rent for families earning 60% and 80% of the area median income. In partnership with many others, Green Canopy will complete these Net Zero Ready, all-electric, healthy, Built Green certified and affordable homes this summer.

These homes were designed far beyond what the basic code requires to accommodate families; five of the units have three bedrooms, and two units have two bedrooms with garages. We are humbled to work with so many aligned partners on this project. The relationships required to produce deep green and affordable homes, utilizing a reverse displacement strategy into an existing community of opportunity, are many and worthy of note. Without the contribution of all of these people and organizations, this project would not have been possible.

With deep gratitude for the work require for change, we would like to thank:

• The Washington State Housing Finance Commission. This group of people deserves special recognition for seeing the vision and quickly organizing to ensure that these deep green units in the heart of Ballard can be offered to families at the 60% and 80% AMI levels. Thank you…you all are amazing!

• Russ Katz with Windermere Real Estate who initiated this project at the beginning – 7 new Net Zero Energy Ready homes were built in our community because of the opportunity you helped bring together.

• Julian Weber and the talented team at JWA, we appreciate the way you demonstrate your values through the innovation of your designs and your own Net Zero Energy office building!

• Malsam-Tsang Structural Engineering for your long-term partnership and consistent, thoughtful approach to structural design.

• The investors in Green Canopy’s Cedar Fund for championing a project at the intersection of your values.

• Urban Black and Kateesha Atterberry for your friendship, guidance and desire to collaborate on making these best-in-class homes available to families in need.

By Aaron Fairchild

I recently spent a couple of days at SOCAP18. After the conference, I had the opportunity to screen a soon-to-be-released Australian documentary called, 2040. 2040 is a beautiful “future-fit”, utopian depiction of a potential future made possible by incorporating carbon drawdown methods and technologies. 
 
The week before the screening a new environmental philosopher friend shared a concept she has written about extensively — the Precautionary Principle. She explained this by saying, “One can’t use uncertainty as a justification for inaction. One must use precaution to mitigate harmful outcomes even in the face of uncertainty.”
 
Appling this to positive impact investors could translate to: “Investors and their financial fiduciaries can’t use financial uncertainty as a justification for inaction. Given the urgency of our social and environmental challenges, investors must use precaution to mitigate harmful financial outcomes — And still identify ways to invest in positive social and environmental opportunities even in the face of financial uncertainty.”
 
Unfortunately, in the face of our pressing social and environmental problems, the Precautionary Principle is often used as a reason not to invest in opportunities that generate positive impact outcomes. Even given our good intentions, the traditional structures of finance don’t legally allow moral social and environmental convictions to negatively influence financial outcomes. If the financial outcome is uncertain, but the social and environmental outcomes are clear and measurable — the existing legal frameworks and institutional structures justify inaction in the face of uncertainty.
 
As my mental turntable plays the paradoxical precautionary blues, I see images of the amazing people in the theater moving to a rhythm of positive change, but are we a little off the beat? 
 
How many times have you heard, “In order to attract more capital, the social and environmental enterprise must prove its ability to create market-rate returns. We need proven strategies.”? This thinking may lead to a slip-and-slide of marginalized outcomes in the pursuit of “market-rate” returns. Furthermore, the Precautionary Principle can create a disincentive to invest in positive social and environmental outcomes in uncertain market cycles or in investments labeled “concessionary.” In uncertain markets or uncertain categories, investors may justify putting the pursuit of positive outcomes on the shelf in favor of “proven” and more certain downside protection investment strategies.
 
According to Paul Hawken in the film 2040, 80% of the world’s agriculture is grown by small farm holders. However, in 2018 small farm holder investments are flat to down. Unfortunately, this is not an anomaly. Small to medium enterprise investments are flat to down, and renewable energy investments globally are flat to down as well. I recently learned of these alarming statistics on the Impact Alpha podcast, Getting to Yes. The decline observed in this podcast may be a result of investor’s growing uncertainty in the financial markets. Are we employing the Precautionary Principle? This may forecast a potential disturbing trend for urgently-needed investments in social and environmental solutions as the US economy advances into a market cycle already long in the tooth.
 
Understanding how we may be employing the Precautionary Principle helps clarify that even as we face urgent need to invest in social and environmental solutions, our desire for positive social and environmental outcomes often are left waiting on the side in the face of financial uncertainty. It is a difficult paradoxical dance to pull off. If true, I have three recommendations:

1. Engage and collaborate with the impact entrepreneurs.When the social and environmental outcomes are clear, measurable and convincing, but the financial outcomes are uncertain — engage! Offer to work directly with the social entrepreneur or fund manager to help craft precautionary strategies within the investment opportunity that mitigate potentially harmful financial outcomes. Assess the investment opportunity thoroughly, do your due diligence and collaborate to mitigate harmful financial performance while maintaining the positive social and environmental outcomes. 

2. Change the legal framework of professional financial organizations to align to the Benefit Corporation structure. Benefit Corporations structurally embed expanded fiduciary obligations to include social and environmental considerations.

3. Work with a separate advisory committee or due diligence team. As an individual investor that is not constrained by the fiduciary obligations of professional wealth management, consider working with a separate advisory committee or due diligence team or conduct personal due diligence on impact investments.

 
After the 2040 film screening, I left the theater in a crowd full of optimism and inspiration. Even with the Precautionary Principle burrowed deep within the financial structures and investment psyche of America, I am optimistic that by becoming more aware of how and why we make decisions— and the structures within which we make them— we will continue to learn how to better align capital to the future we envision. 

The last two weeks has been a whirlwind of intentional conversations with like-minded, social purpose organizations. The B-Corps Champions Retreat and the following week of SOCAP17 were both intense conferences of shared themes and desired outcomes. A couple things linger in my mind from these social impact conferences:

• The short distance the social impact investment community has traveled to date and where it is on the arc of its lifecycle trajectory.

• The emphasis on personal improvement.

So how far have we come? My first year at SOCAP was 2009. That was the same year when I first learned about B-Corps companies at the Sustainable Industries Journal forum from Stephanie Ryan of B-Lab. It was directly after SOCAP09, in November of 2009, that Green Canopy bought its first project and our work to build the company began full-tilt and relentless. The first years of Green Canopy were about survival and getting the organization right. Today we have the capacity to expand the scope of our community beyond the Pacific Northwest region. In 2013, we certified as a B-Corps, but my first B-Corps retreat was two weeks ago. This was followed up by SOCAP17, my first year back since 2009. In the eight-year span between first learning about B-Corps companies and SOCAP, and today, this community has grown significantly and become a legitimate investing force and philosophical approach.
 
When looking at the lifespan of contemporary impact investing in the SOCAP17 booklet, the movement is younger than many of us, just turning 40 years old. If we are investing for this generation but also for generations to come, then we are in the infancy of a multigenerational movement determined to continue to grow, learn and transform global society and economy. We are on the early side of the impact investment lifespan for sure. We have a long way to go and the urgency of the issues we are addressing with our labor and capital create impatience on behalf of just about everyone in this community. Throughout both conferences it felt like most people were understandably feeling the impatience of our youthful movement. Like we just want to be older and more mature than our short 40-years will allow.
 
And then when we couple our youthful impatience with the urgency our work demands, impatience compounds. Which, perhaps, is the reason so many conversations at both conferences discussed the importance of personal, emotional, and spiritual growth in the practice of social entrepreneurship and impact investing. If the antidote to anger is patience, then the lack of patience leads to anger. The importance of love in our work requires patience, yet patience decidedly lacks urgency. Perhaps in order to productively hold this dichotomy through the transition to a new paradigm, a focused determination that allows for grace and patience when organizing with a sense of urgency requires each of us to develop increased mindfulness within swirling storms.

Celebrating our collective “wins” and taking stock of our successes happened throughout both conferences as well, and from my perspective there is a lot to celebrate in the progress we have collectively made in just the last eight years. When I first learned about B-Corps companies in 2009, there were 205 certified B-Corps, in 28 states and in 54 industries. Today there are 2,310 certified B-Corps, in 50 countries and in 130 industries. SOCAP has tripled in size and become an international affair. It is drawing investment firms representing more capital than most people seemed to think possible just a few years ago. Bringing values into our investment analysis continues to seem obvious once seen; like suddenly being able to see a number hidden within the page of little colored dots. The more people’s eyes identify that opportunities to make money work for positive change are hidden in plain sight, the more obvious it becomes that when we direct our resource toward changing the world for better, the world indeed gets incrementally better.
. 
I am entirely grateful to be part of this community and movement, and I look forward to continuing with the dual edge of graceful patience and urgency, toward building and investing in the future we believe in.

"Transparency, accountability are no longer fringe ... We are seeing a surge of leaders who want to have a platform to influence the greater good." -Bart Houlahan, B Corporation | SOCAP17

by Aaron Fairchild, CEO

At the September 14 Built Green Conference, I moderated the panel, Exclusionary to Inclusionary: How can we make our region inclusive, resilient, and vibrant, with Seattle mayoral candidates, Jenny Durkan and Cary Moon, as well as City Council candidate Teresa Mosqueda, and Sightline founder Alan Durning. It was an honor to moderate this discussion. It was made even more poignant by the passing of my father the night before after nearly a 10-year struggle with Alzheimer’s. He would have been proud to see me moderating a discussion with such a powerhouse group. I did my best during the discussion to channel the thoughtfulness he demonstrated throughout his life. I would like to thank the panelists for their time and contribution, and for helping to make an otherwise difficult day, one of inspiration! ​

Here are a few thoughts I took away from the conversation. 
All the panelists agreed that up-zoning or at least allowing townhomes, duplexes and triplexes, and row-houses onto our exclusively zoned SFR lots within the city is something that should be pursued. I also learned there was broad agreement that the permitting process at the city should be streamlined and explored for greater efficiency in processing permits. The last thing that became quite apparent was that: 

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“we all agreed that our vibrant city will only remain so if we can maintain income diversity where it currently exists within our neighborhoods and bring it back to our city’s more desirable and “exclusive” neighborhoods. ​”

— Aaron Fairchild

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I don’t typically endorse candidates, however, given the conversation, I would like to humbly offer my thoughts on these candidates and on Alan as a panelist. ​

Alan Durning was a Vesuvius of knowledge; bright, red hot and over-flowing with intense clarity and of course, humor. 

Jenny Durkan exudes focused energy aligned with her past and progressive vision of Seattle’s future. Seattle would be well served with her as mayor. 

Teresa Mosqueda was a power provider, articulate, earnest and buoyant. I can whole heartedly endorse her candidacy and sincerely hope that Seattle will benefit from her leadership in the near future. 

Cary Moon is heart and meaning and brings unassuming positivity together with pragmatic approaches for progress. Seattle would be well served with her as mayor. ​

When doing a quick read on Wikipedia about Bertha Knight Landes (October 19, 1868 – November 29, 1943), I discovered she “was the first female mayor of a major American city, serving as mayor of Seattle, Washington from 1926 to 1928. She is to date Seattle's only female mayor.” 

These three powerful women candidates honor Ms. Landes’ memory and life through their current and future efforts. I am looking forward to seeing the last line in the Wikipedia page updated to read, “She was Seattle’s only female mayor, until 2017.” 

You can watch the condensed footage of the discussion on the Built Green website. 

Green Canopy relies on Built Green to provide rigorous green building standards. Green Canopy utilizes their standards to certify our homes as Built Green Certified. On an annual basis the Built Green Conference provides builders, developers and real-estate agents cutting-edge information on green building and sustainability. Thank you Master Builders Association and Built Green! 

Photo Credit: Built Green and Alabastro Photography

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A Response from Aaron Fairchild, CEO of Green Canopy, Inc.

For those of us that are deeply concerned with the current Presidential administration, I thought I would offer acknowledgement in solidarity and a potential response to consider throughout each day as you continue protesting in the streets across America.
 
Trump is a self-professed businessman and has proclaimed that he will create perpetual economic growth throughout his Presidency and beyond, even at the expense of equity and the environment. To which we can, and should respond with a resounding, “No!" Natural limits to growth exists as populations grow and resources diminish. Perpetual economic growth at the expense of equity and the environment simply cannot be sustained, nor should the idea be tolerated as acceptable.
 
For years the “buy local” movement has been a compelling response to the perpetual growth model and well articulated in Wendell Berry’s short book of essays, “In the Presence of Fear." Buying local, and all that it entails, helps to strengthen our local communities and economies as we work to address our environmental and social equity issues in a more sustainable and less consumptive manner.
 
Today we find ourselves confronted with a Presidential administration that is happy to operate as a bull in global and national “china-shops,” rolling back environmental regulations not to mention our constitutional liberties. Given this as the backdrop it is more important than ever to perhaps reconsider our consumption behaviors and retrench to our local establishments and communities. The consumer has the loudest voice in our democracy. If consumers change their behavior, companies take notice, and correspondingly so do politicians.
 
To this, I ask you to send a message to this administration along with me and thoughtfully limit your consumption of global brands, and perhaps in general. Will you join me in more deliberately and critically considering the purchases you intend to make? Can you think about holding off, or reflect on not going out to dinner or away for that vacation? Perhaps consider focusing on local purchases, “stay-cations”, dinners at home with family and friends and making your investments locally.
 
But you may say, “Aaron, buying local and limiting our national consumer trends by perhaps even 5% would certainly cause a recession!” Frankly, is there a better way to send a message to a President who has trumpeted his business and economic acumen? Perhaps there is, however corporate sponsors won’t continue clinging if their numbers go down. Protest with your pocketbook and send an economic message to a business baron and let go of fear of a potential self-induced recession. 
 
Recessions come and go, and if a recession were indeed to arrive as a result of buying local, perhaps it would be more easily corrected than otherwise. More importantly, a recession caused by conscious consumption puts economic control in the right hands; in your hands, the hands of the people and not corporations or politicians. Send a message and buy locally, invest locally, walk to a friend or neighbor’s house for dinner, take transit, and walks in the dark and beautiful woods instead of heading to the movies.
 
If you ever needed an excuse or a little nudge to buy local and perhaps even less, the excuse sits in the White House and the nudge is constantly viewed on your news push-notifications. Take action throughout your every day. Consider more critically and deliberately as you buy products and consume goods. Mindfully, in the moment, think about buying less, buying local, investing local. Let go of fear and embrace the power of your pocketbook to create change. 

Share an easy, yet meaningful idea as a comment below that may be helpful to others as we all align to living and buying more locally.

Excerpt from the Washington Women's Cookbook, 1909

1. Sleeping Bag, consisting of three bags - one inside the other.
(1) Waterproof shell, of khaki or rubber or parafined canvas or oiled silk
(2) Double wool blanket bag
(3) Comfort padded with wool bats, the comfort folded and sewed together as a bag.

2. Tramping suit:
(1) Bloomers or knickerbockers
(2) Short skit, knee length, discarded on the hard climbs
(3) Wool waist or jumper
(4) Sweater or heavy coat

3. Three pairs of cotton hose

4. Three pairs of boys' wool socks to wear as the second pair of hose to prevent chafing

5. Mountain boots to the knee with heavy soles, heavy enough for hob-nails and these must be placed in the soles before starting, using 3 1/2 eighths Hungarian nails in the instep as well as in the heels and soles 

Say Hello to Cora! 2902 NE 53rd

It's always fun to research names for our homes. It is one of the identifying features of a Green Canopy Home - and most of our homes are named after women who have made history and who have helped us get to where we are today. I couldn't help but highlight one of our newest acquisitions. The moniker for this home certainly is a story worth being told! Our latest project is Cora - after Dr. Cora Smith Eaton.

Cora was one of Seattle’s leaders in women’s equality during the turn of the century. Additionally – she was the first female secretary of the Mountaineers Club and also the first woman to summit Mt. Olympus (not to mention she summited all 6 of Washington’s major mountains). 

Cora was also a doctor of medicine and was the first woman doctor to practice in North Dakota before moving to Seattle. She was licensed in several states by the end of her career and ran a practice with her husband Dr. Robert A Eaton.

And my favorite anecdote – Cora also helped author the Washington Women’s Cook Book – a PR stunt for the Suffragettes to help get the message of women’s equality to the women who were still stuck in their kitchens – and to help sway men to support women’s right to vote by saying even the Suffragettes can still put a good meal on the table. Brilliant! 

Cora's contribution to the Cook Book consisted of the list above (they have a section on packing food for a hiking trip) and a recipe for (drum roll please...) Tea. Yes - her meaningful, amazing contribution was Tea. The recipe is below - but in her heart of hearts, you can see where Cora's priorities were. She was an adventurer... blazing trails for all of us.

But clearly, none of us can live in the PNW without tea. 

She is one bad ass mademoiselle. Welcome to Green Canopy. 

A Recipe for Tea
In two quarts of fresh water, boiling hard, put a loose cheesecloth bag containing four heaping teaspoons of tea. Cover and let stand by the fire for five minutes, but do not boil. Then remove the bag of tea, as leaving it in will make the tea bitter. Or, if the bag is not convenient, pour the tea off the leaves after it has steeped for five minutes. -Cora Eaton

Contributed by Krystal Meiners

Good conversations are typically born in the company of good people. 

That was the driving thought when we created the Empower Happy Hour at the beginning of 2014. We wanted to have good, meaningful conversations with people outside of our own organization (because frankly we were all preaching to the choir internally and were probably consuming too much booze just to keep things interesting). What we didn’t want, however, was to host a formal event, or a networking opportunity. We wanted to have real conversations with interesting people, so the Empower Happy Hour was born.

The format of these events have always been the same… low key, in a bar, no nametags, no soapboxes, no formally led discussions – just a topic to unite us, an amazing sponsor and an impactful non-profit. Each event has been unique – but the most recent one in Ballard was especially inspiring and a great indicator for successful future events. We are truly thankful for the opportunity to have hosted with Sustainable Ballard and we were especially grateful to our sponsor Redfin Builder Services.

While this event was a bit different from our other Happy Hours - there were a couple of key ingredients that helped mold it into something very special and eye-opening.

1. An AMAZING question. 
Our non-profit cohost has always provided a topic of discussion for our happy hours – and Sustainable Ballard really hit it home with their topic.

a. Does Density = Sustainability?
b. Does Sustainability = Density? 

This two-parter really has a huge impact in Seattle right now and is on the tips of everyone’s tongues. Despite the "breathing room only" crowd – the quality of conversation was fascinating. Not everyone chooses to talk about the topic during our happy hours but this really captured the attention of many including Councilman Mike O’Brien who was discussing Ballard’s new apodments – considered both a scourge and blue-sky solution to housing in Seattle.

The rest of the conversations spanned walkability (a fun topic in light of Redfin’s recent acquisition of Walkscore) – as well as Ballard’s most recent developments and the addition of quality locations to eat, shop and sip. The idea of a “carless lifestyle” as the new definition of luxury was a spirited thought when considering the changing mindset toward livability in times of climate change and a return to urban living.

Not all of the conversations were light-hearted. Serious attention to community wants and needs and the impact of more density on transportation was a common topic; as was the builder-bad-guy issue with neighbors. Not everyone loves the way development looks, feels and changes a neighborhood – so thoughts on working with community were abundant. In particular - discussions around Green Canopy's new Neighborhood Design Survey and community meeting approach were inspiring to neighbors that had visited the event.

2.  Another key ingredient to the success of this specific happy hour was the LOCATION. 
We went against our own rules and decided to host the event in a small event space – but to keep it lively, we started off with drinks at the nearby Skillet – and then moved indoors. While it may have been difficult to corral folks - no one was lost and the “bar-hopping” effect made the event feel less stiff. 

Aside from just the venue – the fact that the event was held in Ballard – a community common to our hosts, co-hosts, sponsors and mired in the topic at hand – made it easier to talk about density relative to where we were all feeling excitement and pain. The Greenfire Campus was a perfectly inspirational space with only enough room to kiss or kill whoever you were speaking to. Skillet made for the perfect pre-funk, and Parfait made for the perfect after-hour snack.

We were very excited to host this event with Sustainable Ballard and Redfin. The event lasted well past our 6:30 cutoff and folks lingered having friendly discussions. While there was no Bocce, like our previous event at Von Trapps, and there was no policy big-wigs like our event with Climate Solutions – it was intimate, refreshing and exactly what we could have hoped for.

We definitely look forward to hosting many more Empower Happy Hour’s, and aim to keep them simple, sexy, and substantial. We hope you will join us the next one to help ADVANCE THE DISCUSSION.

The Empower Happy Hour is a quarterly event hosted by Green Canopy Homes. If you are interested in sponsoring the event or if you belong to a non-profit that is interested in co-hosting, please contact krystal@greencanopy.com . If you are interested in joining the event – please sign up for our Newsletter to receive updates on event dates and venues.

Contributed by Aaron Fairchild, CEO of Green Canopy Inc.

According to 2013 research published by Luigi Guiso, Paolo Sapienza and Luigi Zingales, The Value of Corporate Culture, 85% of S&P 500 companies have at least one section of their website dedicated to -- what they call -- “corporate culture” i.e. principals and values that should inform the behavior of the firm’s employees. Values are important to promote and advertise on corporate websites and reports, because it is imperative for companies to manage their image. External stakeholders expect companies to have thought about their values and publicly acknowledge them. The act of creating and promoting values can help assure external and internal stakeholders that the company has a higher degree of integrity and is guided to conduct their business in a way that is consistent with and based on their stated values. 

Start with Intention

I recently spoke with the CEO of a publicly traded bank who was extremely proud of his employees for going through the process to create and document their values. They were, “developed by a group of really passionate employees that love this organization and only want the best for the bank, our employees and our customers.” Their guiding philosophy relating to their values are stated as, “Our Core Values encourage us to act in a manner that “wows” others and provide us with the opportunity to guide our actions that allow us to become who we want to be. We take pride in our Core Values and strive to live them each day.” This is an example that provides insight into great intentions and proactive leadership. However, when I asked him, “What does the bank do to ‘strive to live them each day’?” he floundered. Wasn’t it enough to go through the process to create their values and then promote them both externally and internally?

Learn from Employee Perception

This is a great place to start. But organizations that want to leverage the power of corporate culture to increase productivity and returns need to do more. 

The Guiso, et al. study also uncovered some additional, interesting facts regarding advertised values. Notably, the value most commonly exploited by the S&P 500 companies was “Innovation” followed by “Integrity” and “Respect”. When the researchers attempted “…to correlate the frequency and prominence of these values to measures of short and long term performance,” they “...fail[ed] to find any significant correlation.” Basically they found that advertised values are not a great indicator of corporate and employee performance. Perhaps that is because it is easy to state your values, so everyone does. 

Another point to note in the research is the concept of perceived value. The study found that if the employees of the company perceive management to have a high level of integrity, there was a positive correlation, and good outcomes in terms of higher productivity, profitability, and the ability of the company to attract talent. In other words it isn’t enough to create and promote values, they had to be perceived and held within the employee base of the organization.

Living Values

So how do we know if a company’s stated values are not just something that they claim to be true, but are indeed perceived and held by the employees of the company? 

A few clues to consider in your evaluation process: 

1. If the company has its values listed internally or in an orientation packet, but they do not advertise their stated values on their website, this would suggest a note of caution. Again, according to the research paper, 15% of all S&P 500 companies do not advertise values. If you don’t talk about your values or share them with outside stakeholders then it is hard to be held accountable to them. It may also indicate that their management wants to be authentic and doesn’t feel the need to advertise values, however it certainly begs inspection.

2. Does the firm, large or small, value their Human Resources Department or efforts. In small, start-up firms many times HR is valued lower than marketing. The commitment of the leadership to focus on their number ONE asset, their human resources, is indicative of their values. In larger companies, is the head of HR part of the Executive Suite? In other words how high up are Human Resources valued? If the head of HR is nowhere near the top of the company, this would indicate a gap and that the leadership of the firm does not have a high attribution to corporate values. 
   

3. Inquire how developed their internal recruiting processes are. If employees don’t want to recommend their friends to work at the company… something may be off.
   

4. Can an employee who has been at the company around one year tell you the values of the company? If the company is living their values, it should be easy and even exciting to share with others the shared sets of values at the firm.
   

5. Can managers and employees give examples of when others made decisions that aligned with the values of the firm? Clearly if no one can, I would question if their values are lip service.
   

6. Lastly, ask the vendors and customers of the firm what makes the company different from others in same field. If examples of what makes the firm different line up with their stated values, you can assume that their values are not just lip service and that the employee on the front lines is living the firm’s values. 
   

I am sure you can think of many more “sniff tests”. The fact that anyone can truth-test stated values should give employees, investors, and customers alike a leg up in identifying if a company is truly anchored by its values (which correlates to performance and profitability) or if their stated values are just the lip service of corporate collateral created in the back halls of the Marketing Department. 

"The more alive values are within a group the stronger the bond and the greater the resiliency of that group. It’s about so much more than happy hour beers."

Contributed by Aaron Fairchild, CEO of Green Canopy Inc.

Have you ever heard ANYONE say after coming back from Europe, “I had a great trip, but I just hope those Brits/Germans/French don’t lose their culture?” The very notion of a nation losing its culture seems silly. Sure cultures change, but they change over time. National cultural changes happen slowly and change is usually driven by a shock to the current way of life. 

For whatever reason, corporate culture doesn’t seem as “fixed” as national culture. Nations lose their leadership, have lots of turnover and people come and go all the time. And nations are influenced by other nations in ways that it is hard to imagine might happen in companies. So what makes company culture more susceptible to change? 

Fast Starts and System Shocks

I recently spoke with David Norris, CEO of MD Insider. We both agreed that companies tend to start-up rather quickly. People come together in the beginning more out of chemistry and shared excitement about the opportunity surrounding the product or idea. More often than not, they share a common national cultural framework so they already have a great basis to begin working together. They also have a shared language, and typically share the same historical perspective, political and economic frameworks (socialist, democratic, capitalist, parliamentarian), etc. Layer chemistry on top of a similar national cultural framework, and that can take the newly formed company down the road a fair bit.

The breakdown typically comes, just like with a nation, with a shock to the system. For a company this could mean jumping from four employees to twenty in less than one year, and then from twenty to forty in another six months.  When countries are merged together for one reason or another, we often watch as the individual cultures tear them back apart... Infighting can happen as larger and more powerful countries begin to dictate terms. Just bringing a similar currency to Europe has been challenging since adoption of the Euro. In the same way, with companies experiencing rapid growth, bigger personalities typically dictate cultural norms, and when those personalities move, for good or bad, so goes the cultural dictator.

Core Values As Cultural Seeds

To help ensure your corporate culture isn’t encapsulated and controlled in one or two, or even just a few key personalities, consider what is at its core. Culture can be defined as the shared values, language, beliefs, and customs of a group. At the heart of culture is how we interact and behave together. At the heart of culture is how we interact together and behave together… David referred to our shared set of core values as the seeds of culture. As the seeds of culture take root in your workplace, your teams will thrive and productivity will increase. 

If a group of people has a shared set of values, they can be pointed toward any mission or vision, and as long as they buy into the mission and vision, they will excel.  Core values incorporate our language, what we celebrate, how we develop, our rights of passage, and how we interact. For a country, these things may seem obvious. For companies, it seems less than obvious for many leaders.  In fact, I’ve heard more about the importance of the boss taking people out for beer as a means to “create culture”, than working on our values to create culture. Hmmm.

Whether a company’s values are implicit or explicit, they exist. The more explicit the shared sets of values, the more that group of people “live” their values. The more alive values are within a group the stronger the bond and the greater the resiliency of that group. It’s about so much more than happy hour beers.

Every Day Values

Companies often explicitly state their values on their websites and in promotional material, creating a veneer of credibility and sincerity. One of the most infamous examples of this is Enron’s four capital V Values: Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence. Clearly this broke down long before the company failed. So if our values are the seeds of culture then nurturing and cultivating these values throughout every day will help to keep them alive and healthy, rather than stale and static on a corporate website.

For a traveler, there’s a difference between that sense of “Love this place, but wouldn’t want to live here” and “I would love to live here!” It’s the same in companies. Living your corporate values and keeping them alive and healthy within the company means the right people will find they’d “love to work here”, and the “wrong” people will move along. A company whose employees work to keep their shared values alive within the organization will allow the company culture and the team to thrive through down times and times of change and growth.

"If we don't pay attention, we risk running businesses at the expense of our communities, our planet and the future." 

Contributed by Krystal Meiners

It’s been nearly one year since Green Canopy became a certified B Corp. Our company, at that time, was a small and tight-knit group that was dedicated to living out our values and our mission. Our work was meaningful and the team was excited about growth.

It couldn’t have been a better decision to certify at that time. Our small and nimble team had created a rich corporate culture that everyone was excited about preserving. We were mindfully crafting systems for hiring, communication, and human resources that would ensure that our culture and values were protected as we grew. Certifying* was part of that process… but one year later we are finally seeing just how important it was.

Since then, Green Canopy has nearly doubled in size. We have started new business channels: from Fund development, to Custom Services, to RePurpose (a whole-house deconstruction program). We have gained talent, we have restructured; we have evolved. All the while, managing our culture, resources and social capital in a way that is intentional and meaningful. 

B Corp means a lot more to how we do business now. It enables us to do business the way we want to do business – the way we started out with our high-fiving, adventure-loving, sustainability-minded (Fbomb-dropping) nimble team not long ago. But now it allows us to do more. It holds us accountable, it guides us and gives us tools for growth. B Corp helps us do business better.

I asked some of our team, both new and old members, what B Corp means to them and how it allows them to do business better. Here is what they had to say:

• Ami Nieto, Office Manager: B Corp certification has fueled our passion for sustainability and keeps it at the forefront of our minds in every business decision we make. It has changed the way we hire people and tuned our focus on attracting talent that is committed to our mission as a Certified B Corporation. B Corp inspired us to raise the minimum wage of our company to $15/hour. For being a company of less than 50 employees, this change is years ahead of other companies in our region and our industry.  We now offer stock options to all employees upon hire. We also contract with more local and sustainable suppliers. We have chosen to bank locally with an independent institution (Beneficial State Bank). Next year we hope to go completely paperless!

• Bec Chapin, Director of Custom Construction: Being a B Corp takes the mission of Green Canopy out of the house and into the lives and operations of the company. It is about running business so that it is sustainable to the world, communities, and employees; and because of that, our clients. For too long we have run business for the benefit of the shareholders and forgotten that it is also a big part of the ecosystem of our lives. If we don't pay attention, we risk running businesses at the expense of our communities, our planet and the future. 

• Caitlin Hoeberlein, (Spec Construction) Project Engineer: I specifically sought out B Corporations when searching for job opportunities in Seattle. Previously, I worked for a small B Corp in New York, and I loved the attitude of people and the environment over profits. It was important to me that the company I worked for also supported those ideals that are so important to me.

• Andy Woverton, Controller and Director of Fund Development: Being a B Corp is important to me because it is an important signal of how Green Canopy cares about our employees, responds to the communities in which we build, provides information to our shareholders and stewards our environment. The B Corp signal projects positively to current and potential future employees, neighbors and investors.

• Nate Morr, RePurpose Site Supervisor: Being a B Corporation is important to the deconstruction work I am doing for the company because it allows me to be creative in the reuse/recycle of materials from the homes we deconstruct. Rather than solely being focused on the most efficient and economical method of material diversion, I can find unique ways of repurposing material that is beneficial to the environment, our community, and our company’s practices as well. For instance, having the Union Gospel Mission's 118 Design Program work with us to deconstruct and reuse reclaimed lumber is an excellent story for the diversion of our material that, once we streamline our processes, could be extremely efficient and economical while being 100% mission-aligned.

• Sam Lai, CMO: I love that Green Canopy is a certified B Corp. Most home buyers today are still indifferent to energy efficiency in homes, but when someone buys a Green Canopy home, their super-low utility bill and amazing year-round comfort becomes an undeniable benefit to the homeowner. However, the societal benefits are less tangible. B Corp's rigorous environmental and social standards help to communicate how our homes are also better for communities and our environment. 

Each member of the team finds the B Corp certification meaningful for their own reasons, but putting some structure and accountability around those values strengthens our community and purpose. In the year since we certified, we have improved in all areas of our business and are currently working on a Corporate Social Responsibility Framework. This framework will help us develop a set of action-oriented goals for improvement, as well as help us improve our reporting and the measure of our impact. The steps we are taking, including even just revisiting team commitment to it through writing this post, help us collectively see the change and be all  the more intentional about B-ing the change.

* A B Corp is a for-profit company that is committed to gains in social and environmental capital rather than just monetary profits. It is a certification that is awarded by B Lab in Pennsylvania – an organization that scores companies based on a set of social and environmental metrics. Green Canopy’s score at certification was an 86.

by Aaron Fairchild:

You can’t go to a cocktail party these days without someone saying now would be a good time to invest in real estate. Of course, one question that always arises is, “When are we going to hit the bottom?” This is a question my father and I have been debating for the last several months. He owns and runs a local bank and my partners and I invest in real estate. He believes that the bottom is still out a fair bit, whereas I see clues that the bottom will be sooner than later. He is fond of telling me stories from the early to mid-seventies; these stories inform both of our opinions. To him, they indicate how bad it could get, and to me, they form a stunning contrast to today’s current market realities.

Let’s take a look at some of these historical clues that indicate the health of the Seattle market.  The first set of clues to examine appeared during the period from the mid 1970’s through the first quarter of 1988.  This period represented 13 difficult and depressed years in the region; the regional economic gorilla was Boeing, and they had just eliminated over 60% of their workforce, 64,000 people. According to my father, “during that time loan officers carried around quit claim deeds in their briefcases to take control of homes that laid-off Boeing engineers could no longer afford.” Furthermore, during that time he was typically lending to single-income households. There were fewer women in the workplace than today, and even if a woman wanted her income to count, FHA underwriting guidelines required a letter stating that she was using contraception.  Loan officers called it the “pill letter.”

Another story from my father relates to local consumer confidence.  At that time, he used to tell his loan officers that one of their jobs was to convince depressed real estate agents that they could actually find a client to help buy or sell a home.  People were leaving Seattle in droves, and driving past the famous billboard that read, “The last person to leave Seattle, turn out the lights.” It is hard to imagine how low consumer confidence really was, when today Seattle has far more employers than it did back then, and attracts a steady and diversified flow of employees capable of home purchases. The last time Seattle saw more people leaving than coming was in 1982.

Now let’s look at further clues that arose after the “Boeing Bust” that show what a sustainable real estate market looks like.  For the most part, my father and I agree that from 1988 until late 2000 was a period of stability in the market. Interest rates dropped into single-digit ranges, allowing homeowners cheaper and easier access to mortgages.  Inflation was low, and the economy in general was moving along steadily.  Most importantly, incomes were able to keep pace with increases in home values; as more households took on second incomes, there was more money in the household to buy or upgrade homes.  Fortunately, while there was easier access to capital than in the 1970’s, underwriting guidelines remained conservative.  To put less than 20% down on a property, you generally needed to purchase Mortgage Insurance and stringent debt-to-income underwriting ratios provided sustainability in an otherwise solid real estate market.   During this time, the correlation between incomes and housing prices remained generally constant.  This was a time of prosperity and sustainability where housing values increased at a rate of roughly 5% per year between 1990 and 2000.

The run up in property values between 2000 and 2007 provides a dramatic backdrop to where we find ourselves today. The incredible rise in property values came as a result of easy access to capital due to lax underwriting guidelines. These loans were unsustainably constructed by banks to sell into profit-thirsty debt markets.

The result in this chaos is, of course, the recent reckoning where mortgages defaulted, banks were forced to write off huge amounts of bad loans, and a glut of homes fell in foreclosure precipitating a concurrent drop in housing prices.  Now we see our final clues to indicate the market has or will soon reach bottom: we observe a return to rational lending practices, an end to wanton speculation, and unprecedented government intervention in stopping the flow of home foreclosures and increasing consumer confidence.  Finally, the real estate market is now showing signs of normalizing to more predictable, rational levels as they relate to income levels and affordability.  The Seattle housing market has not been more affordable anytime during the last thirty years.

Although it is too early to tell who will win our debate, my father and I agree that the factors which drove down housing prices are finally correcting.  Time will tell where the bottom of the market is, but the question still remains at the heart of our debate, “Could it get as bad as it was during the depressed time of the early-to-mid 70’s?” My father’s stories create the backdrop to my outlook on our local real estate market and provide valuable insight and lessons; however it is hard to imagine going back to a time where Seattle experienced negative population growth, 12% unemployment, with predominately single-income households, and only one major employer.

The clues of contrast examined through his stories and prior economic indicators provide us with lessons from our past and demonstrate just how far we have come over the last 35 years. We have certainly made mistakes and have been guilty of greed, and as a result we have paid the price in a substantial drop in property values and the vaporization of wealth borne from home equity. However, when contrasted with the clues from our past, returning to the market conditions that existed in the 1970’s seems unlikely. I believe we are likely near the bottom of a fundamentally sound Seattle real estate market.