“Not a Square to Spare” at Greenbuild
On July 30, 2009 USGBC announced that Sheryl Crow will headline Greenbuild in Arizona this November. In a significant format change for the growing conference and expo, the opening event will be held at Chase Field on the evening of November 11th. Attendance has grown in recent years, with conference attendees ‘locked out’ of Bill Clinton’s 2007 keynote in Chicago and lines forming before 6:00 am at Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu’s keynote last year in Boston. The move to a stadium for the opening event will hopefully resolve some of the overcrowding problems that plagued the event for the past few years, but it is a risky move.
Back in 2007, Crow wrote a now infamous blog post during her Stop Global Warming College Tour where she proposed a limitation on the number of toilet paper squares allowed in one sitting. Apparently intended as a joke, the comment did received the desired effect: It got people talking! Comments flooded The Huffington Post, Rosie O’Donnell talked about it on The View!, it was reported on in the Washington Post, and on major network news.
I always enjoy watching musicians and celebrities tout their green and environmental activist activities. It is impressive when someone actually speaks intelligently on the subject and embarrassingly humorous if they are stick to the “Polar Bears and Prius” style of activism. I hope that Crow’s Greenbuild performance will be the former – entertaining and with a positive message without trivializing the event.
Erin Nunes Cooper, AIA, LEED AP is an Architect, Green Building Consultant, and the owner of 
