By Steven Burke, USGBC MA Treasurer
As part of the green building community in Massachusetts, I am happy to serve as the Co-Chair of the Boston Society of Architects Committee on the Environment (COTE). We held our regional leadership summit on June 1 & 2, 2016, at the BSA headquarters in Boston. Over 100 sustainability practitioners gathered to build their leadership capacity and connect to share their experiences in sustainable design and green building practice.
We have developed a retrospective video and white paper of the procedings available here.
Keynote speaker Paul Hawken challenged the community to embrace fearlessness. The time for hoping and waiting for change is behind us, and we must take it upon ourselves as individuals and as a community of practitioners to follow through with bold thinking and bold actions. As Paul demonstrated, and as we know, the solutions are here, today. It is on us to see them into implementation.
One of the amazing things of having 100 sustainability practitioners come together from various sectors of the AEC industry and Owner / Developer spaces, is that for us, we have redefined what competition looks like. We are all working towards the same goal of a net positive future. We realize that to get there, we must disregard the traditional boundaries of competitiveness across companies or hierarchies of position and title, and enable each other to be the absolute best we can be. For us, competition is directed inward, pushing ourselves to help drive our projects, our companies, our peers, and our communities to maximize our positive impact.
Thank you for joining us on this work. We look forward to the next COTE Leadership Summit in 2018, to be held in Burlington, Vermont.
PE | Associate, LeMessurier
Vice President, AEW’s Architecture & Engineering group
Interior Designer, Jacobs, Boston
Senior Vice President, Market Transformation and Development U.S. Green Building Council
AIA LEED AP BD+C | Senior Associate, Gensler Boston 
LEED Fellow, WELL AP | Founder and Principal, Ecoworks Studio
LEED AP BD+C | Environmental Sustainability Manager, Armstrong World Industries
Sustainability Director, Steven Winter Associates
Assistant Professor of Exposure Science | Director of the Healthy Buildings program
Managing Director, Harvard University Office for Sustainability
Principal & Director of Certifications and Consulting, Epsten Group, Inc.
Vice President of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility, Jamestown
Founder and Principal, Linnean Solutions | LEED AP, O+M; EcoDistrict AP
Associate Principal, BuroHappold Engineering
Senior Vice President, Sustainability at Kilroy Realty Corporation
Co-Founder, Facilitator at The Laurentia Project | LEED AP BD+C, LFA
Founder and President, Board of the Healthy Building Network
Building Technology Director, Kingspan North America
LEED® AP ID+C, BD+C, USGBC Faculty, WELL® AP, WELL Faculty and Fitwel Ambassador
Workplace Strategy Expert and Researcher, EYP
Principal, Integrated Ecostrategy
Senior Vice President, International WELL Building Institute
AIA, LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP
Principal, Bruner/Cott
Architect, Associate, and Sustainability Design Leader, Stantec Architecture and Engineering
FAIA, LEED Fellow, Long Green Specs
Products & Materials Specialist, BuildingGreen
Director of Acquisitions and Development
Director of Restorative Enterprise, Interface
Vice President of Sustainable Development, Shaw
Sustainability Manager, Consigli Construction Company
Global Head of Sustainability, Superior Essex