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

We are proud to share that Green Canopy NODE's co-CEOs, Bec Chapin and Aaron Fairchild, have been named to the 2022 MO 100 Top Impact CEO Ranking!

This award recognizes the 100 most impactful leaders sparking positive social and environmental change. Explore the MO100 ranking and learn more about what being an impact leader means to Bec + Aaron:

What does being an ‘impact leader’ mean to you?

Being an impact leader means three things to us: Finding the alignment between our skill sets and our values, creating alignment through a shared purpose, and solving complex challenges by working in partnership, across sectors. We aren’t going to solve our housing and our climate crises by ourselves. 

How has the theme of regeneration – of breaking down to break through – played out in your career?

Our company mission is to regenerate communities and environments. And to do so, we must first reflect on ourselves as individuals and create change within. This is done, in part, through eco-cycle mapping, which is a critical tool for us in evaluating our work. Plotting ourselves and our work on an eco-cycle map invites change and helps determine where we might be stagnating or where we can break down processes in order to improve.

Impact + Company Focus:

Green Canopy NODE intends to rapidly scale construction technology to lower building costs and help decarbonize the built environment. We combine smart construction technology solutions with a long track record of sustainable design, development, construction, and fund management expertise to seamlessly lower costs, shorten construction timelines, and create highly impactful housing for communities throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

We’re excited about the potential for mass timber, and specifically cross-laminated timber, to help us on our quest to revolutionize construction and deliver sustainable, healthy homes to everyone.

What is Mass Timber and Cross-Laminated Timber?

Mass timber is a category of wood product made by fastening or bonding smaller wood components with nails, dowels, or adhesives. Mass timber is exceptionally strong, can be an excellent low carbon substitute for concrete and steel and is particularly well-suited for modular construction and prefab construction.

Cross-laminated timber blocks
Photo courtesy of Oregon Forest Resources Institute

Cross-laminated timber (CLT) is specific type of mass timber, made from wood that has been stacked at 90-degree angles from each other and glued together with a structural adhesive to form panels. Think of CLT as a giant, thick solid sheet of wood. Similar to plywood, but made of solid lumber instead of thin veneers.

CLT panels can be used for the entire structure of a home and has many benefits including:

• Health & Wellness: CLT can be used to create beautiful, quiet and healthier homes that can help unlock the promised benefits of biophilic design.

• Carbon Sequestration: CLT naturally stores carbon from the atmosphere, which is one significant step to moving beyond net zero energy toward an even more environmentally responsible net zero carbon building.

•  Circular Economy: As a more durable product, CLT homes will last longer than standard code-built homes. At the end of the structure’s life, it can also be more easily deconstructed and re-used rather than ending up in a landfill.

The Path Beyond Net Zero Ready Homes

If you have followed Green Canopy NODE over the years, you have known the company to be determined to innovate within the world of real estate and build much more sustainable homes than code requires. The team has built increasingly more sustainable homes over the years, proving that homebuilders can deliver net zero energy ready homes at roughly the same cost as code-built homes. However, to take sustainability in housing further and build at increasingly lower costs, the slow to transform industry needs to incorporate innovative construction technologies and leverage offsite manufacturing. 

The Power of Manufacturing & Green Canopy NODE

The team, the board, and the shareholders of Green Canopy NODE believe that through the power of manufacturing, Green Canopy NODE can realize the full potential of its mission to build homes, businesses, and relationships to help regenerate communities and environments.  To that end, Green Canopy NODE is excited about the promise of cross-laminated timber as a structural technology solution in the residential mid-to-low rise real estate space. CLT is ideal for leveraging manufacturing. As an engineered wood product, it is more dimensionally stable and easy to carve and groove using large precise computer controlled cutting machines. Controlling uniformity and tolerances allows for efficient installation while maximizing structure and sustainability. 

Innovating to Deliver CLT Housing at all Income Levels

The challenge of building with CLT is the increased cost associated with the cost of extra wood in the floors and walls, especially in mid-to-low rise residential buildings. Green Canopy NODE is working on innovative financing, wood sourcing, construction technologies, design, and manufacturing strategies to lower the cost of construction and make CLT available for housing at all income levels.

For those of you who like to mine for more information here are some links with additional detail on CLT and its benefits: 

• Vox: The hottest new thing in sustainable building is, uh, wood

• Nature in Design: The Biophilia Effect 

• Think Wood: CLT Design + Construction

Contributed by Aaron Fairchild

Perhaps you have had conversations with friends or family discussing what you can do to help the people of Ukraine. If you have, and you are interested in directly supporting Ukrainians in need, I would like to introduce you to Val Korol. Val is a Construction Project Manager at Green Canopy NODE, and we have worked together at Green Canopy NODE since April of 2016. Val is Ukrainian. His immediate family is in Ukraine, having fled their homes in search of safety, they are grappling with the realities of war as they consider what will become of their lives in a homeland reduced to rubble. Val and his Green Canopy NODE family would like to ask for your support for his family and fellow Ukrainians.  

Please Consider Donating Here

When Val and I began working together I had no idea of the beauty of Ukraine. Recently I was sent this link to 50 beautiful photos of pre-war Ukraine – the photos share a richness of history and culture that leave me with a greater sense of connection to all people. Within the images emerge universal expressions of human creativity: symbols, art, and architecture from the heart and soul of our shared humanity.

Val Korol

Val was born in Vinnitsa, Ukraine in 1972. He came to the USA in 2000 with his wife Yelena and eventually found his way as a Construction Project Manager to Green Canopy NODE. One of the first things you realize about Val is that his heart is even bigger that his sizable 6’4” stature with hands large enough to entirely engulf your own when shaking. In fact, all of Val comes from his heart.

When Val was just 13-years old his sister’s husband told him if he could learn to play five chords on the guitar in a week, he could join their wedding band. They needed a new guitarist. Enthusiastically Val rose to the challenge and in no time, he was not only playing guitar, he was also singing love songs for newly-weds all across Ukraine. The wedding music that began with a conversation with his sister and her husband in their kitchen continued playing until he left for America in 2000, 15-years later. It is no surprise to me that Val came to us with his enormous and loving heart full of joy, music and his defining quality, a desire to help others.

In recognition of Val’s 6-years of dedication working to advance Green Canopy NODE’s mission to help regenerate communities and environments, I would like to humbly ask us all to embrace this mission and donate to help regenerate the Ukrainian community and their environments.

Please consider donating to any one of these organizations. We worked with Val to learn about organizations that are working effectively on the ground.

1. Razom for Ukraine

2. Support Ukraine Fund

Today, after their homes have been destroyed, many of Val’s direct family members are refugees and moving within the country searching and hoping for a safe place to restore and begin to renew. Another sister, husband, their two children, and two grandchildren are temporarily staying in an abandoned home in a small township in western Ukraine. They risk every time they go to Western Union in bigger cities to receive financial resource from Val and his family in America. They have lost their homes, jobs and livelihoods to the violence of this war.

Please donate to Val’s family here:

Val’s wedding bandmember sister Larisa and her children, still live in Vinnitsa. Her husband and bandmember, Arcady, passed away last November from COVID. She works in the local district energy facility in 48 hour, round the clock, shifts. Val has been able to maintain communication with her and offer help to her, and others through her. While they are all deeply grateful for assistance for their family, true to form, they are also doing what they can to help others in and around Vinnitsa.  

Even here, in the tucked away Pacific Northwest corner, the tragic war in Ukraine creates both ripples of sadness and opportunity for all of us to reflect on the sanctity of democratic self-determination. It helps us think beyond ourselves and perhaps ask how we can help the marginalized and underserved within our local communities and communities in desperate need such as Ukraine. Please consider donating in assistance to Ukrainian families as they struggle to live and live freely.

Feel free to reach out directly to someone you know on the Green Canopy NODE team if you want to learn more about Val and how you can help.

Green Canopy NODE is humbled by being recognized as a 2022 ImpactAssets 50 fund manager. Impact investments are made to generate measurable social and environmental positive impact alongside financial returns. Green Canopy NODE hopes to inspire all investors to align their capital investments with their values by continuing to demonstrate that with thoughtfulness and care, rewarding financial returns can be earned using an impact investment approach. The IA50 recognizes a diverse group of impact investment fund managers who demonstrate a commitment to generating positive social, environmental, and financial impact.

"If we want to create a better future, we have to invest in that better future." -Susan Fairchild, Chief Marketing Officer, Green Canopy NODE

This acknowledgement comes at an exciting time. Green Canopy NODE, in partnership with other strategically aligned organizations, is in the process of developing its fifth real estate investment fund, to be announced later this year. The Fund is being designed to invest in residential real estate that is built using the power of manufacturing with carbon-smart construction methods, materials, and technologies for families at various income levels, while generating favorable returns to its investors.

“As impact investing continues its inexorable rise, it is critical to provide investors with a curated, objective evaluation of impact fund managers. The IA 50 is built to filter out the noise that is growing louder in impact investing and help investors focus on deep, meaningful impact." Jennifer Kenning, CEO and Co-Founder, Align Impact, IA 50 Senior Investment Advisor

Real Leaders has announced the newly selected winners of its 2022 Top Impact Companies from around the world. “Business leaders across the globe are rapidly discovering that to be competitive – and to grow and thrive – they must forgo shortsighted thinking in favor of a farsighted vision that takes into account their company’s social and environmental impact,” said Mark Van Ness, Founder of Real Leaders.  “We are excited to welcome new and old companies alike to the impact movement, and into the Real Leaders Impact Awards community.”

Green Canopy NODE is pleased to be featured as number 120 in the 2022 list that features a mix of respected impact brands of all sizes and from a variety of industries, including Allbirds, Danone, and Warby Parker. See Impact Award Rankings here.

“This recognition is humbling and made possible through the dedicated effort of the Green Canopy NODE team, board, and supporting stakeholders. We would like to thank everyone involved in our mission to build homes, businesses, and relationships that help regenerate communities and environments." - Aaron Fairchild, Co-CEO.

"We are honored to be recognized for the past three years as a part of the Real Leaders community building businesses to create the world we know is possible. We have so much more good work to come." - Bec Chapin, Co-CEO.

A virtual ceremony will be held on February 24, 2022 to honor the winners and will feature a keynote from Peter Diamandis, founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation and executive founder of Singularity University. 

ABOUT REAL LEADERS

Real Leaders is a membership community for impact leaders with a global media platform dedicated to driving positive change. It’s on a mission to unite farsighted leaders to transform our shortsighted world. Founded in 2010, Real Leaders recognized early on that businesses bore a responsibility to be as cognizant of their impact on employees, society, and the planet as they are on their bottom line. Real Leaders is a B Corporation, member of the UN Global Compact, and is independently owned. 

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.

Together, we can build the future of housing - Our partnership with Grow Community was featured in the New York Times in the article Energy-Efficient Isn’t Enough, So Homes Go ‘Net Zero’ as a project incorporating all-electric, Net Zero Ready technology. Read more about our Bainbridge Island partnership here.

As Green Canopy NODE, together we’re building the future of housing. Learn more about our merger, our co-CEO’s, and how we’re modernizing construction in the latest from Geekwire.

“We have a ‘king complex’ in the U.S. It ends up that we can really collaborate. Together we can be exponentially more effective.”

— Green Canopy NODE co-CEO, Bec Chapin

Combined entity will rapidly scale construction technology, and help its clients lower the cost to build and decarbonize the built environment.

SEATTLE, Washington (November 2, 2021) - Green Canopy and NODE are pleased to announce they have merged to create Green Canopy NODE, SPC and have completed an initial close on a $10M round. The early-stage construction tech innovator, NODE, has come together within Green Canopy, an established, deep green, vertically integrated development, design, general contracting, and fund management company. By next year, the team should double in size to over 60 employees.

Green Canopy NODE brings together the appropriate verticals and expertise needed to make construction more sustainable, healthy, efficient, and less costly. Unleashing the talents of a new workforce will further drive down construction costs.

“There are some monumental synergies at play here, fueled by tech expertise and development know-how that can come together seamlessly to create scale,” stated Peter Orser, Board Chair of Green Canopy NODE. “This is exciting because you generally don’t find this combination in the market– it’s typically either one or the other.”

Green Canopy NODE will begin off-site manufacturing designed to develop a complete kit of parts for efficient, software-guided assembly by generalist construction workers. The goal is to ultimately create highly sustainable housing that is accessible to people of all income levels at scale.

“The construction industry is ripe for disruption and evolution. It’s a giant industry that has been losing productivity over decades and is not meeting our most crucial demands for housing,” said Bec Chapin, NODE co-founder and co-CEO of Green Canopy NODE. “For industry transformation to occur, solutions must be able to engage with existing stakeholders, workflows, and regulation. The bigger change we’re aiming at is an evolution of the industry to build more houses, faster that create greater health, wellbeing, and resiliency for people and communities now and in the future.”

“In the years to come, we expect that we will be designing, developing, and manufacturing all of our housing product offsite to help enable our partners and communities achieve their development objectives in the most cost-effective manner. By doing this, we can achieve not just better financial results, but better social and environmental results,” stated Aaron Fairchild, Green Canopy co-founder and co-CEO of Green Canopy NODE.

Green Canopy NODE believes that everyone deserves a high quality, sustainable, and healthy home. The company is actively working with Habitat for Humanity Seattle - King County, on the development of a 17-unit affordable and sustainable condominium development in Capitol Hill in Seattle.

“We are excited about the prospects of Green Canopy NODE being able to dramatically reduce construction costs. With a 4,500-person waitlist for our affordable homeownership program in King County alone, it’s clear something in the construction process needs to change,” says Patrick Sullivan, Habitat for Humanity King County.

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About Green Canopy NODE: Green Canopy NODE is a vertically integrated construction technology firm and fund manager. The company works for its clients and investors to deliver high performing, deep green, all-electric, and healthy housing. Their mission is to build relationships, businesses, and homes that help regenerate communities and environments.

The team at Green Canopy NODE offers development, design, and general contracting services to third-party developers, property owners, Limited Partners, and sustainable real estate investors.

Green Canopy NODE is also an experienced fund manager. The firm has successfully managed four real estate funds for a total of $70+ million AUM, and over 200 investor accounts. Financial and impact returns have been aligned to investor expectations.

For more information, please contact:

Susan Fairchild, Director of Impact & Investor Relations

susan@greencanopynode.com

206-792-7280

Green Canopy CEO, Aaron Fairchild, was recently featured on the Regenerative Real Estate Podcast by Latitude | Regenerative Real Estate in the episode "Scaling Green Developments with Aaron Fairchild." 

The podcast explores our natural and built environments and how they can be used as a force for good. The show sets out to inspire impactful ideas, meaningful change, human wellness, and ecological restoration through interviews and easy to digest conversations.

In this episode, Aaron discusses Green Canopy’s work with investors that are seeking to do good with their funds while still returning a healthy profit, alongside development ventures that provide affordable housing options and work with community-based and socially justice organizations like Nehemiah Initiative Seattle and Habitat for Humanity.

Listen to this episode to hear more of Aaron’s valuable take-aways that help to illuminate how you can make an impact in your life, career, and with your money.

Green Canopy NODE CEO Bec Chapin was featured in ConstructUtopia, discussing a day in the life as an entrepreneur, infill housing, sustainable building, and challenges for women in construction.

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

SEATTLE, Washington (May 6, 2021) - Green Canopy and Habitat for Humanity Seattle – King County (Habitat) are pleased to announce a partnership to design a 17-unit affordable multifamily housing development in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle. The 4-star Built Green project, located near Cal Anderson Park, features one- and two-bedroom units to be sold to households making at or below 80 percent area median income. The collaboration will bridge affordability and sustainability and fill a gap in the housing market for low-income individuals, couples, and smaller families.

Combining a land trust model with permanent affordability requirements, Habitat lowers barriers to homeownership. Habitat’s homeownership model creates opportunities for those who may not otherwise have access to owning a home and enables them to build equity and obtain security and stability. In Seattle, population growth, low inventory and market price appreciations have prevented first-time homebuyers from being able to afford to live within the urban center and create wealth through equity in ownership.

“We have identified a significant gap in the housing market for those who can’t afford to build equity in the city that they live and work in,” said Patrick Sullivan, Director of Real Estate Development at Habitat. “Typically, affordable housing options are located outside of city centers and further from jobs and other amenities. We are excited to offer these homes to hard-working and deserving people who would otherwise be priced out of the area.”

Through this partnership, Green Canopy and Habitat for Humanity serve as a model for aligning for-profit and nonprofit organizations to develop market-rate land, while accelerating access to affordable, sustainable homes.

“We believe the partnership between Habitat and Green Canopy will set a new standard for homebuilding,” said Brett D’Antonio, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Seattle-King County. “Through private non-profit partnerships we are able to deliver more affordable housing units than we could alone.”

Known for its innovative, highly energy efficient urban infill homes in Seattle and Portland, Green Canopy specializes in unparalleled cost control and project management without compromising on sustainability.

“It is oftentimes a trade-off between sustainable or affordable when it comes to housing,” said Sam Lai, Green Canopy’s cofounder. “We are passionate about unlocking the potential impact of combining our expertise in green building and cost control with Habitat’s expertise in offering homes at a price point that increases accessibility.”

Green Canopy’s stringent green building standards result in homes that are not only better for the environment, but also better for residents’ health. Homeowner’s indoor air quality is improved by using all-electric appliances, low volatile organic compounds (VOCs) products and materials, and through systems like the Energy Recovery Ventilators (ERVs), which bring fresh, filtered air into the homes. Furthermore, the end product simply costs less to operate on a monthly basis than a comparable code-built home.

“Providing all-electric, sustainable, and healthy homes at affordable price points provides a better alternative to the current paradigm of housing,” said Susan Fairchild, Director of Impact at Green Canopy. “Through partnership and collaboration, we believe we can democratize sustainable homes so in time, people at every income level can live in more sustainable and healthy homes.”

###

About Green Canopy: Green Canopy is an award-winning urban infill developer and homebuilder specializing in high performing, deep green, all-electric healthy homes. Their mission is to build relationships, businesses, and homes that help regenerate communities and environments. The team at Green Canopy offers development and general contracting services to third party investors, developers, and investment property owners.

About Habitat for Humanity Seattle – King County: Habitat SKC is dedicated to eliminating substandard housing locally and worldwide through constructing, renovating and preserving homes, advocating for fair and just housing policies, and providing training and access to resources to help families improve their shelter conditions. Habitat is founded on the conviction that every man, woman, and child should have a simple, durable place to live in dignity and safety, and that decent shelter in decent communities should be a matter of conscience and action for all.

For more information, please contact:
Susan Fairchild, Green Canopy Director of Impact and Investor Relations
susan@greencanopynode.com

Sam Lai, Green Canopy Cofounder
developmentservices@greencanopynode.com

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.

SEATTLE, Washington (February 3, 2021) - Green Canopy and the Grow Community have announced their partnership to build the third and final phase of the Bainbridge Island development project.

Grow Community was established in 2012 with the goal of creating a sustainable, intergenerational community intended to support the health and longevity of its residents. The development, featuring 119 homes and a community center, is located minutes from the ferry dock in the town center of Bainbridge Island and is designed to be a Net Zero neighborhood with the ability to use solar panels to provide 100% of the energy needed to power each home.

Phase 3 of the Grow Community will bookend the project, with a focus on townhomes that reflect the rest of Grow’s intentional sustainable, healthy, and community-based lifestyle. Jonathan Davis, the architect and resident of Phase 1, will be returning to design the final phase of the Grow Community.

“People move here intentionally because they believe in the vision and the values of the community. It’s amazing to see the connections made here and it has been comforting for residents to know there are others around to support them as needed,” said Davis. “I am honored to finish out the design for the Grow Community. And I’m excited to be able to work with Green Canopy to do so.”

The collaboration from Green Canopy and the Grow Community signifies a dual commitment to building resilient and sustainable communities. Green Canopy is known for building deep green and Net Zero Energy homes ranging from single-family homes to multi-unit projects, and its proprietary project development platform allows for unparalleled cost control and project management.

“What is exciting about this project is the alignment of values – this project aligns with our mission. It’s humbling to be welcomed into the Grow community as a development partner with so much of the way already paved before us” said Sam Lai, Green Canopy’s co-founder.

The Grow Community is the first One Planet neighborhood in the United States. The One Planet framework guides the design of Net Zero Energy neighborhoods as places where people can reduce their overall carbon footprint while living healthier and reducing costs. The program focuses not just on environmental impacts, but also on economic and social sustainability.

“Founding partners John and Ed Ellis have been instrumental in the completion of this project,” said Grow resident and original development team member Marja Williams. “Without them, this community would have never been as successful as it is today.”

“I’m eager to see this project finished in a way that I can be proud of. Much of the work that we’ve done with the Grow Community was meant to inspire others, and I think we’ve been successful in that,” said Ed Ellis.

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About Green Canopy: Green Canopy is an award-winning urban infill developer and homebuilder specializing in high performing, deep green, all-electric healthy homes. Their mission is to build relationships, businesses, and homes that help regenerate communities and environments. The team at Green Canopy offers development and general contracting services to third party investors, developers, and investment property owners.

About Grow Community: Grow Community is an urban One Planet neighborhood on Bainbridge Island, just a 35-minute ferry ride from downtown Seattle. With beautifully designed solar-powered homes, shared community gardens and clean transportation options, Grow allows all generations to enjoy a high-quality and healthy lifestyle.

For more information, please contact:

Susan Fairchild, Green Canopy Director of Impact and Investor Relations

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.

Real Leaders has announced the newly selected winners of its 2021 “Top Impact Companies” from around the world, and Green Canopy is proud to have been selected. 

“These top impact companies prove that businesses can thrive by being a force for good’ said Mark Van Ness, Founder of Real Leaders. “They are the Real Leaders of the New Economy” added Van Ness.

The 2021 award winners include game-changers such as: Tesla, Beyond Meat, Patagonia and 147 other well-respected impact brands of all sizes and from a variety of industries. .

A special ceremony will be held on January 27th, 2021 to honor the winners and will include key impact speakers featuring Seth Goldman, Chairman of Beyond Meat and a musical performance from Michael Franti, world-renowned musician and activist.

ABOUT REAL LEADERS

Real Leaders is the world’s first business and sustainable leadership magazine and serves a community of visionaries, collaborating to regenerate our world. Its mission is to inspire better leaders for a better world. Real Leaders is a Certified B-Corp and signatory in the United Nations Global Compact (an advocate for achieving the global goals for sustainable development).

Real Leaders positions leaders to thrive in the new economy and to inspire the future. 

Visit www.real-leaders.com for more information.

By Aaron Fairchild

On November 11th of this year, the Presidential election results were still murky and the COVID virus on a rampage. At Green Canopy we celebrate Veteran’s Day. Instead of working, I was doing yardwork in a fog thinking about America’s stark divisions. Truth be told, I was futzing around the yard occupying myself while being concerned, angry and confused about how Americans can hold such opposing views. The common question of the moment comes to mind, “Why can’t we all just get along?!”

Later in the day I received a text from a team member at Green Canopy. He was responding to my earlier Veteran’s Day text thanking him for his service to America in the Marine Corps.

His response,

“Thanks for thinking of me Aaron. When I reflect back on that time, I think of all of the other men I served alongside. We all had different values, political beliefs, and backgrounds and we put all that aside to work together to achieve a common goal. I found magic in that process because it allowed me to look past all those differences to see the person inside. I think that was the first time I realized that most of the time, we have more in common than different.”

And then it occurred to me,

Without the differences that separate us, the sincere gratitude for times when we do come together would be diminished. The fundamental differences between us offer us a gift, if we can receive it, to look beneath those distracting differences and into our shared humanity; the footing of our common bond.

During this Holiday Season I would like to share gratitude for the differences between us and the opportunity they offer us to create safe spaces for each other to come together. Without our differences, life would be less interesting and less colorful, and perhaps if we all shared similar views and experiences, we would not feel the need to go beneath our similarity to more deeply explore ourselves and our shared humanity. Perhaps our differences are the forcing function that offer us the opportunity to live into the better, more substantive version of ourselves.

Green Canopy is pleased to announce the successful wind-up of the Birch Fund. The Birch Fund is the firm’s third Real Estate Impact Fund. The Fund, managed by Green Canopy Capital, provided capital to acquire and construct certified green and energy efficient residential projects in Seattle, WA and Portland, OR. The Birch Fund deployed $15.3M in capital from 60 impact investors from around the nation, The Fund returned an annualized IRR to investors of 10.7%, in line with investor expectations.

The Birch Fund enabled Green Canopy to build 102 deep green and healthy homes across Seattle and Portland. Of these homes, 10 were Net Zero Energy and 8 were Net Zero Energy Ready homes. “By opting to build deep green, sustainable homes that far surpass code requirements, Green Canopy has been able to mitigate 731 metric tons of greenhouse gases. That’s equivalent to us planting over 12,000 trees,” says Sam Lai, Co-Founder of Green Canopy.

Impact investments are made with the intention to generate positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside a financial return on invested capital. In 2011, Green Canopy began Green Canopy Capital, a wholly owned fund manager to scale the Firm’s impact through impact investments. Impact investors have fueled all four of Green Canopy Capital’s funds, ensuring ongoing alignment with Green Canopy’s mission and theory of change, while also providing a healthy financial return. 

“As our family foundation shifted focus from grant-based mitigation to investing in systems change, our relationship with Green Canopy Homes has evolved from an interesting new portfolio company to trusted impact partner. Across three generations of funds, as well as special projects, we are proud to (profitably!) support the development of all-electric, highly efficient homes in thriving, walkable communities.”  – Jim Norton, Rouse Family Foundation

As a portfolio company of the angel investment group E8, Green Canopy is delighted with the ongoing partnership in aligning investor capital to our fund offerings. E8 is an international, Seattle-based investor community whose mission is to accelerate the transition to a prosperous and cleaner world by investing in and fostering emerging cleantech enterprises.

“Green Canopy and their fund offerings have been a staple investment for many of our members since 2010, with Birch Fund being the most recent example. Thank you to the Green Canopy team for delivering on expectations and maintaining regular communication and transparency,” says Mike Rea, Executive Director of E8.

Green Canopy’s fourth fund, Cedar Fund, was deliberately structured as a resilient real estate fund capable of generating income regardless of the cycle. To date, the Cedar Fund has raised over $7M in investor capital from 30 impact investors from around the country. “As society continues waking up to realize the uncertain state of the world, more and more investors are also coming to the realization that in order to create a better world, they must invest in creating that better world. Impact investing provides a clear pathway to do so, ensuring not simply a focus on financial returns but also ensuring positive social and environmental outcomes,” says Susan Fairchild, Director of Investor Relations & Impact.

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Susan Fairchild
susan@greencanopy.com