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CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Constructing Green:

Sustainability and the Places We Inhabit

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

May 20 – 22, 2010

"We shape our buildings, and thereafter they shape us."

Winston Churchill's statement highlights the duality of the green building imperative. We all want to live and work in a healthy environment. However, to create healthy environments we must re-examine the principles from which buildings grow. This conference will explore the strategies, relationships, and opportunities inherent in green building, as a technological, industrial, institutional and cultural shift. Our goal is to discuss and encourage the advancement of organizational theories to understand the field and its impacts. 

The built environment creates substantial environmental and economic impacts. Buildings consume 40% of the world's materials, 12% of all freshwater, 40% of the world's energy, and 71% of US electricity, produce 40% of US nonindustrial waste, and create 36% of the carbon dioxide emissions that cause climate change. Simultaneously, buildings have a profound impact on human productivity and well-being. We spend more than 90% of our time in buildings, locales that contribute to organizational and employee identity, working arrangements, and quality of workspace. They also function as cultural artifacts imbued with meaning.

And yet, while buildings garner little attention in organizational research, the norms of practice are in flux. Deciding to build with either "green" or conventional techniques has become a requisite choice in new construction or the renovation of existing structures, particularly on college campuses. As a result, green building has become an emerging opportunity for rich scholarly study. Green building presents a fundamental challenge to centuries-long traditions and routines relied on by the design and construction industry. At the most basic level, architects, contractors, and clients create the minimum triumvirate of the temporary organization from which our buildings emerge. Concerns for environmental sustainability alter the goals, skill sets and political arrangements within this process, thereby altering fundamantal meaning associated with our built environment. In this conference, we intend explore a wide range of facets related to the relationship between green building and organizational scholarship.

The conference will be held May 20-22, 2010, and hosted by the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan. www.erb.umich.edu. We are receptive to a wide range of research perspectives and methodologies. We will also invite practitioners of the craft to join the discussion and help us hone and refine our research questions, design, and conclusions.

If you would like to propose either an academic research paper or an industry case study, the submission web page is now active. Please go to http://www.bus.umich.edu/Conferences/ConstructingGreen-AnnArbor2010 to submit an abstract of not more than 250 words before January 4, 2010. Academic submissions should be original research papers that have not yet been accepted for publication. Selected submissions will be announced on February 4, 2010. Questions may be addressed to: Andrew Hoffman (ajhoff@umich.edu; 734-763-9455) or Rebecca Henn (rhenn@umich.edu; 814-441-5335).