{"id":2427,"date":"2026-05-03T20:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T20:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/petermbach.com\/?page_id=2427"},"modified":"2026-06-22T20:11:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T20:11:47","slug":"065-david-gottfried","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/petermbach.com\/index.php\/podcast\/065-david-gottfried\/","title":{"rendered":"TGC Podcast Episode 065 – David Gottfried"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Grand Challengers Podcast Episode #65<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The father of the green building says ‘it’s not enough’ – from LEED to regeneration and from human to humane<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Guest: David Gottfried<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

June 23rd, 2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Overview<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What if the system you spent four decades building turned out to not be enough? That is the question David Gottfried sits with in this episode, and he is unusually qualified to ask it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David is the father of the global green building movement. He founded the U.S. Green Building Council and the World Green Building Council, and helped create LEED, the rating system now used across more than 180 countries and tied to a trillion-dollar green economy. And yet, as an engineer who hates waste, he is the first to point out that the curve has not bent far enough. Carbon keeps climbing. We are, in his words, turning a giant ship towards the iceberg and congratulating ourselves for putting solar on the deck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conversation opens with a plain-English 101 on what actually makes a building green, from orientation and glazing to greywater, healthy materials and the LEED point system. From there, David traces how a white paper became a global standard, and why he now believes the real work is a shift from sustainability to regeneration, and from human to humane. He introduces HOPE (Health On Planet Earth) and makes the case that we have been keeping score on the wrong board. It connects naturally with our conversation in Episode 42 with Mashael Yazdanie<\/a> on planning for sufficiency rather than endless growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also a personal story. A Stanford engineer who read Siddhartha every birthday and came to see himself as the ferryman who helps people across the river. A developer who lost a building in the early-90s crash and went looking for purpose. A man who took up kung fu in his late fifties, fly fishes in creeks, and turned 2,400 pages of dog-walk voice notes into a book using AI as a thinking partner, echoing the idea of AI as a mirror we explored in Episode 59 with Galina Yordanova<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find David at regen360.net and look out for his new book Regen360 out in October 2026!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Episode Teaser<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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