An interview with Chris Hellstern, AIA, about Washington’s Buy Clean Buy Fair, the importance of alliances, and why architects make great advocates.
Lisa Richmond and Joyce Raybuck
A Career Built Around Sustainability
“I’ve been working in sustainability for about 20 years. I’m a licensed architect, but my role at Miller Hull is primarily as our Living Building Challenge and Sustainability Director, which lets me touch many projects. To make broader change, I also serve on AIA CCADE, AIA COTE, AIA Washington and other committees, with a strong policy focus on embodied carbon.”
Washington’s Policy Landscape
“I think Washington has been really great on the operational energy side—Seattle has the strictest energy code in the country, and the state isn’t far behind. We’ve made some great progress, but we know from recent studies that embodied carbon is an even bigger piece to our emissions problem in this state in particular because of our typically cleaner energy supply. So really trying to focus on that more is quite critical. Architects play a big role in both the operational and embodied sides, so it makes sense for us to be involved.”
Buy Clean Buy Fair
"My most recent advocacy effort is the Buy Clean Buy Fair law that was just passed last legislative session here in Washington, piggybacking on what has happened in California. It had been reappearing for several years before it got through and passed. “Buy Clean” is a policy approach focused on the procurement of lower-carbon building materials. “Buy Fair” policies include consideration of the manufacturing workforce, by procuring materials that are manufactured with high environmental and labor standards. Together, these efforts help reduce emissions and incentivize manufacturers to make products that meet these goals.
This has been a multi-year process, and it’s not just me doing this. There are lots of other people involved. Kjell Anderson FAIA, who sits on the (Washington State) Building Code Council, has been a partner in crime in this work for a long time. David Walsh AIA is another big player, plus alliance organizations like AIA Washington Council and Shift Zero. I’m Shift Zero co-chair this year, and I’ve been working with them and their alliance-building efforts for years.
Having that law passed was great, but we certainly see that there are limitations to it, and it’s not as powerful at scale change as we as architects believe it could be. We think there’s more to be done on the embodied carbon side.”
Strategies and Setbacks
“One of the challenges that kept this legislation reappearing for several years was combining it as a Buy Clean bill and a Buy Fair bill. Having embodied carbon measures and fair labor practices together often made it a challenge. Each time it would fail, it failed primarily because of the Buy Fair component. In our advocacy efforts, we often tried to separate those things out. We certainly support fair labor practices, but we weren’t finding a political way to get them passed when they were coupled together. That was modeled after a California law.
Last year, Kjell and I, along with Dave Walsh, created a bill ourselves and actually wrote the language for (Washington House Bill) 1458. That set a new pathway with a three-pronged approach: first supporting reuse in buildings, and when that isn’t an option, material reductions or whole-building life-cycle reduction. That bill made it quite far and ended up dying in Appropriations Committee simply because the state was facing a budget shortfall. Even with a very small fiscal note on this bill, the idea of any new money being spent was not well received last session.
Now we’re bringing that bill back again this year, although the budget shortfall will continue to make it an uphill climb. And there are proposals in the Washington State Building Code as optional appendices for embodied carbon reduction—one created by New Buildings Institute and the other called the Anderson Proposal, named after Kjell’s amendments to it.
Recently, a lot of the work that we do is not about putting out new policies, but fighting against people trying to stop the climate progress that has already been made. There are organizations that continually sue all of our groups; Kjell is named in a federal lawsuit, for example. We keep having to think about ways to stop efforts to roll back the energy code that has already passed.
There were ballot initiatives that tried to target laws already in place, like the Climate Commitment Act. It took months, a huge effort, and millions of dollars just to fight to keep a law that was already working well, providing money directly to Washingtonians that need it most."
Partners and Allies
“Dave and Kjell and I have worked on a lot of this together. AIA Washington Council has been a big part of this for years, and Shift Zero, Carbon Leadership Forum, RMI, and NBI were important players. RMI and NBI both did a lot of work as technical and policy advisors and even provided funding.
We also talked with folks from California to see their success, and we’ve been working with Vancouver, British Columbia, because they have policies addressing embodied carbon in their permitting. They were really helpful in sharing what they’ve enacted.”
The Architect’s Role in Advocacy
“As an architect, I get involved in testifying at the state and city level and serving as a resource for legislators as they write bills. Sometimes legislators send me bills to review and I mark them up, and sometimes Kjell, Dave, and I draft the bill language ourselves. I know sustainability really well, and that allows me to feel comfortable talking to elected officials about climate issues. We’re seen as experts, and elected officials rely on us as a trusted resource.
We need architects with a range of expertise to provide this kind of support to their Legislators across the country. Give it a try!
For the firm specifically, we have a program called Emission Zero. I’m very lucky to be at a firm that supports advocacy work; they supply time for me to do this work, and they support us signing our name on bills or showing up to testify.”
Advice for New Advocates
“I would say that committing to what is really important to you and continuing to find the value in it are really some of the best steps we can take. Keep your head down a little bit and work on the issues that we all are passionate about and not get caught up in a lot of the noise that’s happening, because part of that is just simply a tactic to distract us and slow our climate progress..
Alliances are really important. It’s easy to get involved in these groups, especially through things like AIA, who already have advocacy roles set up.
I really encourage people to reach out and connect with groups that already exist, like AIA or Shift Zero or NBI or RMI, because they’ve already started the work. They’ve built the relationships. They know the process. They have ways to get you connected at the legislature, whether it’s through advocacy days at the Capitol or supporting existing campaigns. That can be really easy for people to join.”