Less Bad Was Never Enough

Thirty-five years ago, a handful of us set out to change how we build. It worked better than we dreamed — green building councils in 85 countries, and LEED and other global rating systems like BREEAM and Green Star transforming building performance and setting a higher standard.

When I review new LinkedIn contacts, I’m struck that every fifth one seems to be a LEED or WELL AP (accredited professional).

Our impact has spread across much of the world — billions of square feet of green buildings, measurably better performance, and healthier places for people. So much to celebrate. Less wasteful. Less toxic. Less punishing to the planet, and better for the people inside.

Yet global emissions kept climbing anyway, as our oceans rise and warm, and aquifers deplete.

That’s the sentence that keeps me up at night. The engineer in me sees waste in the system and a problem to solve.

I’ve made this Substack my home base — one place for the writing, and a better place to hear back from you. Building community has been the goal since I started in green building in 1991, since I started in green building in 1991, and this is where I want to continue the work. I’m more invigorated than ever to help invent new systems and accelerate human evolution for good.

We won, and it wasn’t enough. Not because the work was wrong — it was necessary, and I’d do it again — but because “less bad” is a subtraction problem. You can subtract forever and never renew and regenerate into the positive. Slowing the rate at which you destroy something is not the same as building something that gives back more than it takes.

So at sixty-six, with a new book coming and more than four decades of work behind me, I’m digging deeper to get to the root cause of degradation. Not how do we do less damage, but what would it take to build a civilization that leaves the world more alive than it found it?

This Substack is where I’ll chase that question. Three words carry it: Reboot. Regenerate. Earth.

The problems we call environmental are downstream of something deeper: the operating logic we run on. A logic that treats extraction as success, growth as an end in itself, and the living world as a warehouse to be emptied. We didn’t design that system. We inherited it. And we keep feeding it — mostly out of habit, momentum, and incentive, not conscious intent.

You can’t fix an operating system solely by optimizing the apps running on it. That’s what thirty-five years of green building taught me — and I say that as someone still in awe of the apps. LEED and the other global rating systems did what they were built to do: they moved an entire market, made buildings measurably better, and proved that performance could be verified rather than promised. That work is important and still advancing. But it runs on top of an operating logic none of us wrote — one that rewards growth no matter how efficient the buildings get.

GDP, revenue, profit: they measure expansion, not whether life is thriving. We can grow the numbers while depleting what they don’t count — energy, materials, ecosystems, and human spirit. A company can post record profits while depleting the very things that made those profits possible: its people, its resources, the living systems underneath. We call that success. And the metric says we’re winning.

You don’t fix that by trying harder inside the old economic logic. You reboot it — you rewrite the code underneath.

I’ve also learned that sometimes we have to reboot our personal operating systems. When I left real estate development, I had to ground myself by pulling away and listening to my inner voice — one I’d stuffed away while I chased what I was programmed to want: money, status, more.

Even within green building, I’ve walked away from roles that looked right on paper but had lost the triple-bottom-line mission underneath. It cost me financially. I did it anyway, to stay oriented to the deeper why.

When my marriage collapsed, I was shattered. A twenty-year foundation disintegrated in a single day. I had to grieve. Get help. And reboot.

The personal and the planetary run on the same code.

What I’ll write about here: the code underneath — how we define value, what we agree to call wealth, why our Stone Age wiring can’t hold a finite planet, and what happens when technology outruns our capacity to govern it.

On recent podcasts, I keep getting asked the difference between regeneration and sustainability. For decades we talked about sustainable buildings as shorthand for “green.” But sustainable means lessening the harm until we reach neutral — do no damage. That was the right goal when we were setting the bar for leadership. Today it isn’t enough.

I keep seeing the steep climb of CO2, and the 1.5-degree goal of the Paris Agreement slipping out of reach. Record temperatures. Nations retreating from their commitments — my own among them. A world fraying at the seams.

I feel for our children, and I try to give them a voice — the way the Lorax spoke for the trees. It was my favorite book to read to my daughter.

Nature doesn’t sustain. Nature regenerates — a fallen redwood decomposes into the soil and feeds the seedlings that rise from it, and aquifers refill with the rains. Life doesn’t just hold steady — given the chance, it renews.

Every living system runs on renewal built into the cycle, not bolted on after collapse. Rest is structural. Seasons are structural. Yet we build an economy that treats rest as waste, then wonder why everything is exhausted — the soil, the workers, the founders, the oceans.

It’s the same logic as a healthcare system that treats symptoms instead of the disease.

I learned this the hard way, in my own body — physically and mentally. I’ll write about that here, honestly, instead of covering it up the way most of us are taught to hide.

We’ll also dig into what really drives us — including the one we least like to name: fear. Fear holds us back and drains our energy, focus, and presence.

What I’ll write about here: what regeneration actually requires. The Earth Code — the fifteen equations at the heart of my new book, Regen360. Soul Worth, as a companion to net worth. The architecture of love. And RegenCircles — a way for the people doing this work to support and nurture one another, the ones who feel like they’re swimming against a current that never stops.

There is no “away.” There is only here. Right now.

Earth is our home — for all of us, and not just humans. We are all part of nature. It’s our shared wealth.

But much of the planet has been put up for sale, and many of the wealthiest leave the largest ecological footprint. How do we reclaim the soil, the oceans, the air — our commons?

Because outside our own front door, it all becomes other. Other people, other places, other cultures. That’s the oldest bug in the code, and it needs a civilizational reboot.

Can we come together to build a world more alive than the one we were handed?

I don’t have a finished answer. I’ve helped incubate a few organizations, written a few books, and built some frameworks along the way. What I have now is a lifetime of scar tissue — and a genuine belief that we can accelerate HOPE: Health On Planet Earth.

If you’ve been reading my emails — thank you, and nothing changes except the address. If you’re new: welcome. Reply anytime, or leave a comment so others can join in — I read everything, and this is where the conversation starts.

I’ve always believed we’re each here for a reason — what I call a life of PPM: passion, purpose, and mission. We’ll talk about these igniters — and about living with clarity now, and building a legacy worth leaving for ourselves, our families, and the planet.

Yes, I’m still a dreamer, and my flame is still burning bright — though hopefully more and more renewable.

Consider this a base camp. A place to come back to before the next climb — with tools, route notes, guides who’ve walked it, and others to join you. You’ll hear from me at least weekly — essays, photos, podcasts, guest posts, and interviews. All free.

There’s also a paid tier for going deeper: private posts, Q&A calls, and first look at what I’m building. It’s also where RegenCircles will begin — I’m building the model now, and paid subscribers will have the first opportunity to start one in their own community. I’ll share the framework and early guidance here, with additional tools and training as the program grows.

Thanks for all you do. I’m glad you’re here.

Welcome home.

— David Gottfried