Five minutes with Elena Bondareva

Can you tell us about your time at GBCA and what you've been doing since?

When I began at GBCA it was with a staff of four and arriving at a desk buckling under the weight of submissions for certification, I got to establish the Green Star assessment process, expand Green Star beyond commercial office, articulate the world’s first energy modeling protocol,  influence the incorporation of sustainability into building codes, train 2,000+ professionals, and help establish GBCs in  New Zealand and South Africa.

I left in 2008 when there was a much larger team and have since catalyzed over two dozen transformational ventures across 6 continents and helped dozens go to the next level of impact; held public, private, teaching, and Board roles in Australia, India, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, and the US;  and participated in globally significant events such as COP17 and G20. 

Today, I am on a mission to professionalise change-making.

This is a time of big policy announcements. What is the role of policy – and policy-makers – in change-making?

Policy and regulation are essential for transformation. If voluntary mechanisms like Green Star raise the ceiling, regulation lifts the floor, and policy can accelerate both. What we want is the tension best illustrated on a bell curve you may have seen in a Green Star course.

The middle is where nearly everybody – including you and me – will forever remain on most issues because we cannot physiologically care for as many causes as demand us to act differently.  Regulation and policy are essential for transformation because they honour that and focus on making the desired behavior inevitable! Read more.

70% of transformation initiatives continue to fail. Given how necessary these are, how do you think we can reverse the odds?

This question hits the sweet spot of my life’s work! We must distinguish incremental change from transformation. Next, we must put the right people at the helm. Change-makers are uniquely positioned to travel unchartered paths, so we must identify, designate, and support them. Lastly, they need better than a chance at near-assured self-destruction. For that, we identify the building blocks and formulas for transformational change. Think of the Periodic Table of Elements for chemistry, and imagine that for change. That is exactly what I am to produce through my current PhD research (RMIT). While we may not be able to guarantee an outcome, we sure can – and must – do better than the trial and error that got us this far!

On September 4, you'll be speaking at an event for our future green leader network. What advice do you have for the future green leaders of tomorrow?

They'll have to come out to find out, won’t they!

Change-making is a wiring, a calling, and a choice but it is also a discipline and a trade that is worthy of the best of us. You will not lack for the sense of meaning correlated to all manners of positive outcomes. You will be a step (or several) ahead of normies who don’t know their impact. And you will belong to a growing global community that is relentless, versatile, and kind.

If you choose change-making as your trade, you’ll also partner with me to get it recognized as such. Just think how many of today’s professions (e.g., AI trainer) didn’t exist a decade ago. Join me on this adventure!

Are you a future green leader ready to learn more about change-making? Join us on September 4 for an evening of inspiration, learning, networking and to hear Elena in conversation with GBCA’s Jeff Oatman. Find out more and book your seat here.