PUBLISHER ' S MESSAGE
“ There is a risk any time you do something new, and in the construction industry, we’ re very risk averse because there’ s a lot of money wrapped up in it [ construction projects ]. There’ s real physical risk,” Murray explained.“ In each party, there’ s an element of courage to step into the unknown. But climate change requires us to be bold and work together, to rethink what acceptable risk looks like.”
As an Honours English Literature student at Concordia University, my academic life has largely revolved around books, language, and the stories civilizations leave behind. Construction was the castle Hamlet agonized in, Gatsby ' s mansion glittering across the bay, the libraries where I studied, the hospital where my blood was drawn. Buildings existed but not to move the plot along. They were destinations, not fully actualized stories.
That changed almost immediately working with High-Profile Monthly.
Every interview I conducted and every project I researched revealed something I failed to consider before: buildings are among the most enduring records of who we are. Literature tells us how a society thinks, but the built environment tells us what it values and how it spends its time. This is especially true in New England, where history is quite literally built into our daily lives. Every school, bridge, and housing development reflects thousands of decisions about what deserves our time, resources, and ingenuity. As I interviewed sustainability leaders across the region, I realized I had been looking at the built environment backward. Buildings are not the backdrops where history unfolds; they are history in the making. Every project begins as an argument about what a society values, what it chooses to preserve, and what it hopes will outlast it.
Nowhere is that more evident than in green building and design. Again and again, I met people dedicating years of their lives to projects they may never see come to fruition, planning meticulously based on data projected decades ahead. Janna Cohen Rosenthal’ s passion for future students when discussing UMass Boston’ s commitment to sustainability on page
4 translated to the continuous improvement of campus renewable energy technology. On page 16, Emily Hall emphasized the vitality of planning for not just tomorrow’ s sea levels, but those 75 years into the future. Kyle Gillen described Turner Construction ' s commitment to a greener future on page 9, recognizing that repurposing existing buildings often requires more effort than starting over, but delivers lasting environmental benefits.
Over and over New England sustainability figures lead with infectious hope. This edition celebrates those people. Every conversation points to the horizon. Engineers, architects, and contractors debate embodied carbon, rethink materials, restore ecosystems, and design for resilience. Sustainability has its tendrils deep in the conviction that the work we do today should outlast us. It is an investment in people we will never meet and places we may never see completed. There is something profoundly poetic about faith, stewardship, and the selflessness to build for people you may never meet. The choices we make in the present are the stories future generations will read in decarbonized steel, hempcrete blocks, and precast concrete.
Like the builders of cathedrals who laid foundations knowing completion would belong to another generation, today’ s designers and builders are creating places for future generations to call home.
Happy reading.
Sophia Bacanurschi Student Publisher, GREEN Concordia University
4 9 16
How Waterfront Umass Location Boston Uses As A Its
Sustainability Asset
Building Construction Circularity A Q & A Into Gillen Of Turner Construction With Kyle
Engineering A More Resilient Charlestown Breachway
2 GREEN STUDENT EDITION 2026