Officials look for green light

From solar power and recycling to roof-top gardens and environmentally certified building design, village and city officials throughout the Chicago area are starting to think green when new subdivisions and other projects are proposed.

More than 300 municipal officials and environmentally minded residents gathered Wednesday at Unity Temple in Oak Park to learn how to make their towns more sustainable.

"It's pretty impressive," Craig Failor, Oak Park's village planner, said as he looked at the crowded church entry. "It seems like that's the direction we all need to go. It really is the wave of the future."

The conference was sponsored by many groups, including Oak Park and Seventh Generation Ahead, a local organization that espouses the Iroquois view that the impact on the seventh generation must be considered when making decisions.

The keynote speaker was author and architect Bill McDonough, whose book "Cradle to Cradle: Rethinking the Way We Make Things" challenges the notion that environmental responsibility and a profitable bottom line can't co-exist.

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