LF23 Call for Proposals

Submissions are now closed.

Registration is now open!

Are you an advocate for climate, health, and justice issues in the built environment? With a community of stakeholders addressing the biggest challenges of our time, Living Future 2023 is your opportunity to share your impact and innovations with a global audience. We’re now accepting speaker proposals for the topic of advocacy and belonging until October 1. Below you’ll find out how to apply!

The International Living Future Institute is excited to announce the call for proposals for our 17^th annual Living Future Conference, taking place in-person in Washington DC, May 3-5, 2023. The Living Future Conference is the leading annual event focused on the built environment that is designed cross-sectionally to address and transform climate, health, and justice in our communities.

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Quick Links

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Living Future 2023 is celebrating its return to an in-person gathering to reunite this community of deep-green thought leaders, regenerative building practitioners, project teams, building owners and operators, campus planners, materials providers, and aligned advocates working in the built environment. This signature annual event provides information on cutting edge technologies and the inspiration and knowledge needed to drive the solutions to our climate emergency, materials health needs, and strategies for rectifying racial inequities and injustices in our communities and workplaces. 

Living Future 2023 is seeking leaders who would like to share their insights, case studies, the latest tools and technologies for transforming the built environment, and methodologies to create socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative buildings, communities, and materials. 

Together, we will meet to co-create a positive, achievable vision for a Living Future, and collaboratively work to build solutions with each other to the most daunting global issues of our time. Please join the movement toward a Living Future by submitting your interactive and session to our link below!

Proposals were due Saturday, October 1, 2022

*Please note: all proposals for consideration must be sent via the link above. Unfortunately, emailed, mailed, or late proposals cannot be assured for review.

Living Future Conference 2023 Projected Timeline*

*A detailed timeline with additional deadline information will be issued at the time of speaker acceptance. In appreciation of our accepted speakers and their contribution to the success of Living Future 2023, accepted speakers are eligible for a complimentary pass for their session or a discounted full conference speaker rate of $850 for the LF23 All Conference Pass. Speaker all-access passes will include a full-conference in person event ticket, along with conference meal functions, evening event functions, and replay access to LF23 sessions including applicable CEU accreditation for AIA and LFA certifications until August 1, 2023. We encourage all of our speakers to participate in this in-person community gathering through the duration of the event and to network with others at this one-of-a-kind three-day event where we collectively learn from each other, generate inspirational solutions, and build long term business relationships.

Theme: Advocacy + Belonging 

In our goal to create a Living Future, we must build momentum in our movement while transforming our individual members from bystanders to committed advocates. We will drive this transformation through our inclusive culture of belonging—where we allow all participants to have meaningful expression and the opportunity to participate in shared solutions through a design of radical inclusivity and idea exchange. Living Future 2023 represents a global shift in perspective, a gathering for bold thinkers and doers, and unique gathering space for growing our collective advocacy and belonging to build our movement of transformative thinkers and impact at the epicenter of climate, health, and justice in the built environment.

Living Future 2023 will create the networking spaces that will allow us to deeply engage with one another to focus on addressing and repairing intertwined and daunting global issues including the damage to our ecological and social health and wellbeing. Together, we will answer questions around how we will restore ecosystems, how we will dismantle systems of oppression, and how we will restore and make our community and building systems whole. At Living Future 2023, we will affirm the dignity and inherent value of all people, impacted communities, and the rights of the natural world. 

Selection Criteria 

The Living Future Conference annually convenes inspirational speakers, peer-to-peer learning opportunities, and community collaboration, as well as showcases technological and product innovations to activate and scale deep supply chain and built environment transformation. Living Future 2023 session proposals should detail session engagement techniques, tools you’ll use to make the session interactive, and how you’ll design a participatory session model that fosters dialogue between speakers and attendees. Live polling and gamification techniques are encouraged to support a rich, interactive digital experience with attendees. 

Attendees are participants in the regenerative buildings movement who want up-to-date tools, technologies, and case studies of project triumphs/failures, and workshop-based problem solving sessions with those who have done the work before them. In the Institute’s selection criteria, all session proposals will be reviewed using the following criteria: 

• Demonstrates qualified and engaging presenters with topic-relevant experience, as evidenced through presenter bios, event speaking experience, and video presentations, whenever available
• Depicts session facilitation that is informative and specifically created to engage a in-person audience using tools that facilitate co-creation, including online whiteboarding, live polling, and gamification throughout the 55-minute presentation
• Offers a deep understanding of timely and significant content including case studies, deep dives, and information that will create value and movement support among the audience
• Demonstrates through project team case studies how to solve problems and avoid pitfalls
• Includes clear, relevant learning objectives and challenging content for an advanced audience
• Provides access to data and resources for technical information and specifications
• Presents replicable and scalable ideas and provides clear takeaways that attendees can implement in their work after Living Future 2023 
• Focuses content on advanced practitioner knowledge and project teams

Submission Requirements 

FOCUS AREAS

All proposals should work to integrate the theme of “Advocacy + Belonging” as defined in “What We Mean” above. Proposals are strongly encouraged to bring forward diverse and new voices and perspectives. This may include youth, elders, community members, artists, activists, project owners, facilities personnel, and more. Proposals are also strongly encouraged to incorporate aspects of cultural richness – creating buildings, communities, and products that respect, embrace and showcase history, art, music, poetry, food, dance, story, costume, language, etc. Although your focus area may cross many disciplines or themes, please choose the category that best expresses the purpose of your contribution.

JUSTICE + BELONGING: Acknowledging and addressing that our climate emergency has differing social, economic, public health, and other adverse impacts on less-resourced populations. How do we address these inequities head-on through short-term action and long-term mitigation and adaptation strategies? How do we transform our developments and organizations to foster a true sense of belonging within our communities to create communities that are just, affordable, and equitable for all, regardless of an individual’s background, ability, race, gender, socioeconomic, or sexual orientation. 

IMPACT CASE STUDIES: The ideas in your submission can best be described as celebrating the successes of project teams, achievements, and how you overcame barriers to create lasting impact. We would like to see your bold ideas from around the world and to leverage the knowledge you’ve obtained and share the accomplishments and challenges of your living projects and products. These case studies should focus on translatable stories of lessons learned, your advice to other teams, and to detail the impacts of your work, the benefits recognized, and the reasons for adopting living buildings, communities, and/or products. Case studies can focus on any focus area types. 

HEALTH + MATERIALS: How do we design spaces and products that optimize physical health and well-being? How do we expand our healthy materials economy around ecologically regenerative, transparent, and socially equitable products and develop advocacy for their use? Share the latest innovations, best practices, and how-tos. 

ZERO CARBON: Drive the creation and operation of zero embodied carbon buildings that rely solely on renewable forms of energy while operating year-round in a safe, pollution-free, and resilient manner. Prioritize reductions and building efficiencies before turning to technological solutions. Minimize and offset carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. 

RESTORATION + RESILIENCE: Restore our relationship with nature by reconnecting our human-built environment to its natural ecosystems. How do we encourage the creation of buildings and communities focused on pedestrians, local food web, watersheds, and our ecological habitats?  How do we create communities that are resilient to change and disruptions from the impacts of climate change? Showcase projects that operate within the ecological balance of a given place–and that are resilient to changes or disruptions. How do we harvest sufficient water, energy, and food to meet the needs of a given population while respecting the land and the ecosystem the site inhabits, as well as its neighbors while respecting original inhabitants? How do we address equitable access to these resources? 

BEAUTY + BIOPHILIA: Recognizing and creating compelling data and findings on the need for beauty and biophilia, which enriches our lives, improves our wellness, and honors the impact of the built environment and our connection to nature. Biophilia is a powerful strategy for transforming how we design products, buildings, and communities. Explore how innovative practitioners are reshaping industries in order to align with natural systems. 

ADVOCACY + INNOVATION:  We need to build our movement and discover and use advocacy tools to build a Living Future for all. How are our leading practitioners and innovators pushing for better and healthier buildings and communities through engaging in policy and public sector action? 

FORMAT + TIMING 

Sessions will be 55 minutes in duration and run live in-person at Living Future 2023  at the assigned date and time. We request that there be no more than 4 speakers total, including the moderator on each session. Each session submission should follow the prompts provided in the link above including: 

TITLE 

(15 words/ 150 character maximum) 
This is the first point of contact with an attendee, and often the basis of their presence in the session. Create a compelling and impactful title that conveys the headline of your session context.

ABSTRACT 

(100 words maximum) 
Session abstracts should discuss the goal of the session, the target audience, and any prerequisite knowledge. This abstract appears in the conference program. 

SESSION DESCRIPTION 

(300 words maximum) 
Expand upon the abstract by addressing each of the following: 

• The content of the session in more detail 
• How the session connects to the Living Future theme: “Advocacy + Belonging,” theme. Also point out which focus areas your session most closely aligns. 
• The format of your session, including presentation style, audience engagement tools and activity facilitation strategies if applicable, and the contribution and role of each presenter 
• The benefit of this session to attendees and how they will use this knowledge in the workplace. 
• For interactive sessions, include a description of strategies that you will employ to make this session informative and/or interactive. Digital handouts and/or slides that provide employable solutions for practitioners are strongly encouraged. 
• How and when will you moderate or lecture and how will participants engage with others in the digital space. You could just include a simple explanation followed by a guided exercise. 

SESSION AGENDA 

Frame out your session for the 55 minutes
Provide a session agenda with times, a brief description, and goals for each section of the session, and an indication of which presenter is leading/involved in that portion of the overall session. 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES + CEU TOPIC AREA

Write four (4) learning objectives not more than one sentence in length using the following guidelines. Sessions without these requirements may be eliminated from consideration. 

Learning objectives are the intended accomplishments/goals that learners should realize upon completion of a learning activity. Attendees should leave with new tools and perspectives that will provide them with a clear understanding of how to apply what they have learned and how it will improve their current and future work. Learning objectives are necessary for education providers to seek credit for continuing education units (CEUs). Learning objectives use action verbs to describe what learners should be able to do by the end of the session. Finish this sentence: ‘Upon completion, participants will be able to….’ using an action verb to begin the learning objective. 

All sessions presented at Living Future will be evaluated for LFA and AIA CE credits. Most Living Future Conference 2023 programming directly covers Health, Safety, and Welfare content and AIA LU|HSW credit as well. Please indicate which CEU topic area your session submission most closely matches:

• Practice management 
• Project management 
• Programming and analysis 
• Project planning and design 
• Project development and documentation 
• Construction and evaluation 
• Other (Session not eligible for AIA LU|HSW) 

CRAFT A 10-QUESTION QUIZ 

Presenters agree to craft a 10-question quiz for the asynchronous audiences to earn CEUs aligned with the session learning objectives. The quiz will be due to ILFI staff in April 2023, with exact dates to follow. These quizzes will enable ILFI to offer on-demand viewing credits for the content for asynchronous viewing.

IDENTIFY LEARNING LEVEL

Accurate selection of the learning level of each session is critical to our conference attendees. Please provide a brief explanation (25 to 50 words) of why this level has been selected for the session. Mislabeled sessions may be eliminated from consideration. 

100 – Basic awareness: No assumption is made that learners have a specific baseline knowledge. Provides general information and understanding of the topic. Transfers new knowledge without substantial action outcomes for the learner. Objectives may be to understand, describe, define, or recognize new information. Our conferences are intended as an advanced educational and networking opportunity. Unless it introduces a new concept or idea, very few proposals at the 100 level will be considered. 

200 – Understanding/Comprehension: It is assumed that learners have at least a cursory understanding of the topic and may possess some direct experience. This level offers more in-depth material or explanation by the instructor and the opportunity for the participant to interact with the material and be engaged in using the information in practice applications. Objectives may be to analyze, assess, select, or compare new information, using words such as associate; classify; cite; contrast; describe; discuss; distinguish; estimate; explain; generalize; give examples; interpret; paraphrase; restate; summarize. Unless it introduces a new concept or idea, few proposals at the 200 level will be considered. 

300 – Application/Implementation: It is assumed that learners already have an understanding of the topic and may possess some direct experience. Requires the learner to be able to complete a definitive action following the course. Allows for the opportunity to gain new knowledge and practice its application on their own. Objectives may be to implement, design, produce, or create a tangible product or action, using words such as apply; articulate; assess; calculate; change; chart; classify; compute; construct; control; demonstrate; determine; develop; establish; illustrate; instruct; interview; operationalize; participate; prepare; project; provide; report; select; show; solve; teach; transfer; use; utilize. Proposals at the 300 level are strongly encouraged. 

400 – Expert: It is assumed that learners have extensive prior knowledge of the topic and have direct experience (where applicable). Includes training on specific technical topics. Objectives may be to appraise, construct, calculate, develop or validate, using words such as analyze; assess; break down; categorize; classify; compare; conclude; connect; contrast; correlate; decide; design; diagram; differentiate; discriminate; distinguish; evaluate; explain; focus; judge; justify; illustrate; infer; integrate; limit; measure; modify; outline; plan; point out; predict; prioritize; produce; rank; rate; rearrange; research; rewrite; select; separate; subdivide; substitute. Proposals geared to the 400 level are greatly encouraged. 

INTENDED AUDIENCE

Briefly describe (50 words) who your intended audience is (discipline, background) and any prior experience or knowledge prerequisite they may need. What skills or prerequisites should the audience have to make the most out of your presentation?

PRESENTERS 

• Role (i.e. presenter, moderator or facilitator). Please list all speakers, with a maximum of four presenters including moderators and facilitators. 
• First and last name, job title, company/organization, contact information (including city, state, email address, and phone number), self-identifying information. Please note we strive to create an event that is diverse in the representation of voices and lived experiences and desire to have a balanced representation of race and gender. To facilitate our goal, we will ask for demographics. This information will not be shared beyond the call for proposals and selection process. 
• Biography (100 words max, appears on conference program); 
• Headshot; (high resolution, appears on conference program and website); 
• Please include two recent speaking experiences for each individual. Please include the name of event/conference, date, title of session, and role in session. Please include any video links showing the presenter speaking if possible
• List of previous Living Future presentations including the title of session and year
• Please ensure that each speaker provides confirmation individually to the ILFI program policies. 

Program Policies 

All proposals must be complete, comprehensive, and will be reviewed by a technical advisory committee and selected for its merits and timeliness for the audience. Please note that the Institute in its review process may alter a presentation, increase and/or reduce the number of presenters, select alternate presenters from among those proposed, and/or combine the submitted presentation with other proposed presentations, at its sole discretion. All participants will be contacted independently to confirm their participation. 

During the electronic submission process, all presenter/moderators/facilitators will be asked to affirm that they understand and will abide by the below policies. Submissions that do not follow the below policies will not be considered. 

• Priority is given to panels that represent diverse ethnic/racial/gender representation. Our goal is to have significant gender, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ diversity among our presenters that reflect the current percentages found in the US Census. Every accepted panel should be designed with a plan for racial and gender-diverse panelists.
• Submissions must include speakers who have agreed to and accepted the requirements stated in the Call for Submissions. Speakers must acknowledge their availability to present in-person in Washington DC for a 55 minute session at the conference, May 3-5, 2023. Speakers who are not available over all of these conference dates should not apply. 
• Speakers who subsequently are unable to attend the conference must notify the Institute’s staff in writing as soon as possible at LF@living-future.org. Replacements must be approved by the Institute which reserves the right to modify/cancel any session based on a change in presenters, moderators, or facilitators. 
• If a presenter, moderator, or facilitator’s professional affiliation changes, the presenter, moderator, or facilitator is required to notify the Institute’s staff immediately in writing to LF@living-future.org. The Institute reserves the right to change/remove presenter, moderator, or facilitators based on these changes.
• In our intention to hear from the broadest array of voices at the conference, we request that an individual only accept participation in one educational session at Living Future. Exceptions may be made by Institute staff at LF@living-future.org.
• A firm/institution/organization may participate as a moderator/presenter/facilitator in no more than two sessions at the conference from that firm/institution/organization. Presenters are encouraged to represent their topic from a diverse perspective by adding presenters from different companies and/or project team roles. 
• In an effort to promote new and diverse groups of presenters, the proposal reviewers will give preference to presenters who have not presented previously at the Living Future Conference. 
• The Institute may modify any submitted session by adding or removing speakers or requesting content changes or additions or time changes. 
• No sessions based upon an advertisement of a product or service will be accepted into the program unless specifically produced and curated and advertised to registrants as a complimentary “sponsored” shoulder event.
• In appreciation for your accepted session and its impact on the success of the conference, accepted speakers will be eligible to register for a All-Access LF22 Conference Pass at the discounted speaker rate of $850. Registration is required for all speakers, and discount codes will be provided upon acceptance and signature of a Digital Memorandum of Understanding. Complimentary session-only speaker registration is available on a case-by-case basis at the sole discretion of the Institute. ● Exceptions to these policies may be made at the sole discretion of the Institute. Please contact us at LF@living-future.org with questions around policies and format.

How to Submit

Proposal submissions are now closed. If you have any questions, please contact LF@living-future.org.

*Please note: all proposals for consideration must be sent via the link above. Unfortunately, emailed, mailed, or late proposals cannot be assured for review. Proposals must be prepared in accordance with the requirements outlined, and once submitted a proposal, unfortunately, cannot be retroactively edited. 

QUESTIONS? Contact us at LF@living-future.org 

The International Living Future Institute is an inspiring hub for visionary programs. Our mission is to lead and support the transformation toward communities that are socially just, culturally rich and ecologically restorative. Driven by the principles of regenerative design, the Institute is premised on the belief that providing a compelling vision for the future is a fundamental requirement for reconciling humanity’s relationship with the natural world.