A Letter from our 2025 Board Chair

Deana Haynes • February 11, 2025

In 2021, Illinois Green embarked on a bold five-year strategic plan with an aspirational, future-forward mission: to make net zero buildings feasible, affordable, and so commonplace that every building in Illinois is net zero by 2050. 

Since then, we’ve seen remarkable progress in the conversation around green buildings, and Illinois Green has been at the forefront of driving this transformation. Through our collaborative initiatives, innovative programming, and advocacy efforts, we’ve amplified the voice of the green building community and positioned Illinois as a leader in sustainable building practices. 

 

As the 2025 Chair of the Board of Directors, I am honored to guide Illinois Green as we embark on the final year of our 2021-2025 strategic plan. The Board of Directors and staff are focused on ensuring the organization remains a catalyst for innovation, action, and progress.

 

Over the past four years, Illinois Green has expanded its reach and impact significantly. This growth has empowered us to introduce innovative new formats for our education programming, strengthen our role and voice in the policy and advocacy space, and deliver transformative projects like the Building Energy Resource Hub, which has demonstrated that high-performance buildings are achievable in every corner of Illinois.

 

At its core, Illinois Green’s work is about people—our community of architects, engineers, building owners, operators, builders, product manufacturers, policymakers, and sustainability advocates.  By convening these diverse voices and perspectives, we’ve created a collaborate space that has sparked new ideas and driven meaningful change. 

 

Looking ahead, we will continue building on these successes in a few key areas: providing programming that equips the green building community with knowledge and resources, deepening engagement with policymakers and industry leaders to promote clean and healthy buildings, and reinforcing Illinois Green’s leadership in advancing building decarbonization throughout the state. 

 

Of course, this work would not be possible without the dedication, support, and engagement of our community of volunteers, advocates, donors, and industry professionals. Thank you for being an integral part of our mission. Together, we will build on these strong foundations to ensure a future with healthier and greener communities across Illinois.




Deana A. Haynes

2025 Board Chair | Illinois Green Alliance

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By Ryan Wilmington • January 23, 2026
Five years ago, Illinois Green Alliance launched a new strategic plan with a bold north star to guide our work: to make net zero buildings feasible, affordable, and so commonplace that every building in Illinois was net zero by 2050. Mainstreaming the technology and building methods, whether new or existing, is no easy feat. But we realized no one was better positioned to make it happen than green building professionals.Our focus over the last five years have been about laying the foundation necessary to meet our long-term vision and I’m excited to share the progress we’ve made. These past five years have been guided by three pillars: ● Educating industry professionals to ensure they have the expertise to use net zero building methods in their work and can help us raise awareness about their value with building owners and policy makers. ● Removing barriers by providing information about the technical, financial, social and policy roadblocks to net zero adoption and passing new laws that help to overcome these barriers. ● Demonstrating it can work everywhere by collaborating with building types in historically underinvested communities that are considered difficult to implement net zero methods. That focus has paid off, allowing us to meet many of the goals we set for our work across all of our strategies. For example:

The New Momentum for Green Building Policy

By Ryan Wilmington • January 16, 2026
At the start of 2025, I told our members that we can build a movement of green building advocates that can continue the progress made in Illinois for high-performance building, regardless of what happens in Washington D.C. Over the last year, you’ve proven me right. While elsewhere green building and clean energy goals have been put on pause, Illinois has continued the fight and won three huge victories that usher in historic investment in clean energy and green buildings and raise the bar for building performance, completely changing the landscape for what is possible in this industry. 
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