International Institute for Bau-biologie & Ecologyhbelc.org/pdf/Resources/ibe-prospectus2012.pdf · International Institute for Bau-Biologie® & Ecology, Inc. (IBE) PO Box 64188,

Prospectus International Institute for Bau-biologie® & Ecology

Educating Professionals and Consumers in the Science of Building Biology

BRINGING TOGETHER TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN METHODS TO PROVIDE THE INFORMATION AND SCIENCE NEEDED TO CREATE HEALTHY HOMES AND WORKPLACES

2012

International Institute for Bau-Biologie® & Ecology, Inc. (IBE)

PO Box 64188, Tucson, AZ, 33470 • 866-960-0333 • www.buildingbiology.net Page 2 of 8 International Institute Bau-Biologie® & Ecology, Inc. is a non-profit 501(C)(3) organization

International Institute for Bau-Biologie® & Ecology, Inc. (IBE) a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization

Table of Contents – Calendar Year 2012

I EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..................................................................................................................... 3

I.1 Vision ................................................................................................................................................ 3 I.2 Mission .............................................................................................................................................. 3

II Organization ........................................................................................................................................... 3 II.1 Head Office ..................................................................................................................................... 3 II.2 Board of Directors ........................................................................................................................... 3 II.3 Executive Director ........................................................................................................................... 4

III Statement of Purpose ............................................................................................................................. 4 IV Statement of Need ................................................................................................................................. 5 V Objectives ............................................................................................................................................... 5 VI Projected Budget ................................................................................................................................... 6 VII Current Projects ................................................................................................................................... 6

VII.1 Certification Programs .................................................................................................................. 6 VII.2 Outreach Programs ....................................................................................................................... 7 VII.3 Standard Programs ........................................................................................................................ 7 VII.4 Research ........................................................................................................................................ 8

VIII Concluding Remarks .......................................................................................................................... 8

Our Continuing Education Certification Partners:

I



EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The International Institute for Bau-biologie® & Ecology (IBE) was founded in North America in 1987, with a mission to raise public awareness of the direct interrelationship between the indoor (built) environment and human health. IBE envisions a global awareness of the vital need to bring human health and the built environment into holistic harmony, and the resulting change for the better in the way homes, schools, and commercial buildings are constructed, remodeled, and maintained. IBE provides both working professionals and the general public with online courses, a mentored correspondence course, instructor-led basic and advanced seminars, and an annual conference.

IBE's course and seminar curriculum, developed and taught by experts in the field, is based on scientific research that supports the “precautionary principle.” That is: when an activity raises threats to human health or the natural or built environment, precautionary measures should be taken, even in cases where certain cause-and-effect relationships have not been fully established scientifically. And this principle makes IBE all the more relevant today: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has classified our nation's unhealthy indoor environments as one of the top five health risks facing Americans.

I.1 Mission To inform, teach and guide the general public and working professionals about how to create healthy, healing homes and workplaces, free of air, water and electromagnetic pollutants. To lead people from all walks of life to an understanding of the vital and complex relationship between the natural and built environments, as a means to merge these two complementary environments into greater harmony.

IBE accomplishes these objectives by providing public education programs, professional training programs and certification tracks, public and professional membership, testing protocols, building standards, advocacy, networking and information sharing.

I.2 Vision We believe that human health and wellbeing are intrinsically linked to the materials in our homes and commercial buildings, as well as to the air, water, and electromagnetic field exposure in our indoor environments. We bring together technical expertise, biological understanding and ecological sensitivity to create healthy homes and workplaces. We are committed to building global awareness that a natural living space not only promotes human health and well-being, but also has a positive impact on the survival of this planet.

II ORGANIZATION The International Institute for Bau-biologie® & Ecology, Inc., founded in Clearwater, Florida in 1987, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization, dedicated to bringing together the technical expertise, biological understanding and ecological sensitivity to create healthy homes and workplaces.

II.1 We are a virtual organization with this mailing address: Company: International Institute for Bau-Biologie & Ecology, Inc. (IBE) Address: PO Box 64188 City: Tucson, AZ 85728 United States Phone: 866-960-0333

II.2 Board of Directors • Larry Gust, IBE President of the Board (since 1994)

o Certified Building Biology Environmental Consultant, Electrical Engineer, MBA. Larry Lives in Ventura, California and is on the faculty of the International Institute for Bau-biologie and Ecology and is president of the Board of Directors.



• Spark Burmaster, IBE Board Member (1993) o Certified Building Biology Environmental Inspector, Electrical Engineer, national EMF mitigation

expert. Spark, lives in Chaseburg, Wisconsin, and is on the faculty of the International Institute for Bau-biologie and Ecology.

• Christopher Bell, IBE Board Member (2007) o Certified Building Biology Environmental Consultant, Building Biology instructor. Chris is a city

planning legal consultant, and adjunct professor at the Maharishi University of Management. • Dr. Ann Louise Gittleman, IBE Board Member (2010)

o PhD, CNS Ann Louise is a television personality and a New York Times best-selling author of 30 books on health and healing. including Zapped, self-help for reducing electromagnetic exposure.

• John Evans Henderson, IBE Board Member (2010) o Certified Building Biology Environmental Consultant, Certified Green Building Designer and builder,

board member of the Sierra Club's central Florida chapter. • Sonia Hoglander, IBE Board Member (2012)

o Certified Building Biology Environmental Consultant, electrical engineer, MBA. For the past 20 years she has worked in the field of physiological/electrical connections and hosted a radio talk show on health impacts. Sonia is founder and owner of HomEvolution.

• Jeanne McLaughlin, IBE Board Member (2009) o Certified Building Biology Environmental Consultant, Certified by Feng Shui Institute International

as a Feng Shui Practitioner. Jeanne is also a board member of the charitable nonprofit LifeSteps. • Helmut Ziehe, IBE Founder (1987)

o Founder and Past-President of IBE, Helmut is an architect who received his Dipl. Ing. degree from the Technical University of Berlin, 1964, and a Master’s in Tropical Studies from the London School of Architecture.

II.3 Executive Director • Michael Conn, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 505-690-4203

III STATEMENT OF PURPOSE IBE offers high-level expertise in natural building methods and practices, indoor environmental assessments, natural building materials and natural building science. IBE focuses on providing the following kinds of services:

• To endorse or teach courses, workshops and seminars covering the field of healthier and more natural building and lifestyle.

• To advise and provide support and networking for those who are committed to a healthier and more natural building industry in the products and services that they provide.

• To make information on healthier and more natural building, materials and services available to the public and to the building industry.

• To advise and co-operate with other relevant people, including environmental, research, health, community, local and central government organizations to encourage a healthier and more natural built environments and lifestyles.

IBE offers home study courses, online study courses, and seminars for professionals and lay people. The education program incorporates practical application of the building biology principles as an integral part of its activities. To address the needs of those wanting to evaluate the health supporting nature of homes and offices, IBE has a program of courses and seminars to train Environmental Assessors and Consultants to be able to assess electromagnetic radiation, indoor air quality, etc. Graduates from the United States, Canada, the Philippines, the UK, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Norway, South Africa, Greece, France, the Czech Republic, India, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Australia include architects, electricians, builders, medical practitioners, home inspectors, engineers and many other environmentally concerned people.



We intend to continue to expand public educational outreach by expanding our web based resource for free information and fee based public courses while also providing certification to the people wishing to become environmental building experts.

IV STATEMENT OF NEED A report by the World Health Organization (WHO) states that up to 30% of new and remodeled buildings worldwide may be linked to symptoms of Sick Building Syndrome, a combination of human health ailments associated with an individual's place of work or residence. That report was published in 1984, and a compounding of evidence ever since has only shown the situation to be worsening. Too often, there is no direct or obvious relationship between the human symptom and the problem with the building, and the connection between the illness and building goes undetected. People live with their symptoms, get sicker and sicker, lean increasingly on medication, and are never led to realize that the cause of their illness is their immediate surroundings. And while concerned minorities do exist within the medical community, the building industry, governmental agencies, citizen advocacy groups, etc., these organizations and individuals tend to focus on singular issues—nuclear power plants, out-gassing of building materials, biological effects of electromagnetic fields, indoor air quality—while failing to expose the bigger picture, the holistic picture. The International Institute for Bau-biologie® & Ecology (IBE), examines all the known factors in buildings that affect both human health and the natural environment—electromagnetic radiation, indoor air and water quality, construction materials and furnishings; it examines healthy building and remodeling practices, and the proper remediation of existing structures; and disseminates the most up-to-date information to its students, alumni, members, and the public at large. IBE is not a lone voice on Sick Building Syndrome, it is all the informed voices combined. The sole clarion of the vital, holistic interrelationship between the built environment and human health.

Building-Biology® is the science of the holistic relationship between the living environment and human life. IBE’s teaching enhances education, advances culture, and promotes environmental awareness.

V OBJECTIVES

V.1.1 Organization • Seek grants from organizations and government for specific program and general support. • Pursue mutually beneficial alliances with like-minded organizations. • Maintain the IBE website as consistently relevant, up to date, informative, and compelling. • Continuously update and enhance the central file database for ease of use and tracking of participants

V.1.2 Education • Educate the public through public seminars, print media, broadcast media, and the Internet. • Provide the best and latest training and certification for all people wishing to become Building Biologists. • Provide advanced classes and seminars for existing BBECs to increase and contemporize their knowledge

by establishing the accredited professional program based on the developing IBE standards

V.1.3 Research • Bring together building methodologies, technologies, materials and equipment that are in tune with human

kind’s inner and outer nature and with the needs of the Earth.

V.1.4 Standards • Maintain/update the IBE Healthy Home Standard for use by individuals and organizations dedicated to

creating healthy dwelling places. • Promote our grading system for certifying a building as having met/not met this standard



VI BUDGET

Item 2012 Revenue $ Dues 5,500 Certification Programs 35,000 Home & Web Study Pgms 15,500 Seminars 60,500 Annual Conference 27,000 Donations 23,000 Miscellaneous 3488 Total 170,340 Expenses Advertising/Marketing (11,500) Seminars (36,000) IBE 101 Home Study (4800) Annual Conference (23,500) Web Site Development (10,000) Professional Fees (9,000) Contract Services (47,000) Subscriptions (3,500) Bank fees (7,500) Miscellaneous (39,492) Total 165,292

VII CURRENT PROJECTS

VII.1 Certification Programs We offer two certification programs, and have a third program in development (scheduled to launch in 2014). These programs are designed to reach the widest possible range of consumers and professionals, and provide successful graduates with comprehensive learning and credentialed authority in healthy building practices, the potentially adverse effects of indoor environments upon their occupants, and how to mitigate indoor environments to better support the health of those occupants. IBE supports its certification candidates with mentored distance-study and (for the consultant-level program) instructor-led seminars and a mentored Final Project.

o Building Biology Environmental Consultant (BBEC) § Customer – those who want to incorporate investigation and mitigation into their business

(Indoor environmentalists, Builders/Architects, etc.), or launch a new business § Overview – provides in-depth methods and practices regarding the holistic biological

issues of buildings and their construction – from investigation and identification to mitigation and avoidance. This encompasses a required combination of online self-study courses, a mentored correspondence course, and three 5-day instructor-led live seminars.

§ Status – three 5-day instructor-led seminars are an integral part of this program, and in-person attendance is required for certification; seminar materials are updated annually; Final Projects are mentored by a revolving panel of Building Biology experts.



o Building Biology Practitioner (BBP) § Customer – working professionals who want to enrich and broaden the information they

provide to their clients (Builders/Architects, Health Practitioners, etc.); consumers at large who wish to educate themselves and propagate the Building Biology mission to the public

§ Overview – designed to provide an overview of the holistic information, this is a self-study course (on-line, and mentored correspondence).

§ Status – This curriculum is kept up to date through the interaction of the IBE mentor with correspondence students, and oversight by IBE's board of directors and executive director

o Building Biology Building Consultant (BBBC) – in development § Customer – specific to design and construction, for those who want to enrich and broaden

the information they provide to their clients (Builders/Architects, Health Practitioners, etc.), § Overview – designed to provide an overview of the holistic information for those who want

to educate their clients. This is a self-study course (correspondence and on-line) § Status – in development; expected launch date: 2014

VII.2 Outreach Programs o Consumers and Working Professionals

§ Any one or more of our online courses, our correspondence course, and our 200-level seminars can be purchased separately as individual learning modules. Small-scale, non-technical modules are available online, for free, and will continue to be developed.

§ Conference events: IBE hosts its own conference on a semi-annual basis and participates in pre-conference events at related-field conferences and smaller events.

§ Resource material: IBE provides through its website (and its Building Biology Blog) both general and technical information in the forms of whitepapers, videos, and articles/essays.

§ IBE sponsors an Approved Provider Program, through which our certified alumni promote Building Biology principles to the public at large.

VII.3 Standardization Programs o Healthy Home Standard for Conventionally Built Homes

§ Customer – Indoor Environmentalist, Architects, Builders, Health Care Professionals § Overview – a checklist and testing protocol for assessing the indoor environment using the

IBN numbers as acceptance until we establish numbers that are typical for North American applications. On-line courses and/or seminars will be developed based on this standard. This will be marketed through conferences and inclusion in Building Rating systems.

o Standard of Building Biology Testing Methods (SBM, 2009, ©Institut für Baubiologie + Ökologie) § Customer – Indoor Environmentalist, Architects, Builders, Health Care Professionals § Overview – a guideline for the specific measurement and assessment of possible health

risks in the physical, chemical and biological environments encountered in sleeping areas, living spaces, workplaces and properties. All testing results, testing instruments and procedures are documented according to this standard (SBM) in a final written report. This guideline also establishes effectual remediation strategies, processes and methods in the event that potential problems are discovered and identified.

o Electromagnetic Radiation Measurement Standard for Low Rise Buildings § Customer – Indoor Environmentalists, Architects, Builders, Health Care Professionals § Overview - this is a testing protocol for assessing the indoor environment using the IBN

numbers for acceptable levels until we establish numbers that are typical for North American applications. If possible, we will work with the medical industry to establish the associated health risks. On-line courses and seminars will be developed based on this standard. This will be marketed through conferences and inclusion in Building Rating systems.



VII.4 Research • Though not anticipated for 2012/13, due to budget constraints, IBE hopes to pursue, execute, and publish

research of building products and processes in 2014

VIII CONCLUDING REMARKS Green & Sustainable is good for America and for peoples everywhere because it’s good for the planet. Yet this wholly ingenuous drive advances societies, cultures, and civilization itself only so far, whereas IBE encourages and indeed instructs people from all walks of life, as well as environmental professionals, to Go Beyond Green. A home or building may be built or remodeled to the most up-to-date Green & Sustainable standards, and be awarded every certification in its attendant categories, yet still be causing its occupants to become sick. Biology is the crucial yet complementary other half of the Green & Sustainable story; it considers the effects of the built environment on human health and wellness. The work of preserving our planet's resources and sustaining our environment requires healthy people to drive it forward, or it can never be fruitful. The holistic study of Biology and Ecology has been the fundamental and foundational concern of the International Institute for Building Biology & Ecology since its inception. At IBE we have been and intend to remain at the forefront of educating the public about the vital interconnectedness between the built environment and the natural environment, and its affect on human health.

Documents

International Institute for Bau-biologie & Ecologyhbelc.org/pdf/Resources/ibe-prospectus2012.pdf · International Institute for Bau-Biologie® & Ecology, Inc. (IBE) PO Box 64188,