At the International Living Future Conference in Portland, Oregon this past May, IEE Executive Director Ed Church made a presentation on removing the financial, regulatory and behavioral barriers to life-affirming (“biophilic”) design in the built environment. Ed’s presentation showed how the human systems which determine how and what we build are self-reinforcing. Conventionally, that means building the environmentally and socially unsustainable which will not serve us in the decades to come. He offered practical examples of emerging changes in finance and planning that can encourage a built environment that reduces energy and water, while enhancing human life.