About DCAT
History/Background
DCAT is a non-profit organization founded in 1991, for the purpose of supporting the development and use of sustainable approaches to meeting human and ecological needs through the appropriate use of technology. Currently we administer a program we developed entitled "Building Sustainability into the Codes" an effort supported by the Wallace Global Fund for the past two years. This program is dedicated to creating and developing healthy, sustaining approaches to the built environment that balance social, economic, and environmental needs. In plain terms, we are working to change the way buildings and communities are designed and constructed to minimize their negative and maximize their positive impacts.
This work is carried out in a global context, with the clear recognition that what is done in the U.S. has enormous direct and indirect impacts for the whole earth. Thus, whether our work is carried out internationally or in the U.S., our efforts focus on the highest leverage places to intervene in the existing system to yield global benefits.
This work involves a number of high-profile partnerships in areas of building codes and standards, green building organizations, government programs, and large numbers of other allied non-profits and individuals across the U.S. and the world. We are particularly sensitive to the fact that while many other countries have far more sustainable approaches to construction than we do, the U.S. is striving to influence them towards our way of doing things, which is the most wasteful and impactful on the planet . This "export" of our approach combined with the global depletion of natural resources and the damage to ecosystems and biodiversity resulting from it, provides the urgency we feel for our work. It is our hope to continue building upon past successes to significantly alter the core systems and shift us toward a sustainable future.
