Update from GBC Brasil

I've just realized that in all of my posts about airplanes, weddings and feather boas, I haven't once mentioned the real reason why I am here.  Silly me.  I started work at the Green Building Council Brasil 2 weeks ago, and have been loving every moment. 

The first task I was assigned when I got here was to keep the media section of our website up to date.  Each day we receive a collection of media clippings which mention GBC Brasil, LEED certified buildings in Brazil, and our One Degree Less campaign (to encourage businesses and individuals to paint their roofs white).  My job is to read through them, edit out any endorsements of specific companies or criticism of the GBC, and post them to the GBC Brasil website.  You can see them (in portuguese) here!

Since I have been here, I have researched and summarized a set of recent American Green Building related laws, to help us develop some proposals and recommendations for local governments. Next, I translated our latest industry presentation package from Portuguese to English (since many of our presentations are in English ).  Finally, this morning I automated our mailing list conversion system, and sent out a newsletter to our most recent subscribers.

So far, most of my work has been pretty simple (still very interesting, though), but I'm hoping that over time I will be able to get more involved in the technical and business aspects of the organization.  Late last week, I attended my first industry meeting with my supervisor.  I've been going out for lunch with the engineers here, and I've had a number of very enlightening conversations about the LEED standard in Brazil, as well as some of the more exciting projects happening here. I'm finally getting confident enough to answer the phone and answer simple administrative or technical questions.  It's incredible how much I've learned and done in the past couple weeks,  it feels like it's been over a month, because I've been so busy all of the time!