It has become commonplace to describe green building as the wave of the future. Green building projects of various shades and sizes are featured in the mainstream press. Green building programs are popular with architects, engineers and planners who complete green building training programs and who attend proliferating green building conferences. If organizational activity is the gauge, a movement emphasizing environmentally sensitive design, construction and operation of buildings is well underway.

However, very few new buildings are constructed or existing ones adapted utilizing either emerging green building technologies or long-standing principles of sustainable design. In this seminar, we will discuss whether, where, and in what forms green building will move beyond the "early adopter" phase and be mainstreamed into everyday building practice. Research hypotheses drawn from the literature on the diffusion of innovations provide guidance in answering these questions. In particular, the application of this literature to green building results in a roadmap of possible green building destinations based on perception of public and private benefits, the channeling of these perceptions by public and private networks, and by differing geographical, political and social/cultural contexts.