Pictured Above: Humanitarian Photographer, Lisa Kristine, speaking at the 2024 Design for Freedom Summit. Photo by Jacek Dolata.
A Humanitarian Crisis
Globally, the modern slavery criminal industry is valued at $236 billion each year, with approximately 28 million people working under forced labor conditions. The global construction industry, valued at over $10 trillion, is one of the largest consumers of raw materials. As featured in the Design for Freedom International Guidance & Toolkit, many of these materials—steel, timber, stone, glass, and textiles—come from supply chains at high risk of forced and child labor. We often ask ourselves if the materials we use are sustainable, healthy, or resilient but fail to ask questions about where these materials came from and who harvested, extracted, mined, fabricated, manufactured, and transported them.
Is Your Building Ethically Sourced as Well as Sustainably Designed?
The Design for Freedom movement was envisioned by Sharon Prince, CEO & Founder of Grace
Farms, as a response to this pressing human rights issue. Embedding ethical material sourcing strategies goes beyond environmental and health impacts to ensure that human rights due diligence is central to sustainable design and construction.
The Design for Freedom Summit, hosted by Grace Farms Foundation, is set to take place once
again on March 27th in New Canaan, CT. The Summit will bring together industry leaders in sustainability, architecture, construction, manufacturing, technology, academia, real estate, and human rights to advance ethical material sourcing within the built environment. This annual Summit serves as a call to action to address the urgent need to eliminate forced and child labor in the building materials supply chain while driving the industry toward a more just and sustainable future.
By engaging with and convening all stakeholders within the built environment, the Summit serves as a beacon to the industry and a market signal that business as usual is no longer acceptable.
The Design for Freedom Principles operate as themes for the day-long Summit program:
- Find and address embedded forced labor
- Pursue ethical decarbonization
- Prioritize circularity
The 2025 Design for Freedom Summit will feature plenary speakers, panel discussions, roundtables, case studies, and tours from leading voices in architecture, policy, sustainability, and material innovation. As one of the largest annual professional events in Connecticut, the Summit offers an opportunity to connect, collaborate, and workshop alongside industry leaders and thought partners all looking to advance this movement collectively.
Join the movement that is redefining the construction sector and take action to help shape a more transparent and humane built environment.
To learn more about Design for Freedom and to register for the summit, visit
https://www.designforfreedom.org/2025-design-for-freedom-summit/.
Nora Rizzo LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP, LFA
Ethical Materials Director
Grace Farms Foundation
BuildGreenCT Board Advisor