SSDN: August 2014 Update

The Southeast Sustainability Directors Network collaborates to accelerate the adoption of econmically viable, socially equitable, and environmentally responsible best practices in American Southeastern communities. We do this by sharing information and problem solving together. SSDN is a project of the Chalice Oak Foundation.

The Southeast Sustainability Directors Network:
August Update

Annual Meeting Update

Thanks to the 29 of you who have registered for the SSDN Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL, November 5-7, 2014. If you haven’t already done so, please register here by the September 5
deadline.

A draft agenda will go out to speakers in September for confirmation and final edits.

Member Calls a Success

The Communications Work Group hosted 3 small informal calls to grow our connectivity. Feedback has been positive from members that participated. We will discuss this model at the annual meeting as a possible way to grow our network connections in 2015.

Equity and Energy
in the Southeast

SEEA and SSDN members submitted a letter of intent to propose to the USDN Innovation Fund around equity as it relates to energy efficiency. Interested cities include Tier 1 (4 core USDN member cities): Atlanta, GA; Cary, NC; Knoxville, TN; Fayetteville, AR and Tier 2 (non-USDN cities and / or cities willing to test approach): Huntsville, AL; Memphis, TN; Sunrise, FL.

The next letter is due September 24. Interested members should email Susanna to be looped into the calls and drafting process.

Carbon Disclosure Project offers Funding for Meeting

CDP Cities North America and the City of San Jose welcomes you to attend:

DRIVING CHANGE, IMPROVING PRACTICE:
Effective Strategies for Climate Management and City Resilience
Monday, October 27th - Tuesday, October 28th

CDP offers a free reporting platform for companies and cities to disclose climate activities and benchmark progress. More than 4500 companies disclose each year to CDP and in 2014, more than 200 cities from across the globe reported to CDP Cities. This October, CDP Cities will host its annual workshop for North American cities in San Jose, California with a dinner to be hosted by Hewlett Packard in Palo Alto, CA. Topics to be discussed include:

Investors and Insurers: Measuring and Reporting on Climate Risks
Cities, Companies and Climate Management: Why City Sustainability Matters for Business
Learn from your Peers: Strategies for Climate Measurement and Emissions Mitigation
Leveraging City Purchasing Power for Emission Reductions and Cost Savings
Financing Healthier, Wealthier Cities: Case Study from the City of San Jose

This event is free for all cities and travel funds are available. If you are interested in learning more, contact CDP Cities North America Manager, Katie Walsh, 646.517.1458, for more details.

Here is CDP's latest report.

Top SSDN Posts on USDN

Franklin to Build a 1 Megawatt Solar Array

Climate Change Adaptation User Group Call Presentation - SSDN PREP

Orange County FL - Our Home for Life Logo

Can't log on to USDN? Reply to this email or send Susanna a note and we'll fix that. Posters, be sure to tag the Southeast so we can all see. A tutorial for the site is here.

Suzanne Gooding:

Sustainability
Project Manager

City of Wilmington

Suzanne has worked with the City of Wilmington, NC for 2 years now. A geography and public administration educational background and regional policy work prepped her for work within a city Sustainability Office, and she understands well the pull between short-term projects and long-term policy planning at the local and regional levels. Housed in Wilmington’s Public Services Division, she’s an office of 1 and focuses primarily on energy consumption data and recycling initiatives, with a very strong bent towards outreach and communication.

Suzanne is strategic in her thinking about how the projects she decides to engage in today will impact the outcome of her region’s sustainability in 5 years. She focuses on prioritization of her time and resources with these regional outcomes in mind. Her long-term goal is to shift the focus from immediate project implementation towards achieving broader influence through long-term policy. She really enjoys the variety in what she does each day and the large range of responsibilities. She likes the fact that she must create good internal and external partnerships to leverage limited resources.

As a relatively new SSDN member, Suzanne feels like she’s learning what can be possible with this network, and is looking forward to the annual meeting, making more connections and finding opportunities to leverage resources through collaboration. She makes great use of the USDN website, but knows that politically, it’s important to bring it closer to home. She notes the struggles of comparison to cities that have been engaged in sustainability for much longer than we have been in the south. She enjoyed the member connectivity call as a way to get to know the people she will meet in Orlando in November.

Her favorite projects focus on education and outreach:

● Building a local partnership with the university, county, and a non-profit around recycling outreach and education. The initiative focuses on classroom applications to understand the impacts of waste and recycling. The partnership develops waste cycle focused workshops through localSTEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) resources, Material Recovery Facility Lesson.

● Managing an Internal Sustainability Committee that developed the city’s first sustainability plan, which is in the process of being approved. It’s ultimately an educational effort to make sustainability real in people’s lives. Human Resources has since asked her to train new employees, so it’s really opening doors.