SSDN: September 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:
September Update

Annual Meeting Update

We have 36 registrants for the SSDN Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL, November 5-7, 2014. Registration is now closed. A final agenda and logistics packet will be sent to participants in October.

This is a gentle reminder to finalize any outstanding travel arrangements and pay any outstanding registration fees. Please contact Kim with any remaining questions.

Funding Application Updates

SSDN members and SEEA submitted of a final letter of intent to propose to the USDN Innovation Fund around equity as it relates to energy efficiency. Tier 1 cities include: Atlanta, GA; Charlotte, NC; Knoxville, TN; Fayetteville, AR and Tier 2 cities include: Cary, NC; Huntsville, AL; Memphis, TN; Sunrise, FL.

The Innovation Fund Steering Committee will invite selected projects to submit a full proposal. If invited, SSDN will work with SEEA to submit that by December 5. Thanks to Erin Gill for her leadership on this process.

A proposal to fund the work of the Communications Group has been submitted to the Energy Foundation, and one for 2015 Network support is being drafted. Contact Maggie Ullman with any questions on these proposals.

Potential Collaboration Opportunity

Some SSDN members are eligible to enter the Rockefeller Foundation’s National Disaster resilience Competition. SSDN could learn together as a way of spreading resilience thinking and practice into our region. Contact Susanna if you are interested in having a call on this opportunity.

The Rockefeller Foundation joined with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to announce the launch of the National Disaster Resilience Competition, modeled on our collaboration on the successful Rebuild by Design challenge. The NDRC will allow communities that experienced natural disasters in 2011-2013 to compete for a share of almost $1 billion to help them rebuild and increase their resilience to future disasters.

CDP Annual Workshop

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

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

Top SSDN Post on USDN

Knoxville Third Party Solar RFP

Please continue to share with us what you're learning or needing to know on USDN.org. We look forward to sharing your post in the newsletter next month.

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.

Robin Cox

Project Specialist

City of Huntsville

“Want some chickens? Kale or cabbage plants?”
If you know Robin Cox, SSDN’s only Alabama representative, you’ve heard offers like these. Her passion for connecting to the natural world is contagious, and helping others enjoy and care for the earth is a big part of Robin’s mission.

A Curious Path to Contribution in Huntsville
After undergrad at the University of Florida in Anthropology, she brought home a Ph.D. in Underwater Archaeology and Fluvial Geomorphology from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, where she studied geology, history, shipwrecks, and prehistoric inundation of river valleys. She created a methodology to study human occupation in river valleys and how earth formation processes have altered our understanding of human landscapes through time.

She moved to Alabama to be closer to her family and started evolving outside her field in many ways - working, for example, across stakeholder groups in science, technology engineering and math education, where she facilitated systemic statewide education reform. Ultimately, the program changed the way math and science is taught in Alabama.

Action Tempered by Patience
In 2006, she moved into the sustainability world, focusing on environmental education around community food security and equity. After participating in the development of the City of Huntsville’s sustainability plan, the city called on her to help implement it. She now works part-time under the department that oversees Cemeteries, Landscape Maintenance, and the Operation Green Team.

Robin notes that we as a society are going through a sea change, and that local government is helping to catalyze it now in very real ways while also planning for life style changes in the long term. She notes that the conversation leadership is hearing has grown more powerful over the past few years, as constituents are asking for help to become more sustainable and a more resilient community.

She is motivated by peer support: knowing others are out there working on the same issues, and knowing who she can call for help. This has changed her perspective. As a lifelong student of cultures and their changes, she’s working in the now with the long term in mind.

Her biggest opportunity right now is mobilizing the Huntsville community to compete for the Georgetown Energy prize, noting that the focus is not so much on winning as on leveraging the competition to catalyze the community around energy efficiency.