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Events

Resources

Invitation to Apply Sustainability for Success:
Your Bottom Line Will Thank you

Sustainable Pittsburgh is accelerating sustainability performance and giving recognition to high achievers.

Now is perfect timing to join the ranks of the region's sustainability pioneers by participating in a sustainability performance/recognition program. No matter where your organization is on the sustainability curve, Sustainable Pittsburgh offers programs that can be customized to fit your needs.

- The 2016-2017 Green Workplace Challenge is on! Sign up to compete by Aug. 31. Measure and track results, engage your employees, and compare best practices with others. The recent GWC participant results show what can be achieved when you get involved.
- The Sustainable Business Compact is ready to engage with the next round of corporate leaders.
- Sustainable Pittsburgh Restaurant performers have grown to 54 establishments
- Sustainable Small Business Designation is represented by 191 leaders in 35 communities
- Sustainable PA Community Certification features 54 municipalities making sustainable business practice their key to meeting community needs.

Deploy sustainability as your strategy for success. Participate in one of Sustainable Pittsburgh's performance programs and networks providing technical assistance and peer to peer support.

Connect with Sustainable Pittsburgh:

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Resources Continued

Upcoming Hard to Recycle Events

Saturday, June 25
9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Ansys, Inc., 2600 Ansys Drive, Canonsburg, PA 15317
View Event Flyer
More details, including Materials collected and associated fees

Since 2003, PRC has held Hard to Recycle collections in Southwestern PA with the goal of providing responsible and convenient recycling for items not able to be recycled at the curb. At these events individuals have been able to recycle such item as e-waste, cell phones, polystyrene, compact fluorescent bulbs, alkaline batteries, Freon-containing appliances, tires and more.

Over the past twelve years, 20,000 plus residents have participated in PRC’s collection events recycling 1,690,000 pounds of electronics, 8,800 plus tires, 2,400 Freon containing appliances and much more.

Open Streets PGH

Sunday, June 26
9:00 am - 1:00 pm
From Market Square downtown along Penn Avenue to Lawrenceville
OpenStreetsPGH.org

What if you could close down a city street, and use it for a few hours of good, healthy, family fun? You’d have OpenStreetsPGH. Come down to walk, run, bike and skate through the streets of Pittsburgh! It’s a whole new way to look at and experience your city. And a whole new way to have fun with your friends and family. Take a look at the route map to see just how much fun you can pack into three-and-a-half miles from Downtown to the Strip District to Lawrenceville!

The Sustainable Pittsburgh Restaurant team will be part of the festivities - be sure to stop by! Stationed at the corner of 16th and Penn Ave, the team has fun games planned for OpenStreetsPGH participants including Pin the Tail on the Sustainable Pittsburgh Restaurant, Build a Fruit and Veggie Tower, Marshmallow Relay, and Sponge Ball Tossing. There will also be prize giveaways, generously donated by tthe following Sustainable Pittsburgh Restaurants: Monterey Bay Fish Grotto, Franktuary, and Family Farms Creameries.

The next Open Streets is scheduled for Sunday, July 31.

Join the Beyond Coal Campaign on June 28 to protect public lands from coal mining!

Tuesday, June 28
Hearing: 11:00 am - 7:00 pm
Press Conference and Rally: Noon
Hearing: Pittsburgh Convention Center 1000 Fort Duquesne Blvd. Pittsburgh
Press Conference and Rally: Courtyard Pittsburgh Downtown, 945 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh
Questions: Contact Cheryl Johncox at cheryl.johncox@sierraclub.org
More information

For decades, the federal government has been leasing taxpayer-owned public lands to fossil fuel companies at bargain-basement rates. As a result, 40 percent of all coal produced in the United States comes from public, taxpayer-owned land. Now, for the first time in history the government has put a pause on allowing new federal coal leasing, to study the impact coal mined from public lands has on climate -- and they want to hear from you!

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is holding just six public hearings to receive public comments about coal mining on public lands, including one in Pittsburgh.

This is your opportunity to tell the federal government to Keep Dirty Fuels in the Ground on public land -- RSVP today!

WEBINAR: Putting Innovation to Work within Employee Sustainability Initiatives

Tuesday, June 28
1:00 pm
More information and registration

In this one-hour webcast, seasoned practitioners will share:
- Why sustainability is central to innovation within an organization
- How to build a culture of innovative thinking among your entire employee base
- How infusing a culture of innovation within an organization has created value for companies like Vistaprint and clients of Deloitte.
How technology can enable a company’s ability to foster a culture of innovation across the employee base

Panelists Include:
- Susan Hunt Stevens- Founder, CEO, WeSpire
- Daniel Aronson- Founder, Valutus, former Leader, Sustainability Transformation & Sustainability Strategy, Deloitte
- Shanker Sahai, Product Innovation Catalyst at Vistaprint Corporate Solutions
- Moderator Joel Makower, Chairman & Executive Editor, GreenBiz Group

Community Meetings: Pittsburgh Bike Plan

Thursday, July 14
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
South Side Market House, 1 Bedford Square, Pittsburgh 15203
More information and additional dates

Consider this: when the “current” Bike Plan was drafted, the Eliza Furnace Trail was brand new. Today, Pittsburgh has high-tech bike share (that you can rent with your phone), OpenStreetsPGH, a trail that connects to Washington DC, and protected bike lanes – things whose existence was barely even conceivable two decades ago. An updated Bike Plan is a necessary tool to move forward in expanding bike infrastructure, policies, and events.

• It allows the City to more easily seek funding
• Has a level of public and political buy-in
• And was also one of our top three policy requests of the City of Pittsburgh from our Member’s Meeting in November of 2014.

To create the Bike Plan, the Department of City Planning will be hosting four, city-wide Bike Plan meetings in July. Using an “Open House” format, there will be opportunities for learning about the internal city processes and project selection, as well as soliciting your feedback on aspects of the plan.

Resources

Energy Innovation

Energy Innovation (EI) is a biweekly newsletter of the Energy for the Power of 32 initiative. It features news and events that are accelerating sustainable development for the power of 32. View the latest edition of EI using the link below.

Subscribe to Energy Innovation.

Read the latest issue.

New p4 conference scheduled for fall

This year’s conference will include special focus on issues of equity, addressing deeply ingrained social and economic barriers that disadvantage members of Pittsburgh’s community, based on race, ethnicity, gender and poverty. A key principle of p4 is to create a Just Pittsburgh where all are included, a place that embraces creativity and innovation, and most of all equity and fairness for its people.

More

Allegheny County Council OKs participation in land bank

County took a huge step forward Tuesday when county council members voted 14-0 to approve the county's participation. Council members said the Tri-COG Land Bank provides another tool to combat blight while limiting the county's financial stake in the process.

Power of 32 - What You Need to Know About Energy - The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

The greater Pittsburgh region reflected in this chart includes 32 counties in southeastern Ohio, southwestern Pennsylvania, western Maryland, and northern West Virginia. This interactive diagram is based on the regional energy flow diagram produced for Sustainable Pittsburgh in 2014 by Ethos Collaborative and Fourth Economy, the first-ever analysis of the region’s balance of energy production, consumption, and net imports and exports.

Video: Longwall Mining Damage to Polen Run

The Bailey Mine expansion, on the edge of Ryerson State Park, has been advancing underground while the Center for Coalfield Justice is in ongoing litigation around this permit. The mine is currently undermining a section of Polen Run in Greene County that feeds into North Fork Dunkard Fork, the stream that flows through Ryerson Station State Park. This video shows the impact to streams from longwall mining, and the disruption resulting from the company’s attempts to remediate the stream. Attend the 10th Annual DRYerson Festival this Saturday, June 25th from 1 PM to 4 PM at Pavilion #1 in Ryerson Station State Park to learn about the fight to protect the streams in and around Ryerson and how you can help.

Environmental, health impacts of US health-care system

In addition, the researchers calculated the public health impact of healthcare emissions. For the year 2013, they estimated health damages from the pollutants at 470,000 "disability adjusted life years" (DALYs) -- a measure of years lost due to ill health, disability, or early death.

Introducing "Foot Traffic Ahead 2016"

The new report ranks the country’s 30 largest metropolitan areas based on the amount of commercial and multi-family rental development in WalkUPs, and uses a series of forward-looking metrics to predict how walkable their future development might be. The research also uses social equity metrics like housing costs, transportation costs, and access to jobs to understand the relationship between walkability and social equity.

The research found that walkable urban market share growth in office and multi-family rental increased in all 30 metro areas between 2010-2015, while drivable sub-urban locations have lost market share.

PA’s Climate Majority Rallies At Capitol For Action On Climate Change, Clean Energy

Court Gould, Executive Director of Sustainable Pittsburgh remarked, “Smart business leaders understand that climate change poses significant risk and uncertainty to the long-term sustainability of their enterprise. A business that abdicates responsibility for addressing climate change is bound to be marginalized in the marketplace. Tackling climate change presents real opportunity for innovation, growth and competitive advantage.”

How Turin is converting a dead industrial area into an innovation hub

The Ex-Incet redevelopment will be complete by the end of the year. It will test the idea that local government can restore economic growth simply by facilitating the actions and interactions of others. Turin Mayor Piero Fassino is convinced it will work.

“Barriera di Milano now is living a new season thanks to innovative startups, research centers and new activities linked to the field of innovation,” he says. “That is creating new employment opportunities for young and unemployed people. And it is filling the gap between the center and suburbs in order to give the same opportunities for growth to all the different parts of the city.”

Labor shortage linked to poor transportation

Hotels, stores and restaurants in southwestern Butler County are hiring, but some managers say it is difficult to fill hourly or low-paying positions.

A big reason for this, they say, is the lack of public transportation.

“The people that live in Cranberry and the surrounding areas, they don’t really want a job that pays $9 or $9.50 an hour, so a lot of the applicants we get are from Rochester or Monaca or Beaver and they can’t get here,” said Larry Gawel, area general manager for Fairfield Inn on St. Francis Way in Cranberry Township. Gawel said that when advertising an job opening he has to include “not near a bus line” in the posting.

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Sustainable Pittsburgh affects decision-making in the Pittsburgh Region to integrate economic prosperity, social equity and environmental quality bringing sustainable solutions to communities and businesses.

Sustainable Pittsburgh benefits from support ($1,000 and up) in 2016 from:
Alcoa Foundation
ALCOSAN
Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation
The Heinz Endowments
Elsie H. Hillman Foundation
Henry L. Hillman Foundation
Richard King Mellon Foundation
Pashek Associates, LTD
The Pittsburgh Foundation
University of Pittsburgh
UPMC



Special thanks to the SP Members

Sustainable Pittsburgh
307 Fourth Avenue, Suite 1500
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
(412) 258-6642
fax (412) 258-6645
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