3E Links - weekly news and events to help you declare, "I Am Sustainable Pittsburgh."

Events

TOMORROW!

Friday, March 27
8:30 am - 11:00 am (Registration begins at 8:00 am)
Allegheny County Courthouse, Downtown Pittsburgh
Register here!

Keynote Speaker:
Chris Turk, Senior Vice President, Manufacturing and Operations at Interface, Inc. Interface is the worldwide leader in design, production and sales of environmentally-responsible modular carpet for the commercial, institutional, and residential markets

Featured Speakers:
Rich Fitzgerald, Allegheny County Executive
Phyllis Barber, Sr. Environmental Sustainability Consultant, Highmark
Sandra Closson, Sustainability Manager, Forms + Surfaces
Kathy Hrabovsky, Sustainability Manager, Allegheny County
Shema Krinsky, Marketing Director, Mall at Robinson

Engaging larger numbers of an organization's employees is vital to the success of an organization's sustainability activities. It is for this reason that the GWC has included a large number of employee engagement actions in this year's competition. For this workshop, participants will interact with national and regional leaders for ways to design and deploy successful employee engagement activities.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Gallup Organization, "People spend a substantial part of their lives working... [T]he quality of their workplace experience is inevitably reflected in the quality of their lives... Business leaders worldwide must raise the bar on employee engagement. Increasing workplace engagement is vital to achieving sustainable growth for companies, communities, and countries --- and for putting the global economy back on track to a more prosperous and peaceful future."

This GWC workshop features ways for participants to discover what works for employee engagement strategies and ways to earn many competition points by broadening participation in their sustainability efforts as part of the GWC.

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Resources

Green Workplace Challenge (GWC) 3.0 Workshop #4: "Employee Engagement"

Friday, March 27
8:30 am - 11:00 am (Registration begins at 8:00 am)
Allegheny County Courthouse, Downtown Pittsburgh
Cost:
$10 for Green Workplace Challenge Participants
$25 for SP/C4S Member Nonparticipants
$35 for Nonmember, Nonparticipants
More information

Keynote Speaker:
Chris Turk, Senior Vice President, Manufacturing and Operations at Interface, Inc. Interface is the worldwide leader in design, production and sales of environmentally-responsible modular carpet for the commercial, institutional, and residential markets

Featured Speakers:
Rich Fitzgerald, Allegheny County Executive
Phyllis Barber, Sr. Environmental Sustainability Consultant, Highmark
Sandra Closson, Sustainability Manager, Forms + Surfaces
Kathy Hrabovsky, Sustainability Manager, Allegheny County
Shema Krinsky, Marketing Director, Mall at Robinson

Engaging larger numbers of an organization's employees is vital to the success of an organization's sustainability activities. It is for this reason that the GWC has included a large number of employee engagement actions in this year's competition. For this workshop, participants will interact with national and regional leaders for ways to design and deploy successful employee engagement activities.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Gallup Organization, "People spend a substantial part of their lives working... [T]he quality of their workplace experience is inevitably reflected in the quality of their lives... Business leaders worldwide must raise the bar on employee engagement. Increasing workplace engagement is vital to achieving sustainable growth for companies, communities, and countries --- and for putting the global economy back on track to a more prosperous and peaceful future."

This GWC workshop features ways for participants to discover what works for employee engagement strategies and ways to earn many competition points by broadening participation in their sustainability efforts as part of the GWC.

Earth Hour 2015

Saturday, March 28
8:30 pm - 9:30 pm
www.earthhour.org
Celebrate Earth Hour in Pittsburgh. Get involved!

Earth Hour started in 2007 as a lights-off event to raise awareness about climate change. The initiative has grown to engage more than 162 countries and territories worldwide.

Earth Hour belongs to you. Celebrate your commitment to the planet with your friends, family, community or at work - in your own way. A simple event can be just turning off all non-essential lights from 8.30pm-9:30 pm.

For one hour, focus on your commitment to our planet for the rest of this year. To celebrate, you can have a candle lit dinner, talk to your neighbors, stargaze, go camping, play board games, have a concert, screen an environmental documentary post the hour, create or join a community event - the possibilities are endless.

Urban Transition Cities Movement

Friday: March 27, 6pm – 9pm
Saturday: March 28, 8am – 5pm
Sunday: March 29, 8am-5pm
Kingsley Association, 6435 Frankstown Avenue, Pittsburgh
Cost: $100 - Basic Registration; $50 - Nonprofit rate; $25 - Student rate
More information and registration

This participatory, 21-hour course is an in-depth experiential introduction to the ideas, process and practices that have inspired tens of thousands of people and catalyzed a rapidly-growing global network via the Transition movement. Through the course of the 3 days you will:

• Explore ways to increase community resilience through innovative projects and ideas
• Learn to describe challenges of energy supplies and costs, economic instability, equity and fairness, and action
• Receive tools for environmental community outreach problem solving, education and collaboration
• Learn ways to overcome obstacles that prevent communities from responding to the challenges
• Learn how to support existing leadership and expand the number and diversity of people involved
• Meet others in your region who share your concerns and want to transition to greater stability and security
• Become a part of a rapidly growing positive, inspirational, global movement!

Curriculum: The course describes how to initiate, support and facilitate community transition and greater resilience. It is full of imaginative and inspiring ways to engage your community, and delves into both the theory and practice of Transition that is helping thousands of communities in the U.K. and around the world.

Who should attend: People wanting to help create sustainable communities, businesses, and healthy life styles.

Empowering Communities: Part 1
Communities at Risk: Understanding the Impacts, Providing Strategies

Tuesday, March 31
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm (Doors open at 6:30 pm)
Carnegie Science Center, Science Stage, One Allegheny Avenue, Pittsburgh 15212
Part 1 of 3 sessions. The sessions are just $10 each or you can register for all three sessions for only $25!
Register for this session

Did you know that women account for 74% of the healthcare labor force? Or that 89% of the cleaning service industry is women? How about that 94% of salon works are women? As the number of women in the work force has grown over the last century, so has the number of women exposed to toxic chemicals in the workplace. Keynote speaker Dr. Lyn Robertson will discuss her community-based approach to educating community members and identifying cancer prevention strategies. Dr. Robertson will be followed by a panel discussion with women whose occupations differ, but are similar in that they all have traditionally above-average toxic exposure rates. They will describe the movement toward more sustainable, greener practices and products.

Discussion Panelists:
Mia Good - Metamorphosis Organic Salon – Salon Industry
Jackie Quimpo, Clean Green – Cleaning Service Industry
Allison Robinson, PhD, UPMC – Health Care Industry
Christi Saunders, Mascaro Construction Company, – Construction Industry

Upcoming sessions:
Empowering Communities: Part 2
Flame Retardants and Our Health - April 21, 2015

Empowering Communities: Part 3
Environmental Exposures and the Links to Reproductive Health - May 17, 2015

8th Annual Student Sustainability Symposium at the University of Pittsburgh

Monday, April 6
11:00 am - 4:30 pm
William Pitt Union Assembly Room, University of Pittsburgh, at the corner of Bigelow and 5th, directly across from the Cathedral of Learning
Additional details forthcoming.

Keynote Speaker: Joel Salatin, a nationally-known alternative farmer, speaker, and author of nine books

The theme of this year's Symposium is "The Year of Sustainability" and will feature presentations by students, a panel of Sustainability Faculty Fellows, tabling by 25 sustainability-oriented student and community organizations, and a Dean's Hour lunch with Kenyon Bonner, Interim Vice Provost and Dean of Students.

*Don't think you can make it for the whole day? Stop by for one or two of the scheduled events:*
11:00 - 11:15 Opening Remarks: Year of Sustainability
11:15 – 12:00 Sustainability Class: Student Presentations
12:00 - 12:30 WPTS Sustainability Tabling Competition
12:30 - 1:30 Free Lunch / Dean’s Hour
1:30 – 2:15 Sustainability Fellows Panel
2:15-- 2:30 Sustainable Solutions Competition Presentations
2:30 – 3:15 Tables / Break
3:15 – 4:30 Keynote Speaker: Joel Salatin (in the WPU Ballroom)
4:30 – 4:45 Announce Poster Winner / Wrap up

Inclusion Best Practices Series - Diversity & Inclusion Results: Measurements, Metrics and Accountability

Wednesday, April 8
7:30 am - 9:30 am
Historic Lawrence Hall, Point Park University, Downtown Pittsburgh
Cost: $50; Vibrant Pittsburgh Employer Members are allotted a certain number of complimentary registrations; and discounts are available to Pittsburgh Human Resource Association Members.
More information and registration
Please contact Silvia Boselli with any questions at (412) 281-8600 x206 or silviab@vibrantpittsburgh.org

Featuring Bruce D. Murphy, Executive Vice President Head of Corporate Responsibility KeyCorp

At the upcoming Inclusion Best Practices Series, Bruce will discuss the holistic and integrated approach that KeyBank has taken to drive diversity and inclusion results. He will share with attendees KeyBank’s (a) D&I strategy, (b) how his team measures results and ensures alignment between activities and strategic objectives, and (c) what accountability approaches KeyBank uses to improve D & I outcomes. Attendees should come prepared for an engaging conversation with Bruce and to learn alternative ways to affect their organizations’ diversity and inclusion objectives.

About the Inclusion Best Practices Series
Where do I find a diverse talent pool? How do I develop a strategy to recruit, retain and elevate diverse talent within my company? How do I integrate the diversity and inclusion strategy throughout the organization? What is the value in Employee Resource Groups, and what are the pitfalls to avoid? How do I continue to innovate? Where do I begin?

Through the Inclusion Best Practice Series, Vibrant Pittsburgh will feature high-profile companies who share their stories and best practices on a range of diversity and inclusion topics. Employers of all sizes will have the opportunity to learn from and interact with industry leaders on diversity and inclusion practices key to their business success.

Inspire Speaker Series: Engaging Communities to Create Most Livable Places for All

Thursday, April 9
5:00 pm - 8:00 pm (Lectures begin promptly at 6:00 pm and are followed by a Q&A session)
The Elsie H. Hillman Auditorium at Hill House’s Kaufmann Center, 1825 Centre Avenue, Pittsburgh 15219
Discounts available to Sustainable Pittsburgh members! See cost information below.
More information and registration

Join Sustainable Pittsburgh, Green Building Alliance, and others for an evening of inspiration. Hear from national and local experts about how we can all reimagine engagement. As we strive to create the most livable places for all, how do we understand differing needs and ensure that our process is open and inclusive? Michael Slaby, Debra Lam, and Andrew Butcher will share perspectives on engaging our communities to help create sustainable, healthy, and inspiring spaces for everyone. Plus we’ll enjoy food, beer, wine, networking, and a Q&A with our speakers!

Sustainable Pittsburgh has a limited number of free tickets available to its members and can also offer $10 discounts to non-members. Please get in touch to receive the special discount code.

The Inspire Speakers Series is a monthly lecture circuit featuring nationally renowned experts in various fields of sustainability, as well as local specialists who can share experiences of promoting environmental quality, social equity, and economic vitality in Western Pennsylvania. The theme for the 2014-2015 Inspire Speakers Series is: Creating the Most Livable Places for All. This means healthy and regenerative buildings, schools, neighborhoods, and cities; thriving communities and economies; socially just places to live; and so much more.

Just Sustainabilities: Re-Imagining E/Quality, Living within Limits

Friday, April 10
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Mellon Board Room, Chatham University, Woodland Road, Pittsburgh
Free and open to everyone; a light lunch will be served.
RSVP to hjensen@chatham.edu

Featuring: Julian Agyeman, Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University

In his keynote, Julian will first outline the concept of 'just sustainabilities' He will argue that integrating social needs and welfare, offers us a more ‘just,’ rounded, and equity-focused definition of sustainability and sustainable development, while not negating the very real environmental threats we face. He will define it as ‘the need to ensure a better quality of life for all, now and into the future, in a just and equitable manner, whilst living within the limits of supporting ecosystems.’ He will then look at examples of just sustainabilities in practice in the real world focusing on ideas about 'fair shares' resource distribution globally; planning for intercultural cities; achieving wellbeing and happiness; the potential in the new sharing economy and finally the concept of 'spatial justice' and how it complements the more established concept of social justice.

Julian Agyeman is a Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University, Medford, MA. He is an environmental social scientist whose expertise and current research interests are in the complex and embedded relations between humans and the environment, whether mediated by governmental institutions or social movements, and the effects of this on public policy and planning processes and outcomes, particularly in relation to notions of justice and equity. He is co-founder, and Editor-in-Chief of the international journal ‘Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability.’ With over 150 publications, his recent books include 'Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class and Sustainability' (MIT Press 2011) ‘Introducing Just Sustainabilities: Policy, Planning and Practice’ (Zed Books 2013) and Incomplete Streets: Processes, practices, and possibilities (Routledge 2014). His forthcoming book (December 2015 MIT Press) is called 'Sharing Cities: The Case for Truly Smart and Sustainable Cities'.

"Corals as Climate Communicators"

Thursday, April 16
4:00 pm
Charity Randall Theatre, Stephen Foster Memorial Building, 4301 Forbes Avenue
Free and open to the public; space is limited.
More information and registration

Featuring: Dr. Kim Cobb, Distinguished climate scientist in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology

The public's hunger for information about climate change has never been greater, yet the politicization of climate change has made it difficult to separate truth from fiction. On the heels of news that 2014 was the warmest year on record, it is important to remember that the instrumental record of climate is relatively short, spanning a little over a century in some regions of the world but only a few decades in the more remote regions. Over the course of many trips to small coral atolls in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Dr. Kim Cobb has spent over 15 years assembling a record of climate from corals that spans many millennia. The results help to place current climate change trends in context, demonstrating that such records are a critical piece of the climate change puzzle. Through video and photos, Dr. Cobb takes the audience to her field sites to hear the corals tell their climate story.

Resources

Pine Township Earns Sustainable Community Gold

Sustainable Pittsburgh, a nonprofit group, partners with the Pennsylvania Municipal League to administer the Sustainable Pennsylvania Community Certification program. Months ago, Pam Alikhani, code support clerk for the township, began compiling information to document Pine's practices in support of sustainability. “Achieving gold certification in the Sustainable Pennsylvania Community Certification program shows that the Township of Pine promotes responsibility in its growth and development,” Alikhani said. “Conservation of natural resources, improved quality of life for its residents and other elements of sustainability are the result.” Pine's gold-level certification reflects how the township handles such areas as community design and land use, energy efficiency, mitigating blight, intergovernmental cooperation, recycling and waste reduction.

Doylestown Township has earned a Gold level certification through the Sustainable Pennsylvania Community Certification program

“Doylestown Township is proud to be recognized as a Gold Certified Community by the Sustainable Pennsylvania Community Certification program,” said Township Manager Stephanie J. Mason. “Doylestown Township has a long history of commitment to saving taxpayer dollars, using resources efficiently, and applying best practices in municipal government and community development. We are pleased to be recognized and be part of the regional community of good government.

7 reasons Walmart has given me hope about green marketing

Last month, the retail giant announced a new program that identified products from companies deemed “sustainability leaders.” It introduced a new section of its website featuring select products from companies that met Walmart’s criteria to wear a sustainability badge. . . So, why am I excited about this? Seven reasons:

More

Sustainable Pittsburgh Plans Day of Intentional Shopping

“Sustainable Pittsburgh’s Cash Mobs are specifically designed to recognize sustainable businesses that have received recognition through our sustainable small business program,” Arbab said. “Businesses go through a checklist and answer yes or no to different actions in the categories of things like energy conservation, lighting, electrical use, community involvement. For every question they answer yes to, they get points. These points go toward varying levels of designation.” Once a community is selected, Sustainable Pittsburgh works to promote and coordinate the event with the businesses.

Companies are coming out about their politics

U.S. Steel on Monday became the latest corporation to agree to disclose its spending on candidates, political parties, ballot measures and other political activities. Ten other companies, including McGraw Hill Financial and Eastman Chemical, have adopted similar disclosure standards since the start of 2015.

A Little Wastewater Change Produces a Lot of Savings

Communities frequently begin energy efficiency projects with lighting or mechanical system upgrades in public buildings, or by looking at the fuel efficiency of their vehicles. However, one of the largest energy consuming operations in most cities is often a missed opportunity: Drinking water and wastewater treatment systems.

Typically these systems account for 30-40 percent of a city’s total energy demand. A unique partnership led by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proving that low-cost changes to water and wastewater treatment plants can have big energy and cost savings.

Please help Leadership Pittsburgh Inc. recruit the best and brightest

Take the personal initiative to spot the “best and brightest” within your own networks and to refer them to Leadership Pittsburgh Inc. programs. Leadership Pittsburgh Inc. is Southwestern Pennsylvania’s premier multi-disciplinary organization for leadership identification, enrichment and networking. Our programs accelerate the connectivity of established leaders and the development of high-potential professionals from the corporate, public and nonprofit sectors. The flagship program, Leadership Pittsburgh (LP), is geared toward senior level leaders with significant spheres of influence in their organizations, and Leadership Development Initiative (LDI) is most suited for emerging young leaders. An ideal candidate for LP, for example, would be a rising senior executive who would benefit from a broad understanding of regional issues and a strong network of connections, while an ideal candidate for LDI would be a rising high-potential professional that a company/organization would want to reward, develop, and retain while connecting them to current and future leaders. More information including program applications and schedules are available at lpinc.org. Application deadline for LP is the first Friday in May, and for LDI, it’s the first Friday in June.

A New Toolkit for Developing Urban Agriculture Systems

As cities and towns offer more incentives and planning support for local agriculture, there is still plenty of education and learning to be done to create and sustain local food systems. Enter the Agricultural Urbanism Toolkit.

"A new Agricultural Urbanism Toolkit produced by the Iowa State University’s Community Design Lab offers communities the planning tools necessary to prioritize and ignite urban farming projects," reports Trish Popovitch, "the Toolkit includes process, practice and case studies to help jump-start local urban agriculture programs."

Prince Charles and the green bean counters

“In stark financial terms, all the evidence demonstrates a simple fact: we are failing to run the global bank that we call our planet in a competent manner," Prince Charles himself declared during the Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability Forum in 2013. "We no longer just take a dividend each year; instead, for some time, we have been digging deep into our capital reserve.” . . More specifically, the new guides delve into several potential areas of sustainability-related financial impacts: how companies should consider sustainability in capital investment appraisals; defining and integrating natural and social accounting; enhancing investor relations with sustainability; and how to account for newer trends in sustainability. . . One of the most important steps, according Deloitte's Sullivan, is conveying the importance and relevance of sustainability measures to stakeholders — a concept refered to in accounting as materiality.

For information on becoming a Member of Sustainable Pittsburgh, please visit our website.

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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 2015 from:

Alcoa Foundation
Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation
BNY Mellon
The Heinz Endowments
Elsie H. Hillman Foundation
Henry L. Hillman Foundation
Pashek Associates, LTD
The PNC Financial Services Group
UPMC


Special thanks to the SP Members

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