Tag Archives: sustainability

Nicole Freedman, Chief of Active Transportation City of Seattle

Posted on 03/23/2016 by | Leave a comment

Nicole FreedmanThis past week we had the opportunity to sit down for a Green Line Series interview with Nicole Freedman, Chief of Active Transportation for the City of Seattle. Nicole is tasked with overseeing the expansion of the newly purchased Pronto bike share program, creation of Summer Parkways programs and a new TDM 2.0 program.

Prior to moving to Seattle, she worked as Director of Bicycle Programs for the City of Boston which was part of Mayor Menino’s vision for healthy, sustainable communities.  During her tenure, she helped transform Boston from the worst cycling city in the country to a recognized leader in cycling. Under her leadership, the city created 92 miles of bike lanes and implemented a successful bikeshare system.

Nicole Freedman will moderate the GoGreen Seattle panel session: Technology + Innovation Changing the Transportation Landscape in 2016.

GoGreen: How is your team moving forward with the daily operations of Pronto? Will services still remain the same in the transition of ownership?

Nicole Freedman: Daily operations and services will remain the same. To better serve riders we plan to move several stations to make the bikes more accessible. The first of these decisions was relocating the Frye Art Museum (Terry & Columbia) Station to the new Capitol Hill U-Link Station at Broadway & Denny. Longer term, we will be looking at expansion in order to better serve current riders and appeal to new riders across the city.

GoGreen: Can you address the plan that will be laid out over the next six months to better serve low-income populations and communities of color?

NF: A plan is currently in the works. We hope to test out a reduced cost membership program similar to the ones in Chicago and Boston. Whether or  not we can test this out before expansion is unknown, but we will certainly be making plans. The keys to success for such a program: great outreach and adding stations in low income neighborhoods.

GoGreen: From your experience, what does it take to transform a city into a bike friendly environment?

NF: There first must be a cultural shift within the city and with pedestrians. The department is working towards making Seattle a bike friendly city through the bike network of protected lanes and greenways with focus on the center city bike network. The further we are on pedestrian and bike issues the more that we need to work with drivers and expanding the public right of way. There will always be trade offs when developing more protected bike lanes either by removing parking or car travel lanes. We will need the public to be actively engaged and provide input.  Drivers and pedestrians are instrumental in the success of the city’s bike share program.

To find out more about projects and programs that the City of Seattle Transportation Department will focus on until 2019 read the  Seattle’s Bicycle Master Plan (BMP). The department’s vision is to make riding a bicycle is a comfortable and integral part of daily life in Seattle for people of all ages and abilities. The actions and investments in the plan will advance this vision through new bicycle infrastructure, bicycle parking and other end-of-trip facilities, and programs to enhance safety, maintain facilities, and encourage more people to ride bicycles.

City of Seattle Department of Transportation will be exhibiting onsite during GoGreen Seattle on March 30. Check out TransitScreen and learn about new, innovative partnerships with Uber and Lyft to help people get home safely.

Event Details: GoGreen Seattle, brought to you by King County, will take place Wednesday, March 30, 2016 at the Conference Center located at Eighth Avenue and Pike Street in Seattle, Washington. Tickets are available at seattle.gogreenconference.net or via phone at 206.459.0595.

 

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Green Line Series | McKinstry’s Influence in Collaborative Energy

Posted on 03/08/2016 by | Leave a comment

AshAwad01Ash Awad, P.E. is the Chief Market Officer at McKinstry. Ash is responsible for McKinstry’s market development strategy and has more than 20 years experience in the industry. His extensive knowledge covers systems engineering, evaluation of sustainable ideas and development of alternative-financing solutions. During this Green Line Series, we asked Ash a few questions around collaborative energy.  He will participate in the session District and Cooperative Energy | Hot Ideas + Cool Technology in the Seattle 2030 District as a part of the GoGreen Seattle program track on Sustainable Building and Design.

GoGreen Conference: We are excited to learn of McKinstry’s focus on “collaborative energy”, most recently featured in the new Amazon/Westin project in Seattle’s 2030 District. What does “collaborative energy” mean and how does this drive a more sustainable future?

Ash Awad: Collaborative energy is a derivative of the more well-known district energy concept, but instead of a central plant being the supplier of energy that is distributed to a “district” or collection of buildings, one of the buildings within that collection is the supplier of the energy. We like to refer to it as collaborative energy because a number of parties must collaborate to make it work. In the case of the Amazon/Westin project, a private building owner (Westin) had waste heat from its data centers that it was releasing into the atmosphere that the owner thought could have value as a heat source. Another private building owner (Amazon) was about to build its new corporate headquarters across the street and wanted to make that building as energy efficient as possible. Through its policies, the City of Seattle enabled these two private owners to innovate and design a system that captured the waste heat from the Westin, piped it under the street and delivered it to Amazon – thus the collaborative energy concept was born. Collaborative approaches like this are key to driving these cutting-edge outcomes.

The idea of re-using energy that’s been transformed into a different state isn’t new. McKinstry has engineered and implemented waste heat recovery systems many times before.  What is new is doing it on a large scale when energy suppliers and users are different entities and the energy crosses private property borders.

Dense, energy-intensive, mixed-use environments – such as cities – are not only smart ways of using and conserving land, they are also fertile ground for recycling energy.

This renewable model turns waste heat into an asset, rather than a liability, and promises to dramatically increase the energy efficiency of cities while reducing their carbon footprint. It’s a win for energy users because it saves them money and provides them energy price certainty for a long time; it’s a win for the community because we don’t need to bring on more energy generation resources.

We hope that this project catalyzes a paradigm shift in the way communities think about energy use and policy that shapes it.

GoGreen Conference: McKinstry designs the systems to take advantage of waste heat. Can you share new developments with these systems? Any new McKinstry projects launching that will utilize this?

Ash Awad: McKinstry is working on several other energy recycling opportunities. McKinstry thinks of buildings as energy resources – not just energy users. The Westin/Amazon project demonstrates that data centers in particular, are energy-rich environments that can benefit adjacent properties and communities.

The mechanical systems that are the backbone of these types of projects are readily available and are getting more and more efficient. What’s really interesting is the role data is playing in helping us better figure out how to use waste heat. Through the use of technology, buildings are getting smarter, which allows building designers and operators to be proactive in making decisions that affect the efficiency of our built environment.

GoGreen Conference: Our GoGreen business and public sector leaders will be very interested in learning about McKinstry’s work in this area. Can small and medium-sized businesses utilize these new systems? Why should business and public sector leaders care about this?

Ash Awad: This type of system may not be right or even possible for everyone. Retrofits to accommodate this solution can be expensive, and often downright impossible. Facilities with central boilers are good candidates, but if the boilers aren’t fully depreciated or have life left in them, it can be hard to justify replacing them. Utilities or other heat providers must obtain permits and navigate other bureaucratic obstacles in order to add water pipes and other needed infrastructure.

Businesses should care about this because how their facility operates directly affects the perception that people have about their business. Increasingly, building owners are looking for ways to make their buildings more energy efficient not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it is also good for business. Research has shown that a company’s environmental record impacts people’s decision to do business with them. And building owners looking to attract tenants are finding that how “green” their building is can be a huge factor in determining lease rates.

Public sector leaders should care about this kind of innovation because as Oregon-based EcoDistricts describes the promise of this idea: “With the right mix of inspired design, smart planning and skillful execution, cities can be engines of innovation full of talented and creative people who accelerate economic growth, shared prosperity and ecological resiliency.”

This collaborative-energy approach spotlights the opportunity tied up in the massive untapped productivity of energy that resides under our streets and in our buildings in this country. Focused public policies that encourage urban density and public-private partnerships that build stronger neighborhoods are the key that can unlock this potential.

Event Details: GoGreen Seattle, brought to you by King County, will take place Wednesday, March 30, 2016 at the Conference Center located at Eighth Avenue and Pike Street in Seattle, Washington. Tickets are available at seattle.gogreenconference.net or via phone at 206.459.0595.

 

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Green Line Series | Eugene Mayor, Kitty Piercy

Posted on 09/24/2015 by | Leave a comment
Kitty Piercy

In this installment of the Green Line Series we had the opportunity to sit down with Eugene Mayor, Kitty Piercy. This year during GoGreen Portland we will bring together mayors from across the region to discuss the impact being made in their cities to solve environmental challenges and improve the quality of life for all citizens. Read along to find out about initiatives in the environmental movement being made in Eugene.

GoGreen Conference: What caused you to decide that sustainability was a key element of governance that you wanted to focus on?

Mayor Piercy: There has long been interest in sustainability by many here in Eugene, but it tended to focus on environmental protection rather than the triple bottom line. The business community eyed the concept of sustainability warily and often focused on areas of conflict. When I ran for office, I was cautioned by my environmentally-minded friends to stay away from the very word sustainability until after the election. As I talked to people across the political spectrum, I concluded that was wrong. Most of us live here because we love the natural beauty of this place, because we care about the well being of our neighbors and know that all our families need a strong economy with good jobs. I concluded that the bridge across our community was sustainability and an approach to it that, in keeping with our community values, truly embraced the triple bottom line. Early in my administration, I launched the Sustainable Business Initiative—a new task force to help us build a platform of ideas and actions to move this forward. The work of the task force was a critical step, both in terms of bringing a community focus to the idea but also for engaging businesses in developing a credible path to sustainability. I knew it couldn’t be successful without a meaningful partnership between government and business.

GoGreen: In 2014, Eugene City Council took a bold step in adopting the Climate Recovery Ordinance that codifies some ambitious climate action goals for the city. How is this approach different from what other cities are doing and what do you think will be some of the biggest challenges to its implementation?

Mayor Piercy: We’ve committed ourselves to significant greenhouse gas reductions in a way that few others have. By putting our climate action goals into our city code, we’re holding ourselves accountable for reaching them. So it’s not just a matter of creating another plan with aspirational goals, but also committing ourselves to monitoring our progress closely and making adjustments if we’re not on track.

We’re also considering a new goal—one that calls for reaching a safe level of emissions in line with 350 parts per million CO2.  In developing this new target, we recognize that we can’t look to the past for setting our goals but must be informed by what the science tells us is safe for future generations.

These are aggressive goals, and we’ll face a lot of challenges in meeting them. The biggest challenge is overcoming the fear that we can’t get there. We can—we have all kinds of solutions already available to us: renewable energy, electric vehicles and biofuels, energy efficiency and many other technologies and approaches available today. We need to stay committed to this path and be willing to invest now to make these changes possible.

GoGreen: The City of Eugene focuses on three aspects of sustainability – social equity, environmental health, and economic prosperity.  In what ways does the city advance this Triple Bottom Line approach to build a more sustainable city?

Mayor Piercy: Several years ago, we adopted the Triple Bottom Line as a decision-making framework, and we use this as a lens for considering all kinds of choices we make routinely, those involving policy, programs, budgets, investments, etc. So we have a very explicit Triple Bottom Line approach, and this helps us consider all the potential impacts of our choices. We may not always have the luxury to advance all three aspects (environment, equity and economy) simultaneously, but the TBL approach brings a discipline and transparency to the discussion. This thinking has become ingrained in discussions both at Council and in the community—it’s become part of our DNA!

GoGreen: How do you balance your hopes for a sustainable city with some of the other challenges you face, such as homelessness, unemployment, increasing demands on city services, etc.?

Mayor Piercy: Well it certainly isn’t easy, but we have to be opportunistic and leverage all our work to achieve multiple goals. That’s just the reality for local governments today. As policy makers, we are often asked to choose between competing needs and goals. In keeping our library open despite serious budget pressures, we maintain equal access and opportunity for everyone, no matter the income. It is a place even the homeless can utilize, a place one can find job openings and explore arts and culture. We need to integrate sustainability in all that we do, so if we need a new city facility, we make sure it’s the highest energy performer our money can buy. If we need to repave our streets, we take that opportunity to include bike lanes, and so on. It means being intentional and resourceful and keeping our eye on the long game.

Event Details: The eighth annual GoGreen Portland, will take place Tuesday, October 6, 2015 at the White Stag Building. Tickets are available at portland.gogreenconference.net or via phone at 503-226-2377. Save 30% on tickets with promotional code GREENLINESERIES.

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Green Line Series PDX | Keynote, Adam Werbach

Posted on 09/03/2014 by | Leave a comment

Focusing on our 2014 conference theme, The Rise of the Commons: Investing in a Socially Sustainable Community, we asked Adam Werbach, Co-Founder of yerdle and GoGreen Portland 2014 Keynote, to tell us how his company is driving the sharing economy and producing positive social impacts. Check out what we learned (and get excited for his Keynote!) below.

GoGreen CoAdam Werbachnference: The sharing economy is still a relatively new concept that many people do not fully understand. How would you define “sharing economy” to someone unfamiliar with the term?

Adam Werbach: With sharing economy there are activities that take underutilized resources bringing them to use through the application of technology and community.

GoGreen Conference: How does the model of yerdle play into the sharing economy?

AW: Right now it’s easier to buy something new rather than finding something sitting idle in a friend or neighbors closet. For the first time in history it’s easier to have something newly made for you than it is to use something that has already been produced. Yerdle helps people unlock the items that are sitting idle in their closets and garages and makes them available to people all through out the United States.

The idea of sharing items is nothing new. It’s how humanity has gone through hard times, has supported friends and family, it’s how we put together picnics, sports teams and crafts forever. Only in the last fifty years have we started having to buy something new and disposable. What sharing economy provides is an opportunity to return to the types of behaviors that have helped us survive forever. 

It’s less packaging, transportation, mining, oil etc. As an example I just got a camping coffee pot for free from yerdle from someone in Virginia. If I would have bought a new one the aluminum would have came from Australia, it would have been made from bauxite to aluminum in a large plant, shipped to China to be fabricated, shipped to Hong Kong to be packaged, shipped to the Midwest to be put into storage and then shipped to San Francisco for me to open it.  After that I would throw all the packaging away which would end up going into a landfill.

GoGreen Conference: According to Forbes, the revenue that flows through the sharing economy was an estimated $3.5 billion in 2013 and was projected to grow 25% this year. What is your prediction for 2014? Have you seen this type of growth in yerdle’s communities?

AW: I think the idea of the sharing economy is going to affect Americans pocket books in a way greater than almost any economic movement we’ve seen since probably the start of social security. This will mean real wages increasing for Americans. There will be two things. One is a student and moms with young children will be able to pick up flexible work to match their schedules. Secondly services like yerdle will start causing people to have to spend less money, which will in fact increase the power of wages. We’re out to decrease cost of durable goods by 25 percent, which many of our members have done already. Today 25,000 items a month are moved on yerdle.  In January the number was closer 1,000 items a month. It’s a pretty obvious idea if you have something in your garage that you’re not going to use why won’t you put it up and see what you can turn it into? It feels good getting rid of unused items and giving them to someone who would benefit from them.

GoGreen Conference:  There are many positive economic impacts to the sharing economy – what are some of the social impacts that occur?

AW: The biggest social impacts are individual. People are able to get their lives in order by entering a community of people who are all interested in the same things as them. I can give a few examples of stories of people helping teachers get their classrooms settled, new moms who have been left by their husbands trying to make ends meet or people trying to get to burning man and figuring out a way to do that. The broadest social impact from an ecological standpoint is the radical reduction of waste. The 25,000 items from this month are things that wouldn’t have needed to have been produced and would have been produced and bought online and shipped and packaged and manufactured. That’s kind of the most obvious piece however the community ones are the ones that I think feel the best.

GoGreen Conference: Do you see any age trends in those using the peer-to-peer market? Is there an average age bracket for yerdle users?

AW: It tends to see a little bit younger crowds.  Eighteen to thirty four is the demographic but late millennial are the quickest to adopt. We are mostly in apps so people with IPhones and Androids tend to be the ones using. It’s both young people trying to put things together who are not as stuff oriented and then young moms trying to get together the things they need.

GoGreen Conference: What are you hoping your audience will walk away with and gain from your keynote address at GoGreen?

AW: If you believe like I do that we are not efficiently using all the greatest resources on the planet and the greatest one being people. Think about what’s being wasted right now in your home, office and among your friends. Discover the blank paper, how would we engage them? How would we take those lonely hours and turn them into productive activity? How would we take those items that are stuffed into the back of your closet and make them actually produce something that we actually want? How would we make sure that car sitting in the back of your garage is actually used? My grandmother always taught me wasting is almost a crime. How do we take that seriously? Just because we can afford to have new items doesn’t mean we should.

Event Details

GoGreen Portland 2014, brought to you by the City of Portland, Multnomah County and METRO will take place on Thursday, October 16th at the Oregon Convention Center, Oregon Ballroom located at 777 Northeast Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard. Tickets are available online atportland.gogreenconference.net or via phone at 503.226.2377. Early Bird rates are good through Tuesday, September 16th, 2014. Single Admission Early Bird Full Conference tickets are $175 and Group Rate Early Bird Tickets are $150 (groups of two or more). Student, government and non-profit registration rates are available.

 

 

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Green Line Series PDX | Keynote, Renee Lertzman, Ph.D.

Posted on 08/12/2014 by | 1 comment

The GoGreen team recently interviewed GoGreen Portland Keynote, Renee Lertzman, Ph.D.,  Author of The Myth of Apathy. Click the link below to find out more about her educational background and motivation to engage communities of stakeholders through communications.

GoGreen: What was your defining moment that influenced you to go into communications surrounding issues with the environment?

R8Renee Lertzman: It really started out when I was an undergrad in college as a psychology major. What I experienced during that time was a cognitive dissonance where I was coming out of my environmental studies classes feeling really devastated and deeply concerned about what I was learning about – going into my psychology classes and anthropology courses with really kind of no mention of what was going on with our environmental situation.

I set out with a focus on connecting the psychological research world with how we communicate and educate people about environmental issues. My main interest is what we can learn and leverage from insights in psychology, specifically clinical or psychodynamic psychology – which has enormous insight into human behavior and how we relate with change, loss and anxiety. My perception is that when communicating about environmental issues we are raising literacy and awareness and need to be exceptionally mindful of the emotional impact — as we are directly informing how people engage with the information and then choose to act on it. It is fundamentally critical that we look at that dimension and not only what people’s values, beliefs and opinions are. We need to always include the emotional and experiential contexts if we want our work to be effective. We are well past the ‘information deficit’ approach, that if people only know more they would activate somehow.

GoGreen: As a communications professional have you seen a gap between individuals connecting and engaging on environmental issues?

Renee Lertzman: I have seen a gap between what people say they value and what they actually value. The orientation that I’m coming from is referred to as psychosocial – we can’t separate out the psychological and social context in which we live and so from that point of view it’s not surprising that we are contradicting.

We often say one thing and do something else. It’s not really a big revelation – the research tools that we use to identify that gap really only reinforces a perception of a “gap” – if we ask people questions, based on surveys, polls, even focus groups or interviews, we often get a very top of mind story, versus the actual, messier reality of how we make choices and negotiate particular dilemmas about how we live. So our methods and the way we are framing the questions have something to do with this “gap” – something I’ve written about extensively and is key theme in the book I’m writing, Environmental Melancholia.

We need to shift from a persuasion orientation and instead think much more about how we can support, facilitate and engage. It’s not about trying to force or coerce (hopefully). It’s about helping connect people with our own creative and caring capacities. One of the main techniques I focus on is designing into our work a way to acknowledge people’s potential experiences; and say we get it and understand that you might be unsure and that’s okay, then move on into what we can do together. If you skip the first step you’re not really connecting with people.

Communications is about humans and human behavior. I don’t think environmental communications is like any other communications — it’s totally distinct from other issue areas for a number of reasons. I think we need to be working to create basically a whole kind of unique and specific approach to the practice of environmental communications, that takes these psychological and social complexities onboard – this goes beyond just framing around values. It also includes insight into how people resist change, manage anxieties, and deal with losses, both actual and anticipatory. Focusing on inspiration and positive solutions is also important, but it is not the full story and is not as effective when we leave out the rest.

GoGreen: What is an example of a communication strategy that you have seen work to engage individuals in environmental issues?

Renee Lertzman: I think that humor, when practiced skillfully, can be a powerful tool. Humor has a capacity to both allow people to engage with difficult issues in a safe way but it also has the ability to be honest. An example would be Brand Cool’s creation of an energy efficiency media campaign called Irreconcilable Differences – a video series in which they used humor to communicate how people in their homes can get into conflicts about how much energy is being used with battles over control of the thermostat. I think using humor is really wonderful and powerful if it’s done right. The campaign has to have substance to it.

The other platform is the use of conversations. Conversations are an under-recognized, powerful behavior change resource, as we tend to learn, change and grow through social interactions. The Carbon Conversations project in the UK, or the Northwest Earth Institute are examples of bringing people together informally to simply talk about how we can face some of these challenges, and come up with some emergent solutions. Conversations provide the support we tend to need to engage with some of the more challenging aspects of responding to our ecological predicaments. We learn we are not alone in how we may be feeling. This is a way to support people to organize and express their own creativity, which is really important. I think we see glimmers of this through online tools where there are competitions of people sending in their own ideas or the model of the challenge. However, creating interactivity is also important. The things that invite people to get involved, engaged and feeling like they are a part of a conversation as opposed to just passive recipients is beneficial.

GoGreen: What are you hoping our organizational leaders at GoGreen will walk away with and gain from your Keynote Address at the event?

Renee Lertzman: It is important for us to think differently about behavior change. It is time for us to shift our orientation in which we’re used to thinking, such as how do we get people to change, towards how can we support and enable people to express their concerns and investment in our world? That’s a fundamental reframe – when we take that on it changes the nature of the work that we do, because it’s less of a sense of pushing against something and more about how we can leverage and support what’s already there. Our innate care, concern for our planet, and our desire to have efficacy, impact and creativity.

I believe every human being fundamentally has an investment in our world. It’s our job to find out what that is and how to really facilitate that. It’s not about pushing and persuading – it’s more about invitation, facilitation and support. For this, we can tap into human insights and specifically our emotional connections, to help us be profoundly more effective in engaging with people.

Find out more about Renee’s book, The Myth of Apathy online. She is also an Independent Consultant currently collaborating with Brand Cool.

Event Details

GoGreen Portland 2014, brought to you by the City of Portland, Multnomah County and METRO will take place on Thursday, October 16th at the Oregon Convention Center, Oregon Ballroom located at 777 Northeast Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard. Tickets are available online at portland.gogreenconference.net or via phone at 503.226.2377. Early Bird rates are good through Tuesday, September 16th, 2014. Single Admission Early Bird Full Conference tickets are $175 and Group Rate Early Bird Tickets are $150 (groups of two or more). Student, government and non-profit registration rates are available.

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Green Line Series NYC | Sass Brown on The Future of Fashion

Posted on 09/12/2013 by | 1 comment

GoGreen NYC | Future of Fashion

The apparel industry has a dilemma — its growing market of global middle class consumers wants their fashion fast and cheap, but the planet can’t sustain the current rate (or trend line) of resource consumption or environmental impacts. Author, editor, FIT assistant dean of the School of Art & Design, and sustainable fashion expert, Sass Brown, gives us an insider’s take on the seismic shifts pushing the fashion and apparel industry towards less wasteful systems and technology, new heights in design, and far more responsible corporate citizenship when it comes to resourcing, environmental impacts and social justice.

GoGreen Conference: From an insider’s perspective, what is the incentive for the fashion industry to address sustainability and social impact concerns?

Sass Brown: First and foremost there is the knowledge that they are doing something worthwhile that goes beyond mere profits, and aligns them better with current attitudes and values in the triple bottom line of people, planet and profit. The fashion industry has always prided itself on being cutting edge, so leading by example by integrating systemic change inside their own industry has major PR benefits to a consumer who is becoming more and more conscious in their consumption, and voting with their hard earned dollars.

GG: What kind of change have you seen in the past five years in terms of industry and designer attitudes towards more responsible supply chains and ethical production? Is this trend a blip on the radar or a meaningful shift in “business as usual”?

SB: There is no doubt this is a major shift in values in corporations as well as the consumer behaviour. The fashion and related industries is a major global employer, and as such has the ability to impact the planet through the changes they make. The past few years has seen more and more designers building new models and systems instead of blindly following the existing fashion system, which is unsustainable by definition. The first wave of sustainable fashion designers concentrated on making more conscious material or production choices but within the existing systems, the newer designers are no longer trying to conform to the models which are wasteful by definition, but forging their own models and building new systems.

GG: What role is technology playing in driving sustainability in the fashion industry? Has it affected design as well as production and sourcing? Are there key technologies that are especially promising in this area?

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GoGreen Seattle 2013 | Redux

Posted on 06/25/2013 by | Leave a comment

GGSEA13_Redux_Page_3GoGreen Seattle 2013 saw over 400 attendees from across the private, public, nonprofit and academic sectors convene for a galvanizing day of idea-sharing, peer-to-peer learning opportunities and regionally focused dialogue on advancing solutions to the Pacific Northwest’s pervasive environmental, social
and economic challenges. It was also an opportunity to think boldly beyond the “issues” we face and envision the kind of communities we want to build. We heard success stories, gained insights and discovered new tools to work smarter from more than 40 business leaders, civil servants, entrepreneurs, sustainability wonks and the next generation of green leaders. But the true measure of success for GoGreen Seattle will be in the collaborative endeavors that come out of the day — be sure to get in touch if you’re pursuing a project as
a result of an idea or connection made at GoGreen. We’d love to profile you as a case study! You can reach us at: seattle@gogreenconference.net.

Putting it all Together

With the information gathered from our event surveys sent out to Attendees, Sponsors, Speakers & Community Partners as well as our on-site polling from Dialsmith we were able to compile our first ever event redux. Take a look at some of the great highlights and take-aways in the full-event redux here.

Photo-tastic

Photos courtesy of Joel Dames Photography

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King County Executive Dow Constantine Invites You To GoGreen Seattle 2013!

Posted on 03/21/2013 by | Leave a comment

Dow ConstantineEditor’s note: GoGreen is proud to partner with King County on our fourth annual sustainable business conference in the region. The following is a personal invitation from keynote speaker, King County Executive, Dow Constantine — we’ll see you April 24!

I’m pleased to invite you to the upcoming GoGreen Seattle Conference on Wednesday, April 24 at the Conference Center in downtown Seattle.

This is the premier sustainability conference for business and government in the region. It is a learning experience for both public and private sector decision makers and is intended to empower attendees with the strategies, tools and connections to green their organizations with prosperity and profitability in mind.

Meaningful progress toward environmental sustainability can only happen through partnerships between governments, businesses and residents.

Your participation in this conference will help us shape the policies and investments in our community that will guide the future of sustainable living and business practices.

Maintaining our region’s leadership in environmental and economic sustainability are top priorities for King County – they are essential to our high quality of life.

During GoGreen Seattle, you will be exposed to real-world examples and ideas that our region has put into place and have taken us to the cutting edge of technology.

Sustainability is a powerful and indispensable tool for navigating the tumultuous waters of today’s global economy – as well as solving critical challenges such as climate change. GoGreen Seattle works across industry silos to foster peer-to-peer learning and collaborative solutions.

My hope is that you will take what you learn at this conference and turn it into action. That is why King County is proudly sponsoring the conference in 2013.

Environmental sustainability and economic growth are foundational goals of the King County Strategic Plan. We are taking our own actions to become more sustainable in our day-to-day operations, and in our planning for the future. And we are seeing results. King County’s actions have reduced our environmental footprint, saved taxpayers money and encouraged business development and growth.

For example:

  • King County is implementing an Energy Plan that focuses on energy efficiency and renewable energy development … as well as award-winning green building and environmentally preferable purchasing programs.
  • We’re making it easier for nonprofits and businesses to gain access to low-interest financing for projects that conserve energy, water and promote environmental sustainability through the Green Community Initiative – the first of its kind in the state.
  • We’re capturing landfill gas, cleaning it and turning it into pipeline quality natural gas in volumes large enough to heat 10,000 homes – and we’re earning income while doing it.

Our sustainability and resource conservation work isn’t relegated solely to programs of a grand scale. By visiting with the King County staff at this year’s GoGreen Conference, you’ll see:

  • How we’re helping daily commuters shrink their carbon footprint through rideshare programs and our clean and efficient transit fleet;
  • How we’re bring recycling and resource conservation education to thousands of school kids in classrooms and assemblies; and 
  • How we’re offering everyday commonsense approaches to getting more value and creating less waste while shopping.

I hope you find your time at the GoGreen Conference informative and inspiring. Thank you and I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday, April 24.

Dow Constantine,
King County Executive

King County Executive Dow Constantine will give the morning keynote address at GoGreen Seattle 2013. Register to join us, April 24, for a full day of insights, training and networking that will empower you to advance sustainability efforts at your workplace and contribute to the success of the region. View the entire 2013 program & speaker roster at our website. 

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Green Line Series PDX | Cylvia Hayes On Transforming The Economy Via A Triple Bottom Line

Posted on 10/09/2012 by | 1 comment

Cylvia Hayes might happen to be Governor John Kitzhaber’s better half and consequently Oregon’s First Lady, but she’s a visionary in her own right. For the last installment of the Green Line Series for Portland, we sat down with Cylvia to get her unique perspective on how government and business can work together to get it right for Oregon’s economy, communities and its environment.

GoGreen Conference: Give us a sense of your role in Governor Kitzhaber’s Administration and how your own professional expertise plays into that.

Cylvia Hayes: I wear two hats around here. I have a more than 20 year career in sustainable economic development and clean energy. So I have that professional perspective. And as First Lady of the state, I’m very involved as a volunteer policy advisor for the administration on those two issues. To give you some specifics, I was the co-chair on Governor Kulongoski’s (the previous Governor of Oregon) renewable energy working group, which was the body that was put together and worked to pass several of Oregon’s big energy policies — including our renewable portfolio standard and renewable fuels standard. But towards the end of that term, my fellow co-chair and I became a little frustrated, because although we realized that we had passed a number of lofty and important measures, we had no comprehensive plan on how to actually get there.

So, now one of the big clean energy policy efforts we have underway in the Kitzhaber administration is a 10-year energy plan. The intent being that in 10 years time our trajectory is to meet and exceed our renewable portfolio standard, our fuel standard and emission reduction goal, but that we have credibly bent the curve so that we are moving towards a low carbon energy and transportation system.

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Green Line Series | W+K Tomorrow’s Nick Barham Flips ‘Green’ Marketing On Its Head

Posted on 10/04/2012 by | 1 comment

We sat down with Wieden + Kennedy Tomorrow’s Global Director, Nick Barham, ahead of GoGreen to get the scoop on his presentation and his opinions on current trends in green marketing. Check out this Green Line Series Interview for a primer on this Thursday’s talk — “We Hate Sustainability”: Moving Beyond The ‘S’ Word.

GoGreen Conference: Before we get too far, can you give us a primer on what you do at Wieden + Kennedy Tomorrow?

NB: W+K  Tomorrow is an initiative of Wieden + Kennedy, and most simply, my job is to think about how we do things that we’re not currently doing. So what aren’t we doing today that we could be, and perhaps should be? I work on our sustainability initiatives because it’s something that is a changing landscape for brands. I also work with our incubator space called the Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE), which works in emerging technology and I help run a publishing venture. So W+K Tomorrow is looking at how communication in the brand landscape is changing and what we should, as a communications agency, be doing to respond to that.

GG: We’ve been in the business for the past five years of teaching businesses how to improve sustainability, and we’ve noticed a definite shift in language in the market. We’ve gone from “natural” to “green” to “sustainable” now. It seems like the green marketing world tends converge on certain language and visual representations — and if you don’t use the right language, you’re not seen as credible. But your presentation flies in the face of that by saying, ‘Ditch it’. If that’s the case, what do we do instead?

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