Nicole Freedman, Chief of Active Transportation City of Seattle

This 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.

 

Green Line Series | McKinstry’s Influence in Collaborative Energy

Ash 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.

 

Green Line Series | Google [e]Team

During this installment of the Green Line Series, we had the opportunity to interview Kati Kallins of Google’s [e]Team: Environmental Design and Construction Projects. She will be joining us on March 30 during the session, The Business Case for High Performance and Deep Green Buildings.

Kallins is on Google’s Real Estate and Workplace Services [e]Team, which is charged with delivering exceptional environments, experience and ecology on Google buildings. She has led sustainable design and construction projects with teams in North America, Europe, and Africa. Using her in-depth expertise on healthy building materials, indoor environmental quality metrics, and strategic communications, she works with project teams to deliver innovative office spaces that promote health and productivity.

GoGreen: There is a lot of buzz around high performance or “green” building right now. What high performance projects has Google completed recently in the Seattle area/WA state?

Kati Kallins: In 2016 Google open two new buildings and doubled the size of our Kirkland Campus, now totaling over 375,000 square feet. Google leases the space from SRMKII, LLC, who built the new space to Google’s sustainability specifications, including targeting LEED platinum certification.

The new building is on a site that formerly housed a chemical mixing and packaging plant. After completing an environmental cleanup in 2012, Google’s property developer, SRMKII, at Google’s request, conducted a second cleanup to voluntarily surpass state standards and remove all detectable remaining contamination at the property, even small pockets of chemicals, at concentrations safely below state cleanup levels. The Washington Department of Ecology has called the cleanup “cleaner than clean” and plans to remove the area from the state’s contaminated sites list.

The new high performance office buildings in Kirkland are designed with a focus on indoor environmental quality (IEQ), efficient resource use, and superior user experience. The new buildings were designed to “bring in the outdoors” because these design features have been proven to improve the health and productivity of occupants. Since people spend 90% of their time indoors this focus is paramount to creating Google’s exciting workplaces. With features like a sky bridge, public park, green roof, vegetative screens, and patios the building achieves Google’s goal to be a vibrant and restorative place to work. A portion of wood used in the office also was harvested from timber felled on-site during construction, so local natural materials can be found throughout.  All interior office furnishings also meet Google’s stringent IEQ Healthy Materials Program that vets building products for health and transparency criteria. The office uses resources efficiently onsite through a rainwater cistern that will reduce potable water use by 76% and a chilled beam HVAC system that will save 55% more energy than a traditional building HVAC system.

GoGreen: How do Google’s goals and values align with its green building strategy?

Kati Kallins: Google has always aspired to be a globally conscious company that is focused on improving the lives of our users and contributing positively to the world’s toughest issues. Doing the right thing and a standard of excellence are part of our fabric at Google – and our green building strategy is an extension of those values.

We work hard to create the healthiest, most productive work environment for our employees. To do that we approach buildings as living systems, designing for natural light and clear air, designing out harmful man-made chemicals, and using natural resources more intelligently. Our approach goes hand-in-hand with our commitment to designing buildings that are sustainable for local and global ecosystems.

We believe that a healthy work environment and a sustainable world begin with transparency and cooperation.  Our focus on creating healthy environments begins with vetting building materials through our Healthy Materials Program.   At Google’s offices worldwide, we put all building products through a rigorous screening process to determine which adhere to our healthy building standards—and we purchase the products that best meet our stringent criteria.

Yet our green building initiatives don’t stop with the building materials in our offices. We make every effort to address the factors that impact people’s experience of indoor environments, such as thermal comfort, daylight and access to views. We also provide aggressive performance benchmarks for energy and water consumption. We use sophisticated building control technologies to ensure systems are on only when we need them. We’ve installed solar electric and solar hot water panels on our roofs, treated water on-site for reuse, and used recycled municipal wastewater for other applications (e.g. toilet flushing and landscape watering). We have the aspirational goal of diverting 99% of construction waste from our projects. Google’s green building strategy is focused on cultivating extraordinary human experiences in the built environment through focusing on the experience of building occupants to optimize health and performance of employees.

GoGreen: Google places a lot of emphasis on helping employees perform at their best. How can small and medium size businesses apply a similar focus to their green building strategies and/or office environments?

Kati Kallins: The strength of Google’s green building program comes from its foundation in our company’s unique philosophy and values. Our initiatives and real estate philosophy are really an extension of our core values as a company. We value our employees as a key part of our success as a company.  So it makes sense that many of our green building initiatives are focused on helping our employees be their best. Our goal as a company is to have happy, healthy, high -performing employees.

For example, at Google our employees work hard to write software code and solve user problems with our products. To help reduce stress in their already chaotic lives we focus on building an office space that improves their health and productivity. For example, research has shown that access to views reduces cortisol levels in the brain (a stress hormone), so we strive to give employees access to daylight and views wherever possible. Our Healthy Materials program also focuses on optimizing indoor air quality by reducing off-gassing materials in the space –  a major health impact for employees. By using water efficient fixtures and purchasing renewable energy for our building operations Google signals our belief in conservation of resources. This is a company principal that many employees take pride in, so the benefits are wide-reaching. Our green building strategy is built around this goal of optimizing the workplace for employees and acting as stewards of the natural ecosystems we live in. This strategy is synonymous with our company culture and aspirations to make the world a better place.

To find out more about sustainability at Google’s Campus Operations, visit their website.

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.

 

Green Line Series | Eugene Mayor, 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.

Green Line Series | Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, Director of Community Affairs, New York City Department of Environmental Protection

In the first Green Lines Series interview for GoGreen Portland we had  the chance to connect with Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, Director of Community Affairs, New York City Department of Environmental Protection, a passionate voice for transforming our pollution-based way of life to one that prioritizes our planet and its people for over 15 years.

Raised between Brooklyn and rural Upstate NY, Ibrahim appreciated environment and sustainability at an early age. His father, a devout Muslim, taught 5-year-old Ibrahim that the “Earth is a mosque,” that every inch of the planet is sacred and to be protected. Ibrahim retells this moving story in his Amazon Environmental Bestseller, “Green Deen: What Islam Teaches About Protecting the Planet,” a one-of-a-kind expose of the positive contributions of people of faith to the environmental and environmental justice movements. Completely committed to making his birth city into a global leader of environmental policy and practice, Ibrahim has been in several civil service roles since 2001. He advised former Mayor Michael Bloomberg on PlaNYC — the City’s sustainability blueprint and he currently directs Community Affairs at the NYC Department of Environmental Protection. Ibrahim’s head is all policy; his heart is all organizing. He merges the two consistently, bringing marginalized communities into City Hall conversations. Ibrahim can be heard on WNYC and WBAI and seen on Al Jazeera, AriseTV, and ABC News.

GoGreen Conference: Tell us about yourself – what is your background and how did you get to where you are today as a leader in sustainability, equity, and social change?

Ibrahim Abdul-Matin: I got where I am today because I could pursue my interests in race and class dynamics, the excesses of consumption, how we treat the planet and how we collectively made decisions without having to worry about paying back college debt. I had a full football scholarship. When I graduated I gravitated towards work that was fulfilling and not just what I needed to do to pay the bills.

GoGreen: Your father taught you that the “Earth is a mosque” and the planet should be treated as a sacred and protected space. How has this statement influenced both your professional career, but also your personal habits and practices?

IAM: My father was quoting the Hadith – or a saying of the Prophet Muhammad who, in my humble opinion, was a freedom fighter and an environmentalist. I try to stay as anchored to those reminders in both my professional and personal life as possible.

GoGreen: What have been the biggest obstacles facing sustainable practices and making them a habit for the city of NY? How have these obstacles been faced and over come?

IAM: We have a lot of work to do. We think we are the greatest at everything in NYC. I think our biggest obstacle is living up to that but i also think that we make progress everyday.

Find out more about Ibrahim Abdul-Matin on his personal website.

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.

Green Line Series | State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations

On this installment of the Green Line Series we will be bringing you something a little different. We recently had the opportunity to interview two of our speakers on the session What’s Next? The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations. We are excited to provide perspectives and a glimpse into the session from Matias Valenzuela, Director, Office of Equity and Social Justice, King County and Sudha Nandagopal, Strategic Policy Advisor, Environmental Justice & Service Equity Division, Seattle Public Utilities.

GoGreen Conference: The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations report is billed as “the most comprehensive report on diversity in the environmental movement”. Compiled by a working group of environment and equity thought leaders, Green 2.0. investigates the disconnect between green activism and social equity at NGO’s foundations and Government Agencies across the country.

In your opinion – what does the Green 2.0 report mean to the state of diversity in environmental organizations? What are the top things businesses can do to improve?

Sudha Nandagopal: The Green 2.0 report was an important marker to report on what many of us have observed. The environmental movement, especially our leadership, has to change in order to better reflect the communities most-impacted by environmental injustices and to engage the rising American electorate: a population of people who are incredibly racially diverse and facing huge issues of income inequality, rapid globalization, and a changing climate. We are all seeing the stark differences in racial outcomes throughout all levels of our society and this report’s findings are relevant for organizations, government, and businesses as we consider our leadership and services

Businesses and organizations have an important role to help address these disparities and strengthen communities. Both businesses and organizations must assess who is and isn’t benefiting from their services and create opportunities for people of color to lead sustainability efforts. From that assessment, businesses can begin to understand how to shift their products, services, and hiring/retention practices to better reflect and grow their customer base now and into the future. Additionally, businesses can bring a strong social responsibility lens to their programs and build partnerships with people of color, immigrant, refugee, and low-income communities through focused, community-led, culturally relevant efforts.  Through these focused efforts we can shift not only who is in the room, but who has the power to shape and influence decisions, programs, and policy.

Matías Valenzuela: The Green 2.0 report is an urgent call to action for environmental organizations. In short, there is a “green ceiling” for people of color, and this should be of great concern to environmental organizations. Nationally we will be majority “minority,” or majority people of color, by approximately 2043. We will reach this number in our King County region about 10 years sooner than that. So we have a diversity explosion in our hands. At the same time, only 12-16% of those in environmental organizations are people of color.

There are a number of steps that organizations can take to make changes. Organizations need to track their numbers and do internal assessments, then develop plans and goals that make the organization accountable and move the organization towards greater diversity.

Importantly, it’s not just about increasing diversity in the workforce, but also workplace inclusion – this means creating a culture within the organization that encourages respect and trust for all individuals, and creates a workplace that is open and welcoming of new and different points of view. Differences in backgrounds and perspectives within organizations are assets, and organizations need to be able to have these discussions. Diversity and racial equity trainings and discussions are key in advancing an organization’s culture, and need to accompany the plans to increase workforce diversity.

GoGreen Conference: Can you describe what programs Environmental Justice & Service Equity (EJSE) has been working on? What are the challenges in implementing these programs? What are the successes?

Sudha Nandagopal: Our work in the Environmental Justice and Service Equity Division spans a huge range of issues. We work directly with people of color, immigrant, refugee, and low-income communities to build partnerships and address historic inequities in service delivery. We also work internally to coach our colleagues to embed racial equity in strategic business plans, decision-making, project design, and delivery.

For instance, right now we are working in partnership with people-of-color led community organizations to design programs that will engage our communities in the new food waste requirement that Seattle adopted in 2014.

Some of your businesses may experience challenges when the city rolls out new requirements – you may need to let your staff know how to operate differently, change how you work with customers and create new ways of doing business. Imagine if you were of limited-English proficiency or that you had only recently moved to the area or imagine that you have had a historic pattern of having the negative impacts of policy fall more heavily on your community. These are the kinds of barriers many in our communities face every day.

We know there’s a huge opportunity to support people of color, immigrant, refugee, and low-income communities in participating in composting and recycling. We also know that these communities are eager to work with Seattle Public Utilities to figure out ways to lift up existing cultural practices, build their skills, and create opportunities for long-term community environmental stewardship.

By working with community groups to design the projects, we can create relevant programs, unearth and utilize existing practices, create connections between community leaders to coach and support one-another and refine our programs to better connect with and build capacity in communities. We have to take an active learning role, start where people are at rather than making assumptions, increase capacity, and build upon existing resources.

GoGreen Conference: King County recently released the Equity and Social Justice Annual Report. What are the most important takeaways and what does this report mean for the future?

Matías Valenzuela: The report reveals that disturbing inequities persists in King County and that a person’s quality of life is greatly impacted by where they live, and by their race. For example: average household income in one ZIP code can be $100,000 less than in another just a few miles away; average life expectancy can be 10 years shorter in one place than another; and unemployment among African Americans is twice what it is for whites.

We know that we can take some concerted steps to make changes and increase opportunity for our residents.

As an example, we increased access to affordable health care, led by our Executive Dow Constantine, with an all-hands-on-deck approach that mobilized County agencies and community organizations to help nearly 200,000 people in King County sign up for health coverage under the Affordable Care Act, cutting the uninsured rate by more than one-third. The enrollment outreach targeted uninsured populations with the greatest needs, such as Latinos, African Americans, and limited-English speakers in South King County—creating greater access to critical preventative services such as vaccinations, screenings for cancer or mental-health issues, and treatment for chronic conditions.

And we are working to expand opportunity where people live. Based upon research which shows the place where one lives has a dramatic impact on his or her trajectory in life, King County and The Seattle Foundation launched Communities of Opportunity—an initiative to improve health, racial, and socioeconomic equity in communities, building on community assets and know-how.

More recently, we created a nationally-recognized low-income bus fare for our lower-income Metro Transit riders.

In our workforce, we are working to ensure greater equity, diversity, and opportunity in our changing workplace.

Event Details: GoGreen Seattle 2015, brought to you by King County, will take place Thursday, April 30, 2015 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. Early Bird rates are good through Friday, March 27, 2015. Single Admission Early Bird Tickets are $175 and Group Rate Early Bird Tickets are $150 (groups of two or more).  Special registration rates for student, government and non-profits are available.

Green Lines Series | Alaska Airlines Drives Sustainability Forward

We are very excited to welcome Joe Sprague, Senior Vice President of Communications and External Relations at Alaska Airlines as a Keynote at GoGreen Seattle 2015 on April 30th.  Joe is the executive sponsor and champion of Alaska Airlines’ sustainability initiatives and chairs Alaska’s Sustainability Steering Committee.

Join us and learn more about how  Alaska Airlines Sustainability Steering committee sets their goals and drives sustainability initiatives forward.

GoGreen: How does Alaska come up with goals and metrics and then report back on the success of the Alaska Sustainability Program?

Joe Sprague: We have our executive-level sustainability steering committee which approves and prioritizes the metrics and goals.  Before goals get to the steering committee level for approval we have three working groups, representing the three pillars of sustainability (people, planet and performance) that help identify the priority issues in each area.    The working groups consists of senior management employees across the company who take into consideration regulatory and policy factors, stakeholder concerns, opportunities for innovation, and peer-based norms when setting our goals.  It’s a little like watching sausage being made sometimes, but ultimately it works.

GoGreen: Tell us about your proudest sustainability achievements over the past 5 years.

Joe Sprague: Two stand out in my mind for different reasons.  The first one is becoming the most fuel efficient (and carbon efficient) airline in the nation.  We’ve decreased the intensity of our carbon footprint by more than 30% in the past 10 years.

We invested millions of dollars in our fleet, so that we are flying the most fuel efficient aircraft available for our type of flying (and we purchase our planes locally, at a little company nearby called Boeing, by the way).  We also fly them extremely efficiently – we pioneered Required Navigation Performance in the early ‘90s to fly more precise (and efficient routes).  That type of technology is now being used in the Greener Skies over Seattle program which is reducing emissions and noise over the Seattle basis by flying more direct and efficient routes into the airport.  The neat thing is, this technology and flight procedures are now available to all other airlines, so that they can reduce their emissions and noise too.

The other achievement I am proud of is our inflight recycling program.  Our sister carrier, Horizon, was the first airline in the nation to implement a robust inflight recycling program in the late 1990’s.  What started as a grassroots effort by engaged employees has expanded into one of our service standards.  Now at both Alaska and Horizon, we capture the cups, bottles, paper, and cans to make sure they are recycled when we reach the next catering location.  This program has been an enormously challenging project. At Alaska Airlines alone, we remove (or “deplane”) our inflight waste in about 40 cities throughout 21 states and each city has a different infrastructure and requirements for sorting and recycling. We are especially proud of the flight attendants, who are now separating  more than 81 percent (AS & QX combined) of the recyclable materials during inflight service and we give kudos to our catering department and contract flight kitchens who support our recycling goals with 100 percent participation.

GoGreen: How does Alaska stand out against the competition as a leader in the airline and transportation industry around sustainability?

Joe Sprague: Alaska has ranked at the top of the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) U.S Domestic Airline Fuel Efficiency Ranking list for four years in a row (since they began analyzing data). This last year, it was a 3-way tie for first place, but with the fleet improvements we have planned, we’re hoping to recapture the top spot next year.

Today, Alaska and Horizon are the only U.S. domestic carriers to recycle mixed recyclables (including glass, paper, plastic and aluminum) on every flight.

Alaska has implemented many advancements  to stand apart from the competition over the years:

• 1^st use of sustainable aviation biofuel on regularly scheduled flights
• 1^st wind turbine installed at our Nome airport
• We developed and are using the only solar-powered ground support equipment.
• We’ve made concrete commitments to make measurable progress on reducing our environmental impacts

We are proud to support such initiative’s as a transportation company around sustainability.

To find out more about Alaska’s commitment to sustainable practices read their blog post “At Alaska Airlines, greener flying starts from the ground up.”

Event Details: GoGreen Seattle 2015, brought to you by King County, will take place Thursday, April 30, 2015 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. Early Bird rates are good through Friday, March 27, 2015. Single Admission Early Bird Tickets are $175 and Group Rate Early Bird Tickets are $150 (groups of two or more).  Special registration rates for student, government and non-profits are available.

Green Line Series PDX | Jason Graham-Nye on the FTC’s updated Green Guides

GoGreen Portland is thrilled to welcome back Jason Graham-Nye, Co-Founder, gDiapers, to the speaker roster for the upcoming conference on October 16. Jason is an original speaker of the conference series and participated during the 2009 gathering of regional leaders making a difference way back then. We are excited to reconnect with Jason and learn how the company has changed since then and to give us a preview of his experience with the Federal Trade Commission’s Green Guides and the panel session he will be speaking on at GoGreen Portland!

GoGreen Conference: What has gDiapers been up to since we last heard from you in 2009 at our second annual conference?

Jason Graham-Nye: Since 2009 we moved into a “real” office, where we are able to offer more benefits to our employees, such as onsite daycare for our team. Since 2004, we had worked from home and had our ever-growing team come to the house each morning! The business has expanded into Europe with a small London-based team. We have seen a significant amount of growth across Europe where our sustainability message seems to resonate more closely with the consumer base.  

GoGreen Conference: During your session at GoGreen Portland on October 16th, you will speak about your experience with the updated Federal Trade Commission’s Green Guides. What key points do you want our audience to take away from your experience?

JGN: The FTC has new guidelines including a new section on General Environmental Claims. Based on these new guidelines, no general environmental claims can be made with language, imagery or icons. That is a huge move as it essentially makes a green leaf on the side of a package, for example, run afoul of the guidelines. The term “eco-friendly” is also problematic. In our case, we used the term “eco-durable” (as in cute and eco-friendly) in our marketing which with the updated guidelines caused an issue. Another example is the tagline “Happy Baby, Happy Planet”.  In the past, that would be regarded as marketing puffery and just fine. Today, with the updated guidelines, the FTC requires that the claim that the baby is happy and the planet is happy is supported by an independent third party evidence. It is important to raise awareness of the new guidelines and ensure other companies are meeting the strict guides placed by the FTC.  

GoGreen Conference: Our 2014 conference theme focuses around, The Rise of the Commons: Investing in a Socially Sustainable Community — one that offers equity, diversity and growth to advance today’s community members and creates opportunities for tomorrow’s generation. Can you tell us how gDiapers and you personally are working towards this?

JGN: Since we launched in 2004 we have over 8,000 gMums & gDads – parents who use our products and volunteer for us across the US and UK. These amazing people go into stores and do checks on our sets, blog about us, host morning teas with other Mums and pitch in with us at trade shows. Some have created their own micro businesses, up-cycling our outer gPants and selling them on to new customers and expanding our reach as a company. We are continually thinking about how to engage with our Mums and Dads in unique and different ways to support them on their parenting journey.  

GoGreen Conference: Do you think there are any important sustainability or social responsibility practices business leaders in Oregon could learn from Australia?

JGN: Australia had a great deal to offer leaders of other regions of the world with the previous Governments leadership on a Carbon tax. It proved to be a very effective way to manage the issue and as an Australian I was very proud of that initiative. The new administration has scrapped that tax and in my opinion, has really lead the country backwards. As a country experiencing the full force of global warming – the canary in the coal mine effect, we are scrambling to bring in management systems such as limiting water use, trialing desalination plants, expanding solar etc. I think Portland may have more to offer Australia’s leadership at this point.   

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.  Student, government and non-profit registration rates are available.

Green Line Series PDX | Keynote, Adam Werbach

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 Conference: 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.

 

 

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

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?

Renee 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.