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Events

Resources

CERTIFYING SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTS: A SMaRT WORKSHOP

A Champions for Sustainability Workshop
Friday, May 23
9:00 am - 3:30 pm
PPG Headquarters, One PPG Place, Third Floor, Room 3A (Downtown)
Fee: $100/Person for C4S/Sustainable Pittsburgh Members; $150 for non-members
Registration Deadline: May 21, 2008
Register online at www.C4SPgh.org/know.html
Contact: Matthew Mehalik at mmehalik@sustainablepittsburgh.org or 412-258-6644

Come to this workshop to learn about and to begin certifying your company’s products according to Sustainable Materials Rating Technology (SMaRT) consensus-based standards adopted through an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited process. This is the first offering of this workshop in Western Pennsylvania, and space is limited to the first 30 companies who register. This workshop provides companies with the needed guidance and background in four key areas:
• Product Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
• Documentation of the absence of harmful chemicals
• Energy efficiency and baseline assessments
• Documentation of social equity indicators

You will learn how to:
• Save money by examining new ways of making products using sustainable materials and reduced energy flows
• Improve your company's product-to-market time
• Respond to increasing demands for sustainable products
• Create new capacities for innovation and new markets

Registration Fee Includes Continental Breakfast and Lunch Buffet.

Resources Continued

8th Annual Southwestern Pennsylvania Smart Growth Conference

Revitalize the Region: Seize Market Interest to Redevelop Core Communities
Friday, May 16
Omni William Penn Hotel, Pittsburgh
8:30 am - 3:30 pm (continental breakfast and lunch included)
Keynote speaker: Christopher Leinberger, Metropolitan Land Strategist & Developer
Cost: $40 (free to elected officials) registrations will be accepted at the door
For more information call 412-258-6642 or email info@sustainablepittsburgh.org

Presented by:
Local Government Academy
Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development
Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development
Smart Growth Partnership of Westmoreland County
Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission
Sustainable Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics

Sponsored by:
BNY Mellon
Babst, Calland, Clients, and Zomnir, P.C.
Bombardier
Building Owners and Managers Association - Pittsburgh
National Association of Industrial and Office Properties - Pittsburgh Chapter

For sponsorship and tabling opportunities call 412-258-6643.

This conference, designed for communities in the region that desire to accelerate their redevelopment, will be rich in content, featuring tools, case studies, and technical assistance opportunities. A window of opportunity is growing for communities that are prepared to foster smart growth in step with the shift in the development market that is now occurring. Renewed interest in urban and core communities by developers and investors spells opportunity for restoring prosperity. This shift is fueled by demographic, economic, and cultural trends that are serving to revalue our core communities. Want to be better prepared to seize this market interest? This Smart Growth conference will help communities better understand the changing market, appreciate how to capitalize on their assets, comprehend what needs to done to participate in the market-based renaissance, and engage in a network to pursue mutual interests. Our region's sustainable growth depends on it.

Conference Highlights:
Project Region: The new regional transportation and development plan, plots a new smart growth course for Southwestern Pennsylvania focused on restoring and reinvesting in the region’s existing communities. Learn how the Region's Plan is aligned with emerging market interest in reinforcing existing places and targeted corridors with a strong emphasis on preservation, maintenance and operation of existing infrastructure.

Deal Makers and Breakers: To fully benefit from the Region's Plan, it's incumbent on existing communities to understand what developers and investors are looking for when they scan a region for opportunity. In a unique undertaking, the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties (NAIOP) and the Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University (CURP) have collaborated to investigate new approaches municipal officials can employ to help attract new development to their communities. Project leader, David Soule will engage conference participants in discovering what is takes to attract smart growth investment. Furthermore, a consultancy will be launched to work with communities around the region to take a proactive, aggressive stance to meet the complex needs of firms looking to start up operations, relocate, or add new facilities.

Window of Opportunity: Keynote, Christopher Leinberger (see below), will demonstrate the shifting market now brewing in favor of “walkable urbanism” -- downtown and suburban downtown revitalization, New Urbanism, transit-oriented development, green field mixed-use development (“lifestyle centers”), regional mall redevelopment, among others. He will review ways the real estate sector is re-tooling how it designs, plans, regulates and finances to serve these markets to formulate and implement the next American Dream. A panel of regional developers and government leaders will discuss the trend of revaluing urbanity now stirring in our SWPA and how to accelerate market readiness.

Zoning for Smart Growth: Too often zoning techniques that shaped the growth of the American suburb create barriers to meeting today's community visions for traditional types of development. Gregory Heller of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission will be on hand to explore new innovations in zoning that provide flexibility to respond to changes in private market demand. Learn from Gregory and local leaders how your community can be an early adopter and zone the way to seize market interest to redevelop core communities.

Keynote Speaker:
Christopher B. Leinberger is a metropolitan land use strategist, developer, teacher, consultant and author helping to make progressive development profitable. He is a founding partner of Arcadia Land Company, a real estate development firm serving to create walkable communities in harmony with nature.

Leinberger is a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution focusing on research and practices to help transform traditional and suburban downtowns to places that provide “walkable urbanism." He is also a professor and director of the Graduate Real Estate Program at the University of Michigan which focuses on downtown and suburban town center revitalization, transit-oriented development, new urbanism, and conservation development.

In his recently released book, The Option of Urbanism, Leinberger reviews how Americans are voting with their feet to abandon strip malls and suburban sprawl, embracing instead a new type of community where they can live, work, shop, and play within easy walking distance. He explains why government policies have tilted the playing field toward one form of development over the last sixty years: the drivable suburb. Conversely, Leinberger shows how the American Dream is now shifting to include cities as well as suburbs and how the financial and real estate communities need to respond by building communities that are more environmentally, socially, and financially sustainable.

Leinberger has written award-winning articles for publications such as The Atlantic Monthly, The Wall Street Journal and Urban Land magazine. He has been profiled by CNN, the Today Show, and National Public Radio.

Conference support provided by:
The Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation
The Heinz Endowments
The Richard King Mellon Foundation

National Bike to Work Day tomorrow!

Friday, May 16
Breakfast Locations:
Whole Foods Market (East End)
Carnegie Mellon University - near th UC (Oakland)
REI (South Side)
Market Square (Downtown)
Happy Hour: Shadow Lounge (East Liberty)
www.bike-pgh.org

Fuel up at one of Bike Pittsburgh's energizing biker breakfast locations and stop by and meet lots of local cyclists at the group's Biker Happy Hour at the Shadow Lounge in East Liberty. Want someone to ride with? Find a BikePool partner by posting to Bike Pittsburgh forums, or by joining SPC's CommuteInfo BikePool program which now features Emergency Ride Home for bikers! Bike to Work day locally is part of Great Outdoors Week. Join in the festivities!

Green Drinks: Ernie Hogan and Nate Wildfire, ELDI

Friday, May 16
5:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Bossa Nova, 123 7th St, Downtown
Free!
www.Greendrinks.org

If you’ve read an article about community or economic development in East Liberty, then you’ve seen the name Ernie Hogan. As deputy director of East Liberty Development Inc. (ELDI), Ernie has been instrumental in drawing major investors into East Liberty, ensuring support for local, small business and promoting quality, mixed-income housing for current and prospective residents----in other words, promoting sustainable development in East Liberty. Ernie Hogan, and Nate Wildfire, ELDI sustainable policy coordinator, will host Green Drinks this Friday. Appetizers courtesy of Bossa Nova.

Bring your friends and colleagues to hear about developing---and redeveloping--- sustainable communities in Pittsburgh. You’ll meet others who share a common interest - environmentalists, journalists, academics, elected officials, green builders, green businesses and health care professionals, chemists, developers, artists, students and just about anyone who is interested in a better Pittsburgh environment. It's a great way of catching up with people you know and for making new contacts. Everyone invites someone else along, so there's always a different crowd, making Green Drinks an organic, self-organizing network.

CERTIFYING SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTS: A SMaRT WORKSHOP

A Champions for Sustainability Workshop
Friday, May 23
9:00 am - 3:30 pm
PPG Headquarters, One PPG Place, Third Floor, Room 3A (Downtown)
Fee: $100/Person for C4S/Sustainable Pittsburgh Members; $150 for non-members
Registration Deadline: May 21, 2008
Register online at www.C4SPgh.org/know.html
Contact: Matthew Mehalik at mmehalik@sustainablepittsburgh.org or 412-258-6644

Come to this workshop to learn about and to begin certifying your company’s products according to Sustainable Materials Rating Technology (SMaRT) consensus-based standards adopted through an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited process. This is the first offering of this workshop in Western Pennsylvania, and space is limited to the first 30 companies who register. This workshop provides companies with the needed guidance and background in four key areas:
• Product Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
• Documentation of the absence of harmful chemicals
• Energy efficiency and baseline assessments
• Documentation of social equity indicators

You will learn how to:
• Save money by examining new ways of making products using sustainable materials and reduced energy flows
• Improve your company's product-to-market time
• Respond to increasing demands for sustainable products
• Create new capacities for innovation and new markets

Registration Fee Includes Continental Breakfast and Lunch Buffet.

"Blueprint for American Prosperity: Unleashing the Potential of a Metropolitan Nation"

Tuesday, May 27
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Renaissance Hotel, 107 Sixth Street, Downtown Pittsburgh
Free to attend
RSVP design@judith-kelly.com or 412-281-0995
Featuring: Bruce Katz, The Brookings Institution

The Pittsburgh Civic Design Coalition invites you to a special presentation by Bruce Katz on Brookings' "Blueprint for American Prosperity: Unleashing the Potential of a Metropolitan Nation". The Blueprint for American Prosperity is an ambitious, multi-year initiative to promote an economic agenda for the nation that builds on the assets—-and centrality—-of America’s metropolitan areas. The Blueprint will put forth an integrated policy agenda and specific federal reforms that give cities, suburbs, and metro areas the tools they need to leverage their economic strengths, grow in environmentally sensitive ways, and create opportunities to build a strong and diverse middle class.

The Pittsburgh region has much at stake. Come and link your efforts to the informed and growing network of leaders working each day to create healthy and vibrant communities that form the foundation of the U.S. economy. Bruce Katz is the Vice President at the Brookings Institution and founding Director of the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program. Learn more about the Blueprint.

“Hard to Recycle” Collection

Saturday, May 31
10:00 am - 2:00 pm
Allegheny County Health Department Offices (39th and Penn Avenue, Lawrenceville)
Fees vary
Contact: Sarah at 412-431-4449 ext. 236 or email at saraha@ccicenter.org
For more information, including a listing of fees, visit www.prc.org.

The Pennsylvania Resources Council (PRC) along with the Allegheny County Health Department will be collecting freon and non-freon appliances, e-waste, televisions, tires without rims, ink and toner cartridges and cell phones this event. There will be a fee charged for some items dropped off. All materials will be recycled and refurbished. Volunteers are needed between the hours of 9am and 3pm to help set up and cleanup, unload cars, take money, and direct traffic. Volunteers will be provided with a lunch and refreshments. All volunteers will also receive a coupon for one free hour of kayaking for Kayak Pittsburgh courtesy of Venture Outdoors!

Action Day in Harrisburg

Tuesday, June 17
Bus leaves Monroeville at 7:00 am
Contact: Aimee LeFevers at 412-728-8224 or aimee@goodschoolspa.org

Attention Allegheny and surrounding counties: Good Schools Pennsylvania is sponsoring a bus trip to Harrisburg. Contact Aimee LeFevers for details and to reserve your spot. Please include your name address, phone number, and email address.

Resources

Biodegradable Home Product Lines, Ready to Rot

The other day, Cody Anderson, an earnest young salesman at Montauk Sofa on Mercer Street, was extolling the many, many virtues of the furniture there while leading me to a buff-colored, chenille-covered, down-filled chaise lounge called Stanley. “You want to get right onto it,” he said, taking my bag. “Isn’t that amazing?”

Ploompf. It did feel pretty good. Yet starting this month, the most noteworthy features of Stanley and other Montauk Sofa pieces will be facets you won’t be able to see or feel, like wood frames from sustainably managed forests, uncoated nails, organic fabrics and stuffings, nontoxic dyes and, something extra: biodegradability.

Governor Rendell Urges Federal Infrastructure Investment to Keep America Competitive

To address the infrastructure needs in Pennsylvania, Governor Rendell is calling on state legislators to invest $700 million over the next three years to Rebuild Pennsylvania. The initiative puts residents to work building long-term assets--bridges, dams, airports, rail freight lines and flood mitigation projects.

More

CHARLES P. MCCULLOUGH challenges the powers-that-be who are pushing to consolidate local governments

Ironically, under the professional guidance of its Act 47 coordinator and oversight board, the city of Pittsburgh is working through its financial issues and, although it has a long way to go in reducing its legacy of debt, it is now generating budget surpluses. The city finished last year with a $133 million surplus. The county, on the other hand, spent more than $1.517 billion against revenues of $1.493 billion, resulting in a $23.5 million loss in net asset value. This occurred with the county having had the benefit of $41.8 million in one-time revenues.

Why host a green cleaning party?

Household cleaning chemicals, like tens of thousands of chemicals found in the consumer marketplace, are available with virtually no information on the potential consequences for human health and little oversight by the government. . .Many of us use cleaners to create a clean and healthy environment. But some of the products you use may be harmful to your health. Some household cleaners contain toxic chemicals linked to birth defects, fertility problems, asthma and more.

How Much Do Chemicals Affect Our Health?

Philip Landrigan tracks how dangers like the WTC can cause problems like ADD.

We need a gas-tax hike, not a tax holiday

It's politically easier, of course, to advocate the tax holiday, but those who seek to lead the nation for the next eight years would be well-advised to imagine where we might be today if we'd raised the tax eight years ago. We would have purchased more fuel-efficient cars, shortened our commutes, invested more in public transit, used less gas, reduced our carbon footprints, repaired more roads and bridges, imported less oil, reduced our trade deficit and strengthened the dollar. Is it time for a tax holiday? No, it's time to end our extended vacation from reality and get to work on conservation.

Seeding the Green Job Market

The computer revolution proved that human behavior can change, but sometimes people need a push to venture into new territory. Paytas thinks that government needs to be in a leadership role in the move to a green future. "There's foot-dragging because government has an aversion to change," he says, but adds that the state of Pennsylvania is being aggressive in green legislation. "For example, the Rendell administration has proposed incentives for consumers who buy green appliances and encourages green building in projects that use state funds. The legislation is still being written," he says, "but it will put Pennsylvania at the forefront of the green wave.”

America's Best Cities For The Outdoors

To determine which of the 40 largest cities were best for the outdoors, we used research from the nonprofit organization Trust for Public Land, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We included the following data: spending per resident, park land as a percentage of city land, number of recreation facilities, precipitation, sunshine, temperature extremes and air quality for 40 major cities.

Parking Space as Living Space?

Generating both praise and criticism in a county with plenty of expensive housing but not much of the budget-friendly kind, a Department of Planning report urges towns and villages here to use land in existing office parks as sites for new housing, some of it for moderate-income families. . .Put another way, said Robert F. Weinberg, an Elmsford developer of mixed-use projects in Westchester: “Here we have already cut down all these trees, put in the sewer and water lines, so there’s no hole to be dug, no addition of parking lots and no extra runoff. It makes sense economically and environmentally.”

A City Cooler and Dimmer, and, Oh, Proving a Point

Many residents say they were at least relieved that the power problems started as the days were growing longer and warmer. Some, seeing a silver lining, wonder if the electricity challenge, and the conservation it has prompted, might spur a new economic creativity for a city recommitted to energy efficiency. (While residents have recently rushed to convert to compact fluorescent light bulbs, Juneau is still working toward mandatory curbside recycling and it has yet to complete an audit of its carbon footprint.) Mr. Botelho, who said his in-box had been filling with messages from environmental start-up companies that want to make Juneau their proving ground, called the situation “the opportunity to be our own knights in shining armor.”

Vallejo one of few cities to use Chapter 9

By declaring bankruptcy, Vallejo has thrust itself into the national spotlight as a test case for thousands of floundering cities desperate to unload their extravagant public employee contracts. "There's a wave of this coming across the U.S.," said Sajan George, an adviser to struggling public entities who worked on restructuring Orange County after it declared bankruptcy in 1994. "What happens in Vallejo could definitely set a precedent."

After years of confrontation, green groups and companies finding common ground

Corporate America and major green groups are starting to build ties as companies see the benefit of getting ahead of a trend toward environmental responsibility. While partnerships have been emerging case-by-case, environmentalists are starting to ramp up their efforts to target money mangers and investors in an attempt to change how corporations do businesses. The latest entrant: private equity firms that control billions in company assets.

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

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

Sustainable Pittsburgh benefits from support in 2008 from:

Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation
Dollar Bank
The Heinz Endowments
Elsie H. Hillman Foundation
Roy A. Hunt Foundation
Richard King Mellon Foundation
University of Pittsburgh



Special thanks to the SP Members

Sustainable Pittsburgh
425 Sixth Avenue, Suite 1335
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
(412) 258-6642
fax (412) 258-6645
E-mail SP