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Events

Resources

Celebrate and Build Local, Sustainable Markets

Thursday, July 17
5:30 pm – 8:30 pm
121 7th Street, 5th Floor, Downtown
(Cool warehouse space between Penn Avenue and Ft. Duquesne Blvd. in the Cultural District)
Registration Information
- $20 for C4S/ Sustainable Pittsburgh Members; $25 for non-members
- Deadline: July 15, 2008
- Register online at www.C4SPgh.org/know.html
Contact: Matthew Mehalik at mmehalik@sustainablepittsburgh.org or 412-258-6644

Come celebrate what our local market champions are accomplishing in our community—making the links that are good for business, for our neighborhoods and people, and for the environment. Seven of our region’s entrepreneurs will share their stories of how they are creating value by acting locally and sustainably. They are creators of new products, services, and jobs using innovative strategies for engaging with their neighborhoods and their surroundings.

Stay for opportunities to talk and network with panelists and other business leaders to learn how you can become involved in shaping our region with an emphasis on local markets. Discuss important questions on how you can help transform Pittsburgh through entrepreneurial action, sustainable practices, and support of local businesses.

Enjoy live music from “Jim Donovan's Drum the Ecstatic,” sample local beverages and food, and craft new networks on the local market scene!

Jim Donovan is a founding member of the former Pittsburgh band Rusted Root!

More information below.

Resources Continued

Port Authority’s Connect ’09 Regional Open Houses

Monday, June 23 - 6:00-8:00 PM - Allegheny Valley/Eastern Suburbs
CCAC (Boyce) Gymnasium - Take the 67A and 77B

Tuesday, June 24 - 11:00 AM-2:00 PM – Central Pittsburgh
YWCA - Take any route into Downtown Pittsburgh

Tuesday, June 24 - 6:00-8:00 PM - North Hills
West View Firemen’s Banquet Hall - 398 Perry Highway, Pittsburgh, PA 15229
(Take the 11D or 500)

Wednesday, June 25 - 6:00-8:00 PM - South Hills
Bethel Park Fire Hall - 5213 Brightwood Road, Bethel Park, PA 15102
(Take the 47L Rail)

Thursday, June 26 - 6:00-8:00 PM - Mon Valley
CCAC (South) Gymnasium - 1750 Clairton Road, West Mifflin, PA 15122
(Take the 51E or 55M)

As a component of the Port Authority’s Connect ’09 initiative, the Transit Development Plan is intended to revitalize the Port Authority’s bus service –- to help the service better match current demand, to make it simpler, faster, more direct, and to implement innovative practices and services. Meeting your transportation needs is important to the Port Authority. Please attend one of these regional Open House meetings and tell the Port Authority where you need to go! For more information, please visit http://tdp.portauthority.org.

Everything Old is New Again: Recycling in Pennsylvania

Tuesday, June 24
9:00 am - Noon
Cranberry Township Municipal Center, 2525 Rochester Road, Cranberry Township, PA 16066
Cost: $35
Register Online at www.localgovernmentacademy.org or contact: Anita Lengvarsky, Local Government Academy, at 412-237-3171 or info@localgovernmentacademy.org

The Local Government Academy offers this session, where speakers from Professional Recyclers of Pennsylvania (PROP) and DEP will provide important information about municipal recycling. Attendees will learn how to establish and enhance a new program or revitalize an existing program and how to enthuse and involve administration. Learn about Recycling Data Collection & Management and how to find the numbers. Participate in a discussion about funding options and hints and tips on writing good grants. Learn about the process, equipment, timing, multi-municipal cooperative efforts, and how other municipalities hold their collections. Elected officials, municipal staff and citizens are encouraged to attend this event.

Tour of Pennsylvania

June 24 - 29
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh
www.tourofpa.com

The 2008 American Eagle Outfitters Tour of Pennsylvania Presented by Highmark Healthy High 5 is a six-day, 450 mile stage race across Pennsylvania from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. The race is a signature sporting event for Pittsburgh 250, a commission established to celebrate Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary in 2008, and is the world's richest cycling race for elite international cyclists under age 25.

BikeFest

June 27-July 6
Click here for more information.

BikeFest is Pittsburgh's biggest cycling event for cyclists by cyclists. It's Bike Pittsburgh's annual celebration of all things bicycling, showcasing Pittsburgh in all of its uniqueness and beauty. It is not an organized event, but a framework for volunteers and organizations to organize bicycle-themed events themselves. Whether you ride everyday, the weekends, or just always wanted to try, BikeFest has an event for you!

Celebrate and Build Local, Sustainable Markets

Thursday, July 17
5:30 pm – 8:30 pm
121 7th Street, 5th Floor, Pittsburgh PA, 15222
(Cool warehouse space between Penn Avenue and Ft. Duquesne Blvd. in the Cultural District)
Registration Information
- $20 for C4S/ Sustainable Pittsburgh Members; $25 for non-members
- Deadline: July 15, 2008
- Register online at www.C4SPgh.org/know.html
Contact: Matthew Mehalik at mmehalik@sustainablepittsburgh.org or 412-258-6644

Come celebrate what our local market champions are accomplishing in our community—making the links that are good for business, for our neighborhoods and people, and for the environment. Seven of our region’s entrepreneurs will share their stories of how they are creating value by acting locally and sustainably. They are creators of new products, services, and jobs using innovative strategies for engaging with their neighborhoods and their surroundings.

Stay for opportunities to talk and network with panelists and other business leaders to learn how you can become involved in shaping our region with an emphasis on local markets. Discuss important questions on how you can help transform Pittsburgh through entrepreneurial action, sustainable practices, and support of local businesses.

Enjoy live music from “Jim Donovan's Drum the Ecstatic,” sample local beverages and food, and craft new networks on the local market scene!

Jim Donovan is a founding member of the former Pittsburgh band Rusted Root!

PROGRAM
5:30 pm – 6:50 pm -- Panel of local market entrepreneurs and champions
- Bonnie Siefers, Owner, Jonäno – Fair trade and organic clothing manufacturing
- Ward Payne, Owner, Simpatico Espresso – Organizing the local coffee trade scene
- David Eason, Owner, Isadore Foods – Supplying local foods from local farms
- Janice Donatelli, ARTEMIS-- New markets for high-quality, environmentally responsible, green building products
- Keith Somers, Children's Community Pediatrics – GIL -- Promoting children’s health and development emphasizing community
- Danielle Crumrine, Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest—community connections to foster local business
- Andrew Butcher, CEO, GTECH Strategies-- Growth Through Energy and Community Health

6:50 pm - 8:30 pm -- Meet and discuss opportunities for supporting and organizing the region’s local businesses and entrepreneurs with panelists and other businesses

Specifier's Showcase: Featuring Brian Emery, Territory Manager for CertainTeed FiberCement

Friday, July 18
8:00 am - 9:30 am
Green Building Alliance, 333 East Carson Street, South Side
Free
Advance Registration required.
More details

At each Specifier's Showcase, the Green Building Alliance (GBA) features a product that embodies the innovation and environmental responsibility GBA values as an organization. CertainTeed FiberCement Siding is made using a combination of pre-consumer recycled fly ash, Portland cement; wood fiber, of which a majority comes from sustainably managed forests, and specialty additives. The enhanced green formula creates an environmentally friendly, lighter-weight, lower-density product with the most authentic-looking grains and textures. It has a Class A (Class 1) flame spread rating, is impervious to wood-boring insects, resists damaging effects of salt spray and UV rays, will not rot, and consistently outperforms wood siding. There will be a brief networking period beforehand from 8:00 am to 8:30 am.

Resources

Regaining our Competitive Edge: A National Blueprint for Prosperity

In Pittsburgh in June, courtesy of the Pittsburgh Civic Design Coalition, [Bruce Katz] spent a day talking to various groups about the Blueprint and he sat down for an exclusive interview with Pop City.

Greening the World: Not Someone Else's Job

A main goal: to assure that corporate activity benefits not only shareholders and employees, but "unions, future generations, government, customers, communities and suppliers." Economic incentives, not regulations, should be the leading tool, says Speth. He points with favor to environmental taxes, now some 2.5 percent of gross domestic product in Western European countries. Germany, for example, is moving to shift the tax burden from work and wages to energy consumption and the pollution it triggers. Europeans are also beginning to promote recycling of major consumer products-—a "cradle to cradle" system to save energy and discourage wasteful and often dangerous dumping. We're at an exquisitely appropriate time, Speth suggests, to recognize interconnected worldwide issues and become "cosmopolitan citizens" who enjoy multiple citizenships-—local and regional, national and global.

More

Future Source of Energy - Wind Energy

There are two types of wind machines (turbines) used today based on the direction of the rotating shaft (axis): horizontal–axis wind machines and vertical-axis wind machines. The size of wind machines varies widely. Small turbines used to power a single home or business may have a capacity of less than 100 kilowatts. Some large commercial sized turbines may have a capacity of 5 million watts, or 5 megawatts. Larger turbines are often grouped together into wind farms that provide power to the electrical grid.

The city-county merger debate presents an opportunity to heal racial and class divisions while charting a course to lift all boats, says SALA UDIN

Minority communities cannot afford to be timid in this conversation. We must speak boldly and clearly. Yes, we want the merger of the city of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, not because we believe it is such a significant step to go from 130 local governments to 129, but because the merger debate gives us an opportunity to address the equitable delivery of government services and distribution of economic opportunities. It gives us an opportunity to have candid discussions about how to heal regional racial and class divisions.

North Shore Connector, you're looking good

Most commuters prefer to drive, but costs are compelling them to choose mass transit. As a colleague who has begun taking the bus two or three times a week from the North Hills put it, "in the trade-off between inconvenience and expense, the inconvenience is worth it.'' Why are we building the North Shore Connector? That's the wrong question. The right questions are: Where should light-rail go next? Is there any way to speed construction?

Schenley High School -- a 'Green Building' ahead of its time

"Green Schools" are being built across the nation in an effort to provide the healthiest and most productive classrooms for our children. The attributes of Green Schools are many, embodied in national standards such as CHPS (Collaborative for High Performance Schools) and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). Some of the most significant characteristics of sustainable, green and healthy schools are embodied in our own Schenley High School. The quality and invention of Schenley could never be afforded today. It should be a centerpiece for the Pittsburgh Public Schools for tomorrow.

San Francisco Mayor Newsom praises passage of nation's largest municipal solar energy incentive program

“This rebate program further establishes San Francisco as America’s solar energy leader and symbolizes the commitment of the City to make affordable solar power available to those who want it,” said Mayor Newsom. . .The highest residential incentive is reserved for residents or businesses who use an installer that hires graduates of the City’s workforce development program. . . “Not only will this program significantly expand solar in the City, but it will also provide much-needed meaningful employment to the workers being trained to join the new green economy.”

China Increases Lead as Biggest Carbon Dioxide Emitter

“The difference had grown to a 14 percent difference, and that’s indeed quite large,” said Jos Olivier, a senior scientist at the Dutch agency. “It’s now so large that it’s quite a robust conclusion.”

Foundation grant to help launch Phipps building

The "living building," the Center for Sustainable Landscapes, will be used for education, research and administration. . . The building will be a zero net energy building that generates its own energy with renewable resources. It will capture and treat its water on site.

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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