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Events

Resources

Much is happening at Sustainable Pittsburgh these days!

REGISTER NOW! "Improving Healing Environments: Strategic Environmental Solutions"
Register now for this dynamic workshop, scheduled for Thursday, July 21. The second of a five-part series on sustainability and healthcare, "Improving Healing Environments: Strategic Environmental Solutions" features interactive work sessions with healthcare experts in energy, waste, infection control/green cleaning, and green building operational areas. Click here to learn more.

Wall Street Journal Radio "Green and Alternative Energy Series"
Sustainable Pittsburgh is sponsoring The Wall Street Journal Radio "Green and Alternative Energy Series" airing Monday through Friday (6/27-7/1), on KQV radio. Through this series, the Wall Street Journal radio network will explore issues such as wind, water, fossil fuels, nuclear and biofuels. Visit Sustainable Pittsburgh's website to learn more.

Sustainable Pittsburgh hosts interns from The Heinz Endowments Program
The Heinz Endowments Program is an internship that grants 36 high-school students the chance to work to improve their community by developing and implementing a youth philanthropy project. This summer the Heinz Endowments interns are working together with different organizations such as Sustainable Pittsburgh, United Way, Student Conservation Association, and various other organizations to research issues affecting youth and their communities, identify service priorities and then develop funding guidelines and proposals in order to solve these issues. The interns at Sustainable Pittsburgh have launched a weekly blog to share progress on their project. Check it out here.

Resources Continued

Improving Healing Environments:
Strategic Environmental Solutions

Thursday, July 21
7:30 am – 3:00 pm
Fairmont Pittsburgh, 510 Market Street, Downtown Pittsburgh 15222
Cost: $105 for C4S/Sustainable Pittsburgh Members
$125 Nonmembers
Students: Special Rate
Lunch and Coffee Provided
More information and registration

This workshop, the second of a five-part series on sustainability and healthcare, features interactive work sessions with healthcare experts in energy, waste, infection control/green cleaning, and green building operational areas.

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, "Hospitals operate all day everyday, making their environmental footprint large in many communities. Hospitals generate approximately 7,000 tons per day of waste, including infectious waste, hazardous waste, and solid waste."

During the workshop, each session will provide information on cutting edge solutions for health organization leaders in addressing the challenges of energy, waste, infection control, and facility design in practical and strategic ways.

What happened at the first session of this series?
Click here for highlights from the previous Sustainability and Healthcare session on June 2, "Making the Business Case."

About the C4S Sustainable Healthcare Series: Improving the Healing Environment
Sustainable Pittsburgh’s sustainable business network, Champions for Sustainability (C4S), in collaboration with the region’s healthcare partners, has launched this series of workshops that advances the mutually reinforcing agendas of sustainability and healthcare. The series is designed to build social capital and capacity in sustainability. The emphasis for each event involves articulating the health outcomes, healthcare benefits, and business case, as well as best practices, resources, examples, and how to get started.
Learn about the entire series here.

Pittsburgh Green Drinks: TerraShift

Thursday, June 30
5:00 pm-9:00 pm
Hofbrauhaus, South Side Works, 2705 South Water Street, South Side 15203
More information

Join Green Drinks organizers on the terrace at The Hofbrauhaus and learn about TerraShift and their focus in building careers in social enterprise and sustainability.

TerraShift is a for-profit social enterprise working to equip recent college graduates and young professionals with the skills, experiences, and support they need to build careers in social enterprise and sustainability. For the past year they have supported local groups and initiatives using teams of young professionals. These teams provide versatile, dependable, and affordable project staffing services, with a focus on supporting social enterprises and projects related to environmental sustainability. Their clients include Nine Mile Run Watershed Association, The Kingsley Association, Pittsburgh Pipeline, PlayPower, and Fourth Economy Consultants.

TerraShift is currently developing a one-year international career-accelerator fellowship for talented college graduates that are interested in the fields of social enterprise and sustainability. The program, which will launch in 2012, will place fellows with client organizations in Pittsburgh, and include an international excursion to Bangalore, India.

Reduce you and your family's exposure to everyday toxins

Saturday, July 9
10:00 am - 11:30 am
Peter’s Township Library, 616 E. McMurray Road, McMurray 15317
Cost: $20 per person/$25 per couple
To register, contact Sarah Alessio at (412) 488-7490 ext. 236, by email at saraha@ccicenter.org or by registering online atwww.zerowastepgh.org.

The workshop, entitled Healthy Body, Healthy Home, Healthy Planet, is designed to heighten the public’s awareness and encourage action around the issues of common toxins in the environment and their affect on human health.

In 2004 the Environmental Working Group tested the blood of 10 Americans and found over 287 chemicals present. What was even more troubling was that these 10 Americans were newborn babies, blood taken from their umbilical cords.

Everyone is exposed to a number of different chemicals, carcinogens, and toxins in our environment on a daily basis. These exposures can come from cell phones, ingredients in personal care products, cleaning products, plastics, and so on. While individuals may have no control over some exposures, there are many that people do have control over, and there are steps to take to reduce exposure and improve the health of the environment.

The program provides the public with practical solutions such as safe alternatives for cleaning products, personal care products and healthy lifestyle choices. In an effort to reduce one’s exposure to toxins and to reduce the amount of toxins in our environment, all workshop participants will receive a non-toxic green cleaning kit.

Citizen Water Quality Monitoring Training

Wednesday, July 13
9:00 am - 3:00 pm
Blackberry Meadows Farm, 7115 Ridge Road, Natrona Heights 15065
The workshop is FREE and open to the public, however, pre-registration is required.
For more information about the workshop and to register online visit www.pasafarming.org/marcellusshalechoices.
Contact Leah Smith at leah@pasafarming.org or (412) 977-6514 with questions.

The Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) has received a grant from the Colcom Foundation to develop action-oriented tools and trainings throughout western Pennsylvania to help farmers, rural land owners, and other citizens make informed, integrated decisions, understand legal issues, and engage in environmental monitoring and local organizing efforts related to Marcellus Shale Gas issues within their communities.

This second workshop in the Marcellus Shale Choices series, “Citizen Water Quality Monitoring Training” will be facilitated by staff of the Dickinson College Alliance of Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM) and the Mountain Watershed Association. This training will focus on environmental monitoring. Participants will learn water quality monitoring protocols that have been developed for citizen projects with the goal of monitoring small streams and their watersheds for early detection of the impacts from Marcellus Shale gas extraction in PA.

Participants in this training will learn:
• The Science of Marcellus Shale Gas
• The Science of ALLARM's Water Quality Monitoring Protocol
• How to choose monitoring locations
• How to get information on well sites
• Visual Assessment of Natural Gas Activities
• Chemical Water Quality Monitoring Protocol

Monitoring Equipment will be available for purchase from ALLARM during the workshop. If you would like to purchase the monitoring equipment, please indicate your preference when you register. Information on equipment available is online.

Backyard Composting Workshop

Monday, July 18
6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Whole Foods Market, 5880 Centre Avenue, East Liberty 15206
Cost: $50 Single/$55 Couple (Includes one compost unit per registration)
Click here to register or call (412) 488-7490 ext. 226.

Composting is nature’s way of recycling. By utilizing the natural process of decomposition, organic materials often considered “waste,” such as grass clippings, food scraps, autumn leaves and even paper, can be recycled back into a rich soil conditioner. Through this transition, soil organisms, many of which are too small to see, break down the organic material in a compost pile so that valuable plant nutrients can be released for future generations of plants to use. Composting helps you reduce your waste stream, it improves the health of your gardens, and most of all its easy to do and enjoyable.

This workshop thoroughly covers the importance of composting, setting up a compost pile, proper maintenance and ways of using finished compost. Participants will receive an Earth Machine Compost Bin with attendance. This bin, approved across the state as an ideal bin for urban and suburban areas, has an eighty-gallon capacity.

PUC, WPXI-TV Host Electric Consumer Choice Shop, Switch, Save Event

Thursday, July 21
Hours TBD
Mall at Robinson, Grand Court near Starbucks
More information

The Public Utility Commission has partnered with WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh to bring the power to switch electric suppliers direct to the community with the PUC's www.PaPowerSwitch.com website.

A bank of computers will be available for consumers to go to www.PAPowerSwitch.com to review the prices, then personally visit the supplier making the offer that fits their needs best. To make the switch, consumers are reminded to bring their Duquesne Light bill or account number.

With www.PAPowerSwitch.com, the PUC is working to make sure consumers have the tools at their fingertips to make an informed decision. The power is in the hands of consumers to shop for an electricity supplier – it's a zip. Just click and enter your zip code. Review the prices, products, terms and incentives from suppliers making offers in your area. Pennsylvanians already have the power.

Save the Date! Building Change Conference

Building Change: a convergence for social justice
October 13-15, 2011
Senator John Heinz Regional History Center
More information

Join the Three Rivers Community Foundation (TRCF) for a conference like no other: skill-building workshops, panel discussions, community dialogues on key issues, speakers, actions, art, films, roundtable talks, networking, entertainment, and more!

Key issues being discussed: Disability Rights, Economic Justice, Environmental Justice, LGBTO Rights, Peace/Human Rights, Racial Justice, and Women, Youth and Families Issues.

TRCF is looking for more co-sponsors for the Convergence! Please spread the word to organizations and individuals working for social change. Direct interested parties to trcf@trcfwpa.org or (412) 243-9250.

Deadline for Arts, Films, and Performances has been extended to July 15th.

Resources

Sustainable Pittsburgh sponsors The Wall Street Journal Radio “Green and Alternative Energy Series”

Sustainable Pittsburgh is sponsoring The Wall Street Journal Radio "Green and Alternative Energy Series" airing Monday through Friday (6/27-7/1), on KQV radio. Through this series, the Wall Street Journal radio network will explore issues such as wind, water, fossil fuels, nuclear and biofuels. Tune in to KQV 1410 AM during the work day to listen in or, visit Sustainable Pittsburgh's website to hear each of the five 60 second programs.

Across Europe, Irking Drivers Is Urban Policy

Urban planners generally agree that a rise in car commuting is not desirable for cities anywhere. Mr. Fellmann calculated that a person using a car took up 115 cubic meters (roughly 4,000 cubic feet) of urban space in Zurich while a pedestrian took three. “So it’s not really fair to everyone else if you take the car,” he said. Cities including Vienna to Munich and Copenhagen have closed vast swaths of streets to car traffic. Barcelona and Paris have had car lanes eroded by popular bike-sharing programs. Drivers in London and Stockholm pay hefty congestion charges just for entering the heart of the city. And over the past two years, dozens of German cities have joined a national network of “environmental zones” where only cars with low carbon dioxide emissions may enter. “In the United States, there has been much more of a tendency to adapt cities to accommodate driving,” said Peder Jensen, head of the Energy and Transport Group at the European Environment Agency. “Here there has been more movement to make cities more livable for people, to get cities relatively free of cars.” . . . “We would never synchronize green lights for cars with our philosophy,” said Pio Marzolini, a city official. “When I’m in other cities, I feel like I’m always waiting to cross a street. I can’t get used to the idea that I am worth less than a car.”

How to Fix That Ugly Strip

35 North American corridors that are being redesigned not to make driving miserable, but to recognize the multiple social, environmental, economic and transportation purposes that great streets serve. Their integration was highlighted in the grassroots-led temporary re-striping of Ross Avenue as “Ross Ramblas” in Dallas this week at Build a Better Boulevard. Participants employed several techniques of Tactical Urbanism, including pop-up shops, chairbombing and dumpster pools. More typical is the ongoing 10-year revitalization of a five-mile stretch of Columbia Pike in Arlington County, Va. It exemplifies the intelligent use of tight form-based codes to grow from one-story strip buildings in parking lots to mid-rise mixed-use buildings fronting tree-lined sidewalks at nodes on major intersections. The site-specific code quickly tapers heights where the new development faces the existing neighborhoods and new bike lanes on the less busy streets. This strategy retains the existing affordable housing in between the nodes while the tax revenue from the new density goes toward supporting a streetcar.

[Editor's note: This article is one of nine responses surrounding the debate between America and Europe and their take on cars. It is related to the article above, "Across Europe, Irking Drivers Is Urban Policy." Two view all the responses, click here.]

Atop TV Sets, a Power Drain That Runs Nonstop

Those little boxes that usher cable signals and digital recording capacity into televisions have become the single largest electricity drain in many American homes, with some typical home entertainment configurations eating more power than a new refrigerator and even some central air-conditioning systems. One high-definition DVR and one high-definition cable box use an average of 446 kilowatt hours a year, about 10 percent more than a 21-cubic-foot energy-efficient refrigerator, a recent study found. These set-top boxes are energy hogs mostly because their drives, tuners and other components are generally running full tilt, or nearly so, 24 hours a day, even when not in active use. The recent study, by the Natural Resources Defense Council, concluded that the boxes consumed $3 billion in electricity per year in the United States — and that 66 percent of that power is wasted when no one is watching and shows are not being recorded. That is more power than the state of Maryland uses over 12 months.

More

State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2011

The policy-driven carbon market contracted in 2010, but the voluntary market achieved its highest volume ever, thanks in part to renewed spending on corporate social responsibility and the release of new methodologies for forest carbon.

For five years, Forest Trends' Ecosystem Marketplace and Bloomberg New Energy Finance have published the State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets Reports to shed light on trading volumes, credit prices, project types, locations, and the motivations of buyers in this market.

Every year's marketplace seems more complex than the one before, as actors continually refine their programs, businesses, and investments in search of a more perfect future – for their projects and the planet.

TACTICAL URBANISM

In the pursuit of progress, citizens are typically invited to engage in a process that is fundamentally broken: rather than being asked to contribute to incremental change at the neighborhood or block level, residents are asked to react to proposals that are often conceived for interests disconnected from their own, and at a scale for which they have little control. In the pursuit of resilient neighborhoods, cities, and metropolitan regions, surmounting the challenges inherent to this "public" process continues to prove difficult. Fortunately, alternative tactics are available and ready for deployment.

Partnership for Sustainable Communities Launches Website

The "Partnership for Sustainable Communities," formed in June 2009 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), now has its own website.

Tokyo Gas Starts Feeding Food Waste-Derived Biogas into City Gas Grid

Tokyo Gas Co., a major gas supplier in Japan, and Bio Energy Corp., a food recycling plant operator, announced on January 26, 2011, that they started feeding biogas refined and processed from food waste into the city pipeline system, ahead of all other companies in Japan. Approximately 800,000 cubic meters of gas (under standard conditions)--enough to accommodate about 2,000 ordinary households--will be fed into the pipeline system annually. This is expected to reduce about 1,360 tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

The American suburbs are a giant Ponzi scheme

The reason we have this gap is because the public yield from the suburban development pattern -- the amount of tax revenue obtained per increment of liability assumed -- is ridiculously low. Over a life cycle, a city frequently receives just a dime or two of revenue for each dollar of liability. The engineering profession will argue, as ASCE does, that we're simply not making the investments necessary to maintain this infrastructure. This is nonsense. We've simply built in a way that is not financially productive. We've done this because, as with any Ponzi scheme, new growth provides the illusion of prosperity. In the near term, revenue grows, while the corresponding maintenance obligations -- which are not counted on the public balance sheet -- are a generation away.

UPMC’s New Emission Requirements Exceed Federal Standards, Draw Praise from Environmental Groups

A new UPMC policy is receiving praise from local environmental groups. All construction crews working on UPMC sites now must use equipment that emits less diesel pollutants that include particulate matter, nitrogen oxide, greenhouse gases and other air emissions, according to the new policy unveiled today by the health system. The new policy requires all new and used construction equipment of 25 horsepower or greater to meet emission standards detailed in Tier 4 of the federal Clean Air Act – years before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s deadline.

GTECH opens new HQ and launches Social Capital Council

In addition to the new space, GTECH is hoping to open up its network to more like-minded young professionals with the creation of the Social Capital Council. “We think there are a lot of young professionals in Pittsburgh that are excited about issues in the green economy, sustainability and social innovation,” Butcher said. But, he noted, many people have full-time jobs and may not always be able to plug into this type of network with like minded people. “We hope to cultivate that social capital and focus on social innovation.” To start, GTECH is looking to gather a small group of between 15 and 20 people who make a financial and time commitment to be involved in discussions looking at “creative solutions to systemic problems,” Butcher said. “It’s open to anyone who is interested, particularly people working in the private sector in small, medium and large businesses."

Sierra Club launches new air pollution map

The national Sierra Club has pulled together a new map that shows U.S. counties that are at high risk for smog and air pollution. This new Air Pollution Map also presents the number of people by county at risk for health problems associated with air pollution. At the same website are air pollution threats, protections, actions and victories.

What's happening with Vibrant Pittsburgh

Vibrant Pittsburgh was established to grow the diversity of the region and to welcome people of all backgrounds. Through our newsletter, we will showcase the region's job opportunities, diverse social and professional networks and regional activities and amenities.

Pew calls for Obama Administration to Raise MPG standards

The Pew Clean Energy Program launched a video this week to raise awareness of the benefits of increasing the fuel efficiency—or miles-per-gallon (MPG)—standards for cars and light trucks to as high as 60 MPG by 2025. The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation (EPA-DOT) are expected to release a proposed joint rule by Sept. 30, 2011, that will elevate fuel efficiency fleet wide to a level between 47 and 62 miles per gallon for cars and light trucks, model years 2017-2025.

“President Obama has pledged to reduce petroleum imports by a third,” said Phyllis Cuttino, director, Pew Clean Energy Program. “His administration can make real progress toward that goal by significantly increasing fuel efficiency for cars and light trucks. We encourage Americans who watch this video to sign a petition asking the president to ‘Increase My MPG’ and break our cycle of addiction to foreign oil. Cars that go further on a gallon of gas will save consumers money, reduce oil consumption and reduce air pollution.”

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

Sustainable Pittsburgh benefits from support ($1,000 and up) in 2011 from:

Allegheny County - Dan Onorato, County Executive
Bayer Corporation
Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation
BNY Mellon
Dollar Bank
FedEx Ground
The Heinz Endowments
Highmark
Elsie H. Hillman Foundation
Richard King Mellon Foundation
Pashek Associates LTD
Pittsburgh Quarterly
PNC Financial Services Group
Port Authority of Allegheny County
UPMC


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