Well in 2011, San Francisco took the title as the “greenest city in North America”. The study, conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit studied the environmental performance and commitments by 27 major metro areas in the U.S. and Canada, and we won!

 This is greatly due to the efforts of this month’s guest speaker, Johanna Partin. Johanna serves as Director of Climate Protection Initiatives in the office of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, where she advises Mayor Lee on citywide sustainable energy, climate, transportation, green building and other programs promoting sustainability for San Francisco.

In addition to creating change in the mayor’s office Johanna has over 17 years' experience in the fields of renewable energy, microfinance, gender equity and sustainable development, and has worked both locally and in more than 15 countries around the world.

If you are interested in learning more about change starting at the local level and how you can help Johanna and the city of San Francisco keeps it title, come to our next EcoTuesday event January 24th at The W Hotel, SF.

To see what topics Johanna will be discussing and register for this very special event, click here.

From speakers to sponsors to attendees, this year’s Opportunity Green Conference had many visionaries that spanned the green economy. One particular booth that I loved was peopleforbikes.org. People for Bikes, a non-profit focused on promoting biking across the nation. Many of our cities in the US need to incorporate bike lanes into their city planning.

Why do we ride? A few interesting facts from the People for Bikes’ website: 

47% of Americans would like to see more bike lanes, trails, and bridges in their communities.

• I personally would love to see the Bay Bridge not only create a bike lane from the East Bay to Treasure Island but also from Treasure Island to San Francisco. How many people travel across by foot or by pedal on the Golden Gate Bridge a day? How wonderful would it be if the Bay Bridge would be accessible by foot or by pedal? 

1 pound of CO2 pollution cut for every mile pedaled. 

50% of trips Americans make are less than 3 miles.

• How wonderful if you could get your exercise while commuting! 

$8,000 spent on average each year owing and operating a car.

3 hours of riding per week reduces the risk of hear disease & stroke by 50%.

$10 saved each day by commuting 10 miles round trip by bicycle instead of car.

This year’s conference theme of Accelerate fits perfectly with this non-profit.  “We chose the theme ‘Accelerate’ for this year’s conference because the successes that have gotten sustainably-minded people and companies to where we are today accelerates and offers the momentum to drive to an even better future.”

The goals of People for Bikes align well with the goals of green acceleration.

People for Bikes:

One for all: Build a national movement to improve bicycling in our country.

Opportunity Green:

We facilitate the movement to transform business for good, through advancing change and market transformation by providing open-minded professional unprecedented approaches to sustainability.

People for Bikes:

Let our voices be heard: Every six years, the federal government allocates billions of dollars to expand and improve our country’s transportation infrastructure.  We must improve our bike infrastructure to have the healthy planet everyone dreams of.

Opportunity Green:

Because we have the unique opportunity to do good for our world and our business simultaneously. Now is the time when our leadership is most needed, and will have the most impact on the future of our organization and communities.           

We must Accelerate the use of biking in order to have the future we all wish for.

Power to the Pedal People.

What's the value of a green education in getting a green job? Here's your chance to find out!

The San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Project Management Institute has been holding a series of 3-hour interactive Green Project Management seminars on topics like sustainability at major corporations, case studies on green projects, and even fusion energy. For more, see the PMI SF Bay Area green blog.

Our November seminar, on Saturday the 19th, will cover the importance of green education in getting a green job. It’s crucial for project managers to be familiar with current legislation and how it affects the overall supply chain. As we move toward stricter standards and globalization of products and services, we must be informed about how products are harvested, manufactured, and distributed throughout the globe. Kelle McMahon, CEO of the Green Science Academy, will show us how the landscape of the job market has changed, making project management skills even more valuable -- in fact, vital -- in today’s job market. She will explain how the skills she developed as a project manager helped her build a company that supports the triple bottom line: people, planet, and sustainable profits. Moreover, she will explore how you can transfer your skills to a job in a green industry, as well as showing how green education will differentiate you from other professionals in the marketplace. If you’re thinking of moving into a green job, this workshop will be perfect for you.

To register, go to the PMI registration page. 

Seminar Series - Details

The Green Project Management Seminar Series is co-sponsored by Keller Graduate School and the Project Management Institute San Francisco Bay Area Chapter. The seminars are held on the third Saturday of each month from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon PDT, at Keller Graduate School’s Daly City location. For details and registration information, click here.

Your customers, investors, employees, investors, community, suppliers, and family.

This is just a short list of the many types of stakeholders that support your company. All stakeholders are important for the progress and prosperity of a business.

Strategic employee engagement is the most effective way to foster successful economic, environmental and social initiatives in a company. Employees are learning more about best practices around sustainability, which in turn helps to save the company money. Companies can support these new ideas to spur innovation that will have a ripple effect with the other stakeholders. When a company focuses attention on the employee stakeholder group, it thrives. 

On Wednesday, September 21, I will be participating in a roundtable discussion entitled, "Community and Stakeholder Engagement: A Sustainable Approach" and will be joined by representatives from B Corporation, The Green Chamber of Commerce, and the Centre for Sustainability and Excellence. We will discuss communities, renewable energy, stakeholder groups, and more. 

The event takes place at the Hotel Palomar from 6:30-8:30. The cost is $30 and food/drink is provided. The first ten people to sign up for the roundtable will gain free entry to EcoTuesday in SF, so register today!

During the roundtable, I will focus on the following: 

Employee Engagement Through Building A Green Team: Your Key To Sustainability

• Your employees as important stakeholders
• Tips you can use to get employees enrolled in your company's sustainability intitiatives
• How strategic initiatives increases motivation and productivity

Please join us this month in cities across the country to meet new business contacts and friends. Our event this month will take place on Tuesday, September 27. We encourage you to register beforehand so that we know you'll be joining us. In San Francisco ten people will have the opportunity to quickly share their "elevator pitch" about their company in supportive environment! We hope to see you at an EcoTuesday this month.

By the way, our November event will be held a week earlier, on November 15. We will not be hosting a December event.

Danny Kennedy, co-founder of Sungevity (the fastest growing company in the residential segment of the solar industry), joined EcoTuesday in July to 'shed some light' on the industry. Over 60 participants from all areas of sustainability joined us at the beautiful Bently Reserve.

Danny's expressed that the solar industry is looking good. There are plenty of jobs and the number will continue to increase as people begin to realize the potential of solar. "The solar industry already employees more people then the U.S steel production industry."

Although solar is currently less than 2% of the overall electricity use in the U.S economy, the exponential growth that is happening will fill the gap. Solar production has doubled - three times in the past three years. The price for solar will continue to decrease, making it more and more accessible for mainstream consumers to purchase. As the price of solar is decreasing, everything else (coal and other fossil fuels), are increasing in price. Solar power will soon be the low cost source of electricity as a result of this growth rate. Sixty percent of Sungevity's customers are in California, and Sungevity saves their customers 15% a month from day one with their particular solar product. 

Danny pointed out that "the United States uses 47% of its surface water for steam generation for turbines" (turbines which are used to power fossil fuel stations). He continued, "fossil fuels will be a part of our future for some time. The longer we prolong its use, our children will be worse off. The faster we adopt the lower cost technologies, the better off we are, from both a financial and environmental point of view."

Over the past few years, women have made great strides in all areas of sustainability. For example, women hold key positions in large solar companies, are driving sustainability initiatives in Fortune 500 companies, and have started businesses that have greatly impacted the food industry.

There's still so much more to accomplish!

As of 2010, there are only 15 women running Fortune 500 companies; this is an extremely small number which has seen movement only in the past few years. Despite this low number, women hold 39% of the leadership positions in the sustainability field. With the proliferation of environmental and sustainability positions in all sizes and types of companies, the number of women in game-changing, influential roles can only continue to increase. Many sustainability roles have been created in the past few years, and the type of work done within these roles and the impact they have will continue to evolve.

As companies begin to see the importance of supporting and cultivating women's leadership, and more women continue to strive in these key positions, the current business paradigm will positively shift. Women a great opportunity to truly make a mark in this field!

In 1974, a small sandbar island about 2 miles across was discovered in the Bay of Bengal. In March of 2010, it disappeared. Oceanographers say the island’s demise is a demonstration of melting icecaps and rising sea levels. Studies reveal sea levels in this part of the Bay of Bengal are rising faster than in the previous 15 years - 5mm a year by some accounts.

In 2010, climate skeptics gave the idea of rising global temperatures a beating. Climategate gave critics plenty of fodder to call climate change "the greatest deception in history." The leaked emails from climate research scientists being held up as "smoking guns" were used by global-warming skeptics eager to find evidence of a conspiracy. Even without that misrepresentation, there remains evidence (such as the small island in the Bay of Bengal) that the earth is getting warmer.

In 2011, the shadow of Climategate still looms and climate change proponents are realizing pure research isn’t enough to sway public and political opinion. Neither is openly engaging with adversaries. To make any meaningful reduction in global temperatures, carbon reduction advocates have to gain the political will strong enough to persuade the world’s largest industrial nations to work together. For this to happen, the leaders of these countries have got to feel pressure that their jobs are on the line if they don’t sign meaningful agreements and make lasting reductions.

This pressure comes from us, the voters who put many of those leaders into place. Most of us don’t live in places like Bangladesh, where rising sea levels are swallowing up islands. So many of us know there’s a problem, but action doesn’t seem a priority. It’s only when something impacts our day to day personal lives do many of us take notice.

Join us for the next EcoTuesday on January 25, 2011 to help keep climate change and its growing threat in the forefront of our lives. By engaging with one another, we can truly make a difference on the planet this year.