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.

I am going out on a limb here, and guessing that the EcoTuesday community believes that global warming is both real and caused largely by human influences. The preponderance of scientific evidence supports this, and scientists are the most careful people in the world about making sure their statements are backed by fact. 

So with that as a given, and again assuming that most of us care about a livable future the question becomes, “so what the heck can I do about it?” The people that I have meet at our EcoTuesday evenings care deeply, and often center their professional life on solutions to this and other environmental problems.  But it is challenging to know what actions can really have an effect.

This might be part of the reason for the results of a recent Gallup poll.  It showed that concern about environmental issues has dropped between 4 and 9 percentage points over the course of one year. The only bright note was that the two issues that had dropped the least were issues of safe, clean drinking water and global warming.  I think this drop is party because people suffer from concern burnout.  If they cannot see that they can make a difference, they cease to be concerned as a defense against feeling hopeless. 

This month’s speaker at our Silicon Valley EcoTuesday can refresh your level of hope.  We will have James Cook, Director of Business Development at First Solar, join us this month.  He will speak to us about his work in large-scale solar generation plants.  I am especially eager to hear about his personal passion to help the state of California achieve 50% renewable electrical generation by 2030 and push toward FFFF – Fossil Fuel Free by Fifty (2050, that is.)  These goals are striking for a number of reasons. 

Most of us know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.  Carbon dioxide is the largest single contributor, in fact CO2 accounts for 83% of all the green house gas (GHG) emissions in the United States.  Don’t glaze over on me here, I’m am coming to why this is so exciting! 

By far, the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions is the burning of carbon-based fuels for electrical generation.  This is interesting, since so many think that transportation is greatest problem.  If we could reach the goal of generating our electricity from fossil free sources by 2050, we would be greatly reducing the largest cause of GHG emissions.  If this were accompanied be incremental improvements in all other emissions, we would truly be looking at improving the environmental outlook for future generations. 

So, although it can seem that solar power is a fancy perk for a green building, or only of interest to energy policy wonks, in reality it holds the potential to be a huge part of the solution to global warming, within our lifetimes!