Rod Nunn, Vice Chair of Sustainable St. Louis accepted the Eco-Honor for Sustainable St. Louis. The non-profit organization serves as a facilitator in the development of our region’s environmental sustainability by uniting businesses, advocates, and local governments to build a more sustainable future for the entire metropolitan area.

“Sustainability is a civic idea whose time has come. The future has to begin with knowledgeable citizens and we stand with EcoLifeSTL.com in educating St. Louisans about the Green movement,” Nunn stated.

Mayor Francis Slay accepted the Eco-Honor on behalf of the City of St. Louis. Under the direction of Mayor Slay, the City has undertaken many Green initiatives. The City has a robust recycling program, supports clean energy options, and is focusing on becoming a bike-friendly city and improving public transit.

He added, “The greatest way to recycle in the City of St. Louis is to save historic buildings like the one we’re in here tonight. The Greenest building is one that already exists and also preserves history.” The Palladium, formally the old City Hospital, is a venue that was recently renovated into a great hall for parties, weddings and other events.

Cindy Bambini, from 3Degrees, accepted the Eco-Honor on behalf of PurePower. PurePower is AmerenUE’s voluntary renewable energy program with 3Degrees, which is developing wind power and other forms of renewable energy in Missouri and the Midwest.

Bambini remarked, “Currently, there are 6,000 residential and 200 business PurePower customers receiving 100% of their energy from the five wind farms in our area.”

Present at the Launch Party and Eco-Honors Ceremony were EcoLifeSTL.com’s key partners: Missouri Botanical Garden’s EarthWays Center, StLouisGreen.Com, Sustainable St. Louis, and many more. Also present were the Emmis Communications staff that head up the EcoLifeSTL.com effort: Cyndee Blank, Blake Salger, Adron Buske, Katie Sorensen, and all of the staff at Emmis.

RCGA Board Chair for Energy and Environment Tracy Hart, president of Tarlton Corp., announced that her company will be the first company to enter the Challenge.  Ameren; Bryan Cave; Burns & McDonnell; Colliers Turley Martin Tucker; Christner; Gallop Johnson & Neuman; Geotechnology, Inc.; HOK; RCGA; and 3Degrees have also signed up to be the charter participants in the Challenge.  Enrollment in the Challenge is now open to all RCGA member companies and organizations, with a first round goal of an initial 100 participating companies.

Sustainability as an opportunity for regional economic growth is one of the 4 Strategic Initiatives that the RCGA Board has adopted, directing the RCGA’s overall activities in 2010. This initiative, called the St. Louis Climate Prosperity Project, aims to lead the St. Louis region toward a “greenbelt economy” that fosters green savings, green opportunity and green talent. The St. Louis Climate Prosperity Project is one of 8 Pilot communities selected by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the national Climate Prosperity, Inc. effort in 2009, to demonstrate that regions responding to the environmental imperatives of climate change also enhance their economic development.  St. Louis is paired with Silicon Valley; Seattle/King County; Denver; Montgomery County/Washington Metro; Portland, Oregon; and the states of Delaware and Florida as a Pilot in the national project.

The Green Business Challenge will use a scorecard to measure savings and sustainability achievements at a company’s headquarters site in 6 areas: Energy, Waste, Indoor Environment, Water, Transportation, and Outreach.  Green Business Challenge teams determine their individual baseline score and then improve on their baseline by implementing sustainability strategies throughout 2010.  Companies will be recognized for their improvements and accomplishments at a special Green Business Challenge event in November.

A recent “green savings” example is the 38% energy savings by the owners of the Empire State Building in New York City as a result of their current energy retro fit.  Consulting, design and construction partners, Johnson Controls Inc., Jones Lang LaSalle and the Rocky Mountain Institute recently completed an 8-month modeling and analysis project which will save 38% of the building’s energy and $4.4 million annually.  In addition, the Willis Tower in Chicago is undergoing a $350 million green savings plan to reduce their base building electricity by up to 80% and their sustainability project plans to create more than 3,600 jobs.

To support the Challenge teams, the RCGA has engaged the Missouri Botanical Garden’s EarthWays Center, a regional leader in promoting sustainability through environmental education and improving the built environment. Glenda Abney and her staff at the EarthWays Center will provide complementary technical consulting assistance for the Challenge, answer questions for participating teams and assist the RCGA in monthly seminars that inform participating teams on sustainability strategies related to the Challenge scorecard.

To register your company for the inaugural St. Louis Green Business Challenge, please contact the RCGA’s Eric Schneider at eschneider@stlrcga.org, and for more information, please go to www.stlouisgreenchallenge.com

Explore the science, engineering,and business of energy to promote regional sustainability.

Schedule
Sept 9: Nuts and Volts: Basics of Electricity
Presented by St. Louis Science Center
An entertaining and informative discussion on the basics of the production, transmission, distribution and consumption of electricity in Missouri.

Sept 16: Utilities Unplugged: Talking with a Local Muni, Co-op, and Investor Owned Utility
Presented by AmerenUE and Cuivre River Electric Cooperative
Learn how our local Investor Owned Utility and a regional Electric C-operative operate as well as what each are doing to increase the use of renewables to generate power.

Sept 23: Kill-A-Watt: Energy Efficiency
Presented by AmerenUE and Energy and Environmental Solutions
Real-world solutions to energy efficiency challenges that will improve the financial performance for your business. The presenters will introduce the results of actual audits of Kaldi Coffee’s facilities, as well as how Ameren energy efficiency incentives apply to those buildings – both owned and leased.

Sept 30: Low Carbon Diet: Carbon Footprinting/Reduction
Presented by 3 Degrees, Pure Power, and St. Louis University
Local experts present case studies and provide step by step instructions for Green House Gas Inventories and Carbon Footprint reduction.

Oct 7: Here Comes the Sun: Onsite Renewables
Presented by Ameren Energy and Sustainable St. Louis
Onsite solar, wind, geothermal – does it make sense for my business in Missouri?

Oct 14: A Bright Future: Wrap Up and New Advances
Presented by St. Louis University
Bringing it all together with a look to the future, courtesy of Saint Louis University.

WHERE: Anheuser-Busch Auditorium, John Cook School of Business, Saint Louis University

WHEN: Six consecutive Wednesdays (September 9, 16, 23, 30 and October 7, 14), 7:30am – 9:30am

$50 workshop fee for all six sessions. STUDENTS GET IN FREE!

To register, go to: www.stlenergymatters.com

We are hoping to get as many people from the region involved with this as possible so if you are a government employee (federal, state, municipal, county or special district) involved with sustainability practices or policies, we want you to be a part of this group to help move the St. Louis region towards sustainability.

To join the Green Government’s Listserve sponsored by Sustainable St. Louis please go to the following link- http://groups.google.com/group/greengovstl. On the right side on the page click on “Apply for Group Membership” to get access to the group and begin participating.

The group is just over a month old and already there has been some great conversation circulating within the group on topics such as a regional environmental internship program, green initiatives in select counties and cities, and Operation Food Search’s new programs. The hope is that the conversation within this Google Group will eventually turn in to action and communities will begin working together to achieve sustainability for the region.

Roderick Nunn is Vice Chancellor of Workforce and Community Development for St. Louis Community College where he serves as the chief economic development officer. Mr. Nunn provides strategic direction for the development and management of talent acquisition, talent development, resource and economic development assets in response to the needs of business and community partners.  He previously served as Missouri’s first director of education and workforce innovation and as director of the Missouri Department of Economic Development’s Division of Workforce Development. He has extensive background in leading multi-million dollar business/industry-based education and training programs in Missouri and Illinois. He also has earned national and state recognition for creating and implementing innovative workforce solutions. Mr. Nunn holds a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Illinois at Springfield, and a bachelor’s degree in music from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He also completed the Program for Senior Executives in State and local Government at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Eric Schneider is the Senior Director of Public Policy Research at the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association (RCGA) and has been with the RCGA since 2001. He directs the activities of the St. Louis Climate Prosperity Project which seeks to evolve the St. Louis bi-state metropolitan region from a Rust Belt to a Green Belt economy that becomes home to a growing cluster of green businesses and existing companies responding to the growing green market.  Eric received a master’s degree in planning from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and a bachelor of arts degree in economics from Grinnell College, in Grinnell, Iowa. Eric has previously held positions as a planning and marketing manager with hospital organizations in Minneapolis and St. Louis, a city planner for Minneapolis’s suburbs and an agate clerk/sports reporter for the Washington Post.

Check out the press release from Apollo Alliance.

SAN FRANCISCO – The Apollo Alliance today announced the formation of its Missouri affiliate, a broad coalition of labor, environmental, community and business leaders that will promote policies and projects to help revitalize the Missouri economy by creating a new clean energy, good jobs economy.

Since its founding in 2003, Apollo Alliance has worked at the local, state and national levels to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs by promoting investments in energy efficiency, clean power, mass transit, next-generation vehicles, emerging technologies, and clean-energy education and training.

Missouri, which is coping with nearly nine percent unemployment and the loss of tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs in recent years, stands to benefit from the new jobs that will be created in the clean energy economy. With significant investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency manufacturing – as called for by Apollo Alliance in its Green Manufacturing Action Plan (GreenMAP) – Missouri could gain thousands of well-paying building-material and energy-efficient appliance manufacturing jobs. Such investments will also lead to jobs in finance, transportation, installation, and other related businesses.

“We are thrilled to welcome our new Missouri affiliate into the Apollo fold,” said Phil Angelides, Chairman of the Apollo Alliance. “We’re on the verge of making an historic leap from a country than runs on fossil fuels to one that runs on clean energy. To fully realize this transition, we’ll need the kind of strong, on-the-ground organizing presence that Missouri Apollo will provide.”

The steering committee of the Missouri Apollo Alliance includes: Emily Andrews, Executive Director of St. Louis Regional Green Building Council; Liz Forrestal, Executive Director of Missouri Votes Conservation and Board Member of Sustainable St. Louis; Lara Granich, Executive Director of Missouri Jobs with Justice; Melissa Hope, Sierra Club; Garry Kemp, Secretary of Kansas City Building and Construction Trades Council; Clyde McQueen, President and CEO of Kansas City Full Employment Council; Erin Noble, Energy Policy and Outreach Coordinator for Missouri Coalition for the Environment; and Emil Ramirez, United Steelworkers, District 11.

Missouri joins more than a dozen state and local Apollo affiliates around the country. The Alliance is particularly strong in the Midwest, where Apollo affiliates in Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin are already working to ensure a just transition to a clean energy economy.

CONTACTS:
National: Sam Haswell: (415) 371-1700 x201
Missouri: Joe Thomas (314) 494-9890

For more information, visit- www.ApolloAlliance.org.
To review the full press release-  http://apolloalliance.org/press-releases-2009/apollo-alliance-announces-formation-of-missouri-affiliate/

The event was organized by St. Louis Learns and Leads in partnership with Sustainable St. Louis.  Proceeds from the conference will fund scholarships to high school students to attend SoL ED Youth Leadership Core Course on creating systems change for a sustainable future.

To read BusinessWeek’s interview with Peter Senge- http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jun2008/id20080611_566195.htm

They say that, in this day and time, you don’t really exist unless you have a website. Well Sustainable St. Louis (SSL herein) is thrilled that we are “for real” now that we have a web presence. Along with the site came our new logo – we hope you like it.

The logo and the site are meant to communicate a lot about what our organization is shaping up to be. The logo may strike you as more “corporate” and less “enviro” , and this is intentional. The leadership of SSL wanted our logo to represent a core belief underlying what we are doing – that our organization is part of a new era of cooperation between businesses, nonprofits, and communities; an era in which environmental responsibility is not a “cause”, but a “matter of fact” goal for all. And it is only through bringing together the varied talents and resources of all that we can have the kind of impact that has become a necessity.

We have big aspirations with this site. What you see here now is only “Phase 1”. Our goal is for this site to become a major resource to all those with an interest in sustainability. The goals of the site are to –

• Inform – provide regularly updated blog entries that highlight the great things taking place or in the works in our region that relate to sustainability goals.
• Connect – Create links to the many businesses, community groups, advocacy groups, etc that are doing the work. Create social networks for sharing information, person to person, business to business, and group to group. The more we are connected, the faster the pace of change.
• Educate – Learn about how to live greener, operate a more environmentally sustainable business, green your community, etc. This component of the site will grow more in Phase 2.
• Learn about SSL – Provide information for those interested in finding out more about what our organization is doing or how to get involved. This site will also be growing with Phase 2, as we begin to put into action the Strategic Plan for the organization.

We hope you will take some time to explore the site and sign up for the enewsletters and the tweets. Please check back regularly for all the latest news on sustainability in the St. Louis region and for the latest on SSL.  We welcome any feedback or comments you may have on our we can improve the site.  Please reach out to us at info@sustainstl.org.

WHAT: The Necessary Revolution, A St. Louis Perspective: Acting Together to Create a Sustainable World
WHEN: Thursday, April 23, 8:00 am – 12:00 pm
WHERE: St. Louis University John Cook School of Business Busch Auditorium (3674 Lindell Blvd – 63108)
COST: General Admission – $95.00, Non-profit – $55.00

An interview with Senge

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