This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 25, 2012 - Sustainability is on the agenda in a big way over the next couple of weeks in the St. Louis area as events focused on the topic are set to take the stage, some for the first time.
“The stature of all these issues is just getting higher and higher,” said Phil Valko, director of sustainability at Washington University. “I think one of the big reasons we are interested in sustainable cities is that cities are where it all comes together. Cities are the interface of people and planet in so many ways.”
And people will be doing a good deal of interfacing at Wash U which is hosting a three-day conference on the topic of sustainable cities including a dozen speakers covering topics from landscaping and food to architecture and energy.
Events will kick off the evening of Nov. 1 with a keynote address by environmentalist and author Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, a grassroots organization dedicated to the issue of climate change, who will discuss the science behind the issue.
The following day will be taken up with the introduction of a unique Land Lab Competition, which will feature teams working to convert the city’s unused lots into sustainability projects in areas such as power generation, food systems and storm water management. The announcement at the Contemporary Art Museum of the contest will feature a talk by Ron Sims, a former deputy secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. (Correction: an early version of this article said the contest winners would be announced. It is the contest itself that will be explained.)
“The city has over 10,000 vacant parcels and we’ve been working closely with the city of St. Louis to create this competition,” said Valko. “The winners will actually get a two-year land lease as well as $5,000 in seed money to implement their idea and build their demonstration project.”
The focus will return to the campus on Nov. 3 for a full day of seminars and sessions including plenary speakers Anna Lappe, a sustainable food advocate and author of "Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It," and Jason McLennan, CEO of the International Living Future Institute, which focuses on creating a better world. He’s also the founder of the Living Building Challenge.
“It’s essentially a green building system that has pushed way beyond LEED and resulted in the development of buildings that produce all their own energy onsite and all of their own water onsite,” Valko said. “These are incredibly forward-looking structures.”
Other sessions will include Paul Salopek, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who in January will embark on a seven-year walking journey to retrace the entire history of human migration from Kenya to the tip of South America.
Closer to home, the conference will also provide an opportunity for Catherine Werner, the city’s sustainability director, to release the results of St. Louis’ sustainability plan which has been a year and a half in the making.
All events are free and open to the public.
“A lot of the issues are pretty straightforward,” said Valko. “When you get deep in the weeds, some of the issues can feel a bit dizzying, but we’re bringing in some really great speakers who will be able to talk about very relatable things.”
However, all the action isn’t at Washington University. St. Louis University is taking its own look at green issues with a confab focusing on sustainable disaster recovery. Set to begin Oct. 29, the two-day conference will feature speakers with experience in rebuilding projects from Haiti to Joplin and is slated to talk about how to use recovery efforts to put together more eco-friendly communities.
“It’s not just for communities that are rebuilding,” said David Webb, program manager for sustainability at St. Louis University, “but for any community that wants to be prepared in the event that the unthinkable happens.”
The conference is co-sponsored by Greensburg GreenTown and its offshoot GreenTown Joplin, two nonprofits that helped communities rebuild sustainably in the wake of devastating tornadoes. A large swath of Joplin, Mo., was leveled in a mile-wide tornado last year while Greensburg, Kan., was slammed by a 2007 twister.
“A tiny little town in Kansas is one of the most, if not the most, green towns in the entire nation,” Webb said.
He noted that city and community leaders often are caught flat-footed by disasters even in the best of circumstances and often have no blueprint to guide them after they reassemble core services.
“That what we want to do,” he said. “We want to start putting that playbook together so that towns know how to meet their immediate needs in the wake of disaster and also know how to build a stronger, more resilient, more energy efficient town going forward.”
He said the audience will be a diverse one including city administrators, builders and students.
“It’s been tremendous. For our inaugural event, we’re already pushing 200 registrations,” Webb said. “We have well over a dozen exhibitors and a tremendous lineup of over 40 speakers who have come to share their stories.”
Over at the Missouri Gateway Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, efforts at greening the area are taking a somewhat theological turn. On the heels of a meeting at a Kirkwood church earlier this month that looked at faith-based sustainability, the USGBC is putting together a follow up workshop on Oct. 30 entitled Energy Star for Congregations.
Attendees will learn how to analyze utility bills, use the Energy Star portfolio manager model, plan for an energy audit and examine a building’s carbon footprint, all in an effort to make houses of worship kinder to nature.
Emily Andrews, executive director of the group, said that not only can greater efficiency be a testament to a congregation’s values but can also save money that can be used to further the institution’s spiritual mission.
“There are a lot of opportunities for religious institutions to address their buildings and if we can help them do that through this kind of programming then we’re happy to do it,” she said.
The event is free for those representing a congregation or religious organization.
Finally, Trailnet will be hosting its Livable St. Louis Conference on Friday. Entitled Bold Community Visions, the event will feature Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett and Gary Toth of Project for Public Spaces, a New York-based non-profit that helps foster better use of urban spaces.