by Sarah Hines and Morgan Grove | May 30, 2019 | Economy, Resources
This is the second article in a two part series; read the first article here. “Waste is a verb, not a noun.” This is a phrase worth remembering when it comes to urban wood. As we explored in our first post, urban wood is part of a complex system with linkages...
by Kate O'Brien, Senior Writer for Meeting of the Minds | May 29, 2019 | Behavior Change Blog Series
Elemental Excelerator (Elemental) is a startup growth accelerator that finds and funds mission-driven companies to help improve systems that impact people’s lives in the sectors of energy, transportation, water, agriculture, and beyond. Elemental’s model is based on...
by Mark McPherson | May 28, 2019 | Governance, Resources
Carbon credits for forests have been around for more than 25 years. Why hasn’t anyone developed credits for our city trees? Aren’t our city trees valuable, yet declining in number? Don’t the city forests need funding so that our cities can be sustainable? The answer...
by Sarah Hines and Morgan Grove | May 23, 2019 | Economy, Resources, Smart Cities
Among some of society’s most complex and interconnected challenges – unemployment, ecological degradation, communities fractured by lack of opportunity and incarceration – it’s understandable if you didn’t realize that wood waste is also problem. Yet the “problem” of...
by Amy Aussieker | May 22, 2019 | Economy, Governance
Charlotte has made a bold commitment: be the first US city to adopt a circular economy striving towards zero waste and inclusivity. We will strive to use our resources that are now destined for the landfill as the basis for future innovation and job creation. We...
by Jesse Renema, Sebastiaan van Herk and Claire Guerin | May 20, 2019 | Economy, Governance
The circular economy is currently regarded as a systemic solution to key sustainability issues we are facing as a society. It is embraced by companies, governments and citizens as it has the potential to protect the environment while creating jobs, business growth...
by Jan Dell | May 15, 2019 | Smart Cities
Plastic pollution is a blight in our cities and landscapes and is harming our rivers and oceans. Experts estimate that 300,000 metric tonnes of plastic waste from the United States (U.S.) pollute the ocean every year, which is about 65 dump trucks of plastic waste per...
by Miguel Angel Vazquez | May 13, 2019 | Governance, Society
Ten years ago, I found myself immersed into a branch of urban planning that at the time was just beginning to emerge at the local, state and national levels: Healthy Communities Planning. At the Riverside County Department of Public Health; now known as the Riverside...
by Christopher Reberger | May 9, 2019 | Economy, Governance
Improvements in communications, mobility, and data management have provided public sector managers with a new range of investment opportunities. With limited access to capital and organizational resources, managers need to ensure they make the best resource allocation...
by Steven Guttmann and Ted Tiffany | May 8, 2019 | Governance, Resources
Participants of COP21 (Paris, 2015) agreed that limiting the average global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius was an absolute imperative, and that this goal would require that human-produced emissions peak in 2020 and get to zero (yes, ZERO!) by 2050. California...
by Shagorika Ghosh and Alexander Shermansong | May 7, 2019 | Economy, Governance
The Culture Gap In the last 20 years, the private sector has invested heavily in the culture of the workplace, but the public sector has failed to keep up. As a result, governments face a growing “culture gap” which will imperil their ability to replenish their...
by Kate O'Brien, Senior Writer for Meeting of the Minds | May 6, 2019 | Behavior Change Blog Series
California is a national leader in greenhouse gas reduction, and through its major behavior change-fueled initiatives, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is helping to light the way. Citing a paradigm shift inside his organization several years ago, SMUD...
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