KCCI community catalysts and volunteers gathered for a full-team meeting on Nov. 15 to discuss progress made by each initiative and offer suggestions for overcoming any obstacles. Below is the update provided by the Greenovation team.On a side note, Greenovation’s PARC (Park-and-Ride Community) team is looking for help in launching a second StarMetro park-and-ride program in January. The fact that StarMetro is interested in extending this pilot program is excellent news! If you are interested in offering your assistance or expertise to the PARC team, please e-mail kccitallahassee@gmail.com.
REPORT ON GREENOVATION
Summary of Six-Month Accomplishments
EDUCATION: In partnership with Leon County Schools, Leon County and the City of Tallahassee, we’ve launched a major overhaul of the school district’s countywide recycling program. Recycling coordinators are at every school; “how to” posters are in every classroom and other rooms — jointly financed by the Tallahassee Democrat and World Class Schools; submission of two separate joint Innovative Recycling Grant applications to the Department of Environmental Protection: one is a partnership of the school district, the city and the county, the other is a partnership of FSU, FAMU and the city and county. It’s a competitive process, and we’ll learn in the spring how we fared, but we’re very optimistic. The money for the grants is distributed in the fall of 2008.
PARK-AND-RIDE: We’ve launched PARC (Park and Ride Community), a pilot program designed to increase the use of mass transit among residents in the North Thomasville Road area of the city. Fifty-three people signed up, substantially more than our original goal. A few PARC riders participated in a focus group last week, where they were asked about their experiences. As people become more sustainability conscious and as gas prices increase, we’re confident that more people will consider StarMetro as a transportation alternative, and this pilot program is giving the city a lot of data on how to make it a more attractive option for a broader segment of the population.
URBAN DESIGN STUDIO: Discussions are under way for creation of an Urban Design Studio. The idea, in a nutshell and in layman’s terms, is to create a strategy, working with local government, to encourage desirable, sustainable architectural design and buildings as well as land-use planning.
CAMPUS & COMMUNITY SUSTAINABILITY CONFERENCE: We were invited to present in mid-October in the 2nd Annual Campus & Community Sustainability Conference at FSU, attended by people from all over Florida in the business, government, academic and nonprofit communities. We’ve also been asked to participate in the planning for a local/regional Climate Change Summit that Leon County is planning.
SUSTAINABLE TALLAHASSEE: Finally, we’ve launched Sustainable Tallahassee, the vehicle for sustaining our initiative well into the future. There’s ongoing discussion about whether Sustainable Tallahassee should just be called Greenovation, since Greenovation has already achieved some name recognition, but no final decision has been made. Whatever we call it, we see this organization as our most important legacy because it will be a clearinghouse and resource center for everything we’ve done so far and what we hope to do in the future. A few important highlights related to Sustainable Tallahassee include:
1. Funding opportunities: Kristin Dozier, who’s chairing Sustainable Tallahassee, has had several discussions with Kim Williams, of Marpan Supply, about financing a Web site and we’re very hopeful that deal will be closed. Web-related issues have dominated the group’s efforts so far, but they’ve made a lot of headway in terms of research and organization. We’re also anticipating submitting a new financing proposal to our friends at the Knight Foundation as well as some local sources.
2. Besides that, the committee also identified marketing and communications, participation in an upcoming Brogan Museum energy exhibit and Web site content as its major focuses.
Upcoming Plans
We’ve been bowled over by the energy and enthusiasm that Greenovation has attracted and inspired. Our challenge has been to maintain a focus and direction without exerting too much control. We’ve wanted to let people be free to run with their ideas without having to answer excessively to a chain of command. It’s worked well so far, and our next challenge is to maintain the momentum for the next six months and beyond. Here’s what we anticipate:
RECYCLING: On the recycling front, we’re forming Green Teams at every school; developing curriculum resources for teachers to help them integrate recycling concepts in various disciplines at the elementary, middle and high school levels; and planning for big events such as Earth Day. We’re also discussing an art competition and possible video production. Finally, we see a real opportunity, given Gov. Crist’s “green” initiatives, to be a catalyst for substantially upgrading recycling programs at various state offices here in Tallahassee.
PARK-AND-RIDE: The PARC program is compiling data from two focus groups. Virtually all of the participants who attended the recent focus groups said they would continue to use StarMetro after the program ends Dec. 7.
SUSTAINABLE TALLAHASSEE: We expect a gradual migration of our other efforts into Sustainable Tallahassee over the next six months. We see that as part of the natural evolution of our overall initiative.
PARTNERSHIPS: We expect a few initiatives/partnerships to develop over the next six months. The first is a partnership with the Chamber of Commerce and, hopefully, local and state governments on a business recycling program. Chamber Chairman Ron Sachs has publicly identified this as a major effort of his tenure, and he reached out to Greenovation to partner with the Chamber. We’ve already had one meeting with Chamber representatives on this, and we expect this will begin to move pretty quickly.
The second is something that we’re calling the Greener Business Bureau, an idea and name that Mark O’Bryant of Tallahassee Memorial dreamed up. The GBB, whose home will be within Sustainable Tallahassee, of course, would be a whole set of sustainable standards and programs that local and regional businesses adhere to — the idea being that if you’re a member of GBB, customers, investors and others will know that you’re certifiably green in more than just a marketing sense. Mark is in the process of developing a TMH program along these lines, with the goal of rolling out a GBB proposal after the New Year.
