We were in Portland yesterday and had the good fortune to meet with Desiree Williams-Rajee (who helped author the BGI-BetterWorld BetterWork white paper) with the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. It’s amazing to see first-hand the level of commitment that the City of Portland is making to many areas of sustainability, going far beyond the lip service that many municipalities are paying to the area of sustainability, administering mature programs from recycling to compositing, energy efficiency and weatherization. Check out www.portlandonline.com/BPS/CLIMATE for details on their Climate Action Plan 2009, which is now in draft form, BPS will be taking the plan out to a series of Town Hall meetings, which Desiree is coordinating, as well as her efforts to make the plan and process inclusive, which is another area of serious improvement across the whole movement, combining environmental initiatives and social justice, a tall but necessary order indeed if we are going to be successful!
BPS is headquartered in the Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center (AKA the Ecotrust building) in the Pearl District, which is amazing and historical in so many ways. Built over 120 years ago and restored in 2000, it houses Ecotrust, an organization whose impact spans so many institutions (ShoreBank) and communities that it’s difficult to sum up the impact. A nice surprise was to find BetterWorld customer Patagonia with one of their stores on the bottom floor, what an amazing space – we had to stop in to buy a few things.
Portland is out front in many ways & leading by example, not just with rhetoric.
Matt
Posted in: BetterWork Partners
