Past Green Wednesdays

Below are bulleted summaries of the presentations made at past Green Wednesdays events

On August 3, Dr. Marilyn Black, founder of the GREENGUARD Environmental Institute, was the  speaker at Green Chamber of the South “Green Wednesday” luncheon in midtown Atlanta. What a great, engaged group! Members of the audience asked many thoughtful questions http://certifiablygreenblog.com/?p=1394

“Does GREENGUARD certify mattresses?” and other Qs & As

On April 6, 2011 Mandy Mahoney Director of Management and Strategy at SEEA (Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance) joined us to discuss some lessons learned from her previous job as the Director of Sustainability for the City of Atlanta as well as some information about SEEA and her new role.  Below is a bulleted summary of her talk.

• Mandy: "I loved my time at the City and I feel very good about the continued growth the City will make"
  When Mandy came on board with Mayor Franklin the city they were poised to make some big environmental changes
  Lesson learned working with the City - people fundamentally distrust government and by the time they reach gov they are angry
  "Politicians don't start the parade. They join the parade." - Jason Rooks - So focus was to build connections and then support those connections
  Civil disobedience is important and we need more from the environmental comunity
  One of the challenges with green initiative is there are not laws to support green practices. We need laws to support not just regulate
  Rain water and urban agriculture are two of the successful laws implemented to support green issues
  People are intimidated about going to City Hall and the State Legislature
  It's amazing how one or two sane intelligent constituents can influence government. Politicians are surrounded by angry irrational naysayers
  Educate your children about the political process. Our young people need to be engaged earlier on environmental issues
  Pledge to take one young person to public meeting. It changes their view of the world
  With City Programs be patient but also be vocal
• SEEA Southeastern Energy Efficiency Alliance groups like this all over the country. SEEA is the youngest
  SEEA's work spans industrial to government to consumers programs
  Gainesville, FL has a feed-in tariff for energy efficiency
  www.georgiapower.com/commercialsavings/ New rebates for commercial properties doing energy efficiency

Thanks very much to Beth Bond of Southeast Green for taking the notes, tweeting and making this summary availible