SSDN‘s Green Minds

On this episode of Green Minds, co-host Laurel Creech talks with two cities who received SSDN's Community Collaboration Catalyst Micro Grant s aimed at providing small pots of funding to local governments to overcome barriers to systemic inequities alongside dedicated community partner organizations. Learn how the cities of Richmond, VA & Nashville, TN leveraged collaborative partnerships to work...

MaryPat Baldauf (Columbia, SC) nominated the session hosted by Tobin Freid (Durham County, NC) and KatieRose Levin (Cary, NC) as her favorite highlight of SSDN's 2022 annual meeting. The peer learning session was on Addressing Urban Heat Islands and Heat Mitigation Strategies - an appropriate topic with summer unofficially starting with Memorial Day in the Southeast.   Resource mentioned in this e...

This episode of the Green Minds Podcast is hosted by Laurel Creech (Nashville, TN) and features food waste awareness and mitigation in recognition of April being Earth Month and many states and cities recognizing the month as Food Waste Awareness Month. This episode kicks off with NRDC's Darby Hoover and Nashville's Linda Breggin on a national food waste perspective then we visit the cities of Ash...

Sustainability spans across a multitude of disciplines, and the variety of individual backgrounds of sustainability professionals are a reflection of this reality.  In this episode, we visit with Casi Callaway (Mobile, AL), Glen Hadwen (Fort Lauderdale, FL), Lennie Massanelli (Little Rock, AR) and George Santucci (Town of Boone, NC) to discuss their unique paths. 

This episode of Green Minds focuses on the sustainability organizational and staffing structures of four different size cities in the SSDN network and both their differences and commonalities: Susannah Troner of Miami-Dade County, FL; Helen Peplowski of the City of Winston-Salem, NC; George Santucci of the Town of Boone, NC; and Rebecca Harvey of Boynton Beach, FL. We discuss their histories, thei...

The first 2022 episode of Green Minds explores the making of the latest canopy study for the City of Sandy Springs (GA) with Bridget Lawlor, GIS Manager. She is followed by Dr. Kendra Abkowitz, Chief Sustainability and Resilience Officer with the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County (TN), who discusses the latest efforts in Metro Nashville to preserve and increase the tree cano...

Tune into this episode as Green Minds Co-hosts Catherine Mercier-Baggett and Laurel Creech as we talk with five SSDN cities to hear about their accomplishments in 2021: Fulton County, GA; Winston-Salem, NC; Orange County, FL; Durham, NC; and Chapel Hill, NC.   For more headlines and stories from SSDN's members in 2021, check out our year-end newsletter ( plus our archives !) and latest blog post o...

This episode of Green Minds is focused on City Scale 's recent report The State of U.S. Local Climate Action Planning , a collaborative reflection of a group of local climate practitioners. Through a series of conversations in 2019, climate practitioners across the country came to a shared recognition that local climate action planning had reached an inflection point. Guests Michael Armstrong, Kat...

The IPCC is releasing its sixth round of reports (AR6), confirming that we must control our impact on climate. Dr. Jairo Garcia, author of the Atlanta Climate Action Plan and instructor at Georgia Tech, explains what is the IPCC and why their findings are critical for local governments. Nell Boyle, Sustainability & Outreach Coordinator for the City of Roanoke, VA, reveals how the IPCC report relea...

This episode of Green Minds features Michael Dexter, SSDN's new Manager for the Southeast Sustainable Recovery Center (SSRC) which supports communities in their mobilization of COVID-19 relief and economic recovery in innovative ways which yield equitable solutions that make our communities more resilient to future stressors. We talk about the SSRC and how it will be valuable to members and Michae...

In this second episode of Green Minds, Catherine Mercier-Baggett (Sandy Springs, GA) discusses what sustainability means in the municipal context with Dr. Lynn Patterson of Three Points Planning and Georgia Tech, and Vanessa King, Network Manager at SSDN. 

This is the first episode of Green Minds hosted by Laurel Creech and features Kris Stenger, the founder and former host of Green Minds Think Alike. We discuss Kris' new position as he leaves City of Winter Park to work as International Code Council's (ICC) Director of Energy.

Meg Jamison, Executive Director of the Southeast Sustainability Directors Network , joins the podcast to talk about the power of the network and the SE Sustainable Communities Fund. We also dive into what impacts Covid has had on the network and what opportunities lie ahead.

Chris Castro has been making headlines and the silver screen with the work he and his team at the City of Orlando have been accomplishing. Chris joins us for a few minutes to talk about how he arrived in Orlando and how the Mayor of Orlando laid out ambious goals that has Chris thinking globally but still acting locally.

Kim Cheslak of New Building Institute and Institute for Market Transformation talks about the energy code training provided through Southface as part of a DOE Commercial Building Study. Kim is formerly the Building Official for Washington DC and talks about how her experience in government has really benefited her work at IMT and now NBI.

Alissa Farina @FarinaAlissa from the City of Miami joins us from the Florida Sustainability Directors Annual Meeting. Alissa speaks to her work on Resilience and Resilience Hubs in the City of Miami.

Katrina Locke, Sustainability Director for Volusia County, Florida shares with the us about the project they are undertaking in the Spring Hill Community with the help of a grant from the Southeast Sustainable Community Fund. The Grant was also able to provide a convening on Race, Equity and Community Resilience facilitated by Government Alliance on Race & Equity and Race Forward.

Kumar Jensen, City of Evanston Sustainability Director joins us from USDN 2019 Conference in Detroit. Kumar shares how equity has led his work in USDN and in Evanston's Climate Plans.

Vincent Martinez COO of Architecture 2030 @arch2030 joins us from @USDN 2019 in Detroit. Vincent gives a history of Architecture 2030 and how this has manifested itself into key code proposals to the 2021 ICC Codes

We are coming to the end of the 2021 ICC Code Change Process as the Code Hearings are underway in Las Vegas. Hear a brief snapshot of how the code development process works.

US Green Building Council Florida Chapter hosted President and CEO, Mahesh Ramanujam. Mr. Ramanujam presented the state of USGBC and the advancements made in LEED v4.1.  Mahesh also shared with us livingstandard.org a new initiative to share the stories of the role green buildings play in each person's life. Listening to his presentation leaves me no doubt that great things lie ahead at USGBC. 

Glen Hadwen with the City of Ft. Lauderdale, FL joins us at ssdn2019 to talk about the history of usdn, ssdn, and fsdn. Also Glen shares what is going on in Southeast Florida and great story with Al Gore.

An intro and update to the 2020 National Green Building Standard

Vanessa Balta Cook joins Kris to discuss her first experience at the #USDN annual meeting in Denver, Colorado

Maggie Ullman provides the story for the creation of the Southeast Sustainability Directors Network. The direction and passion Maggie has brought to the development of network shines through in this interview.