REPORT CALLS ON CALIFORNIA TO PLAN FOR SUSTAINABILITY

In 2009 WELL Network and our partners brought together more than forty leaders from business, government, nonprofit organizations, and foundations for the Fort Baker Leadership Summits, held in Sausalito, California. Participants developed a vision and set of guiding principles, as the basis for its report, “Re-Imagining California, A Sustainable Future for the Golden State,” which makes recommendations to state policymakers for addressing California's sustainability. For printed copies of the report, contact Plauer@WellNetwork.org.

WELL NETWORK'S SYLVIA MCLAUGHLIN FEATURED IN PBS DOCUMENTARY

In 1961, WELL Network Honorary Board Member Sylvia McLaughlin, and two colleagues, Kay Kerr and Esther Gulick founded the “Save  San Francisco Bay Association,” now known simply as Save The Bay. They wanted to stop a plan to fill in the Bay shoreline, and began to drum up support by collecting $1 membership dues from friends and neighbors. They convinced thousands of people to support their cause, and eventually won. Their fight, the first grassroots environmental movement in the Bay Area, convinced many people to look at the Bay in a new way. Sylvia, tells her story in the new documentary "Saving the Bay," that recently premiered on KQED, the Bay Area's public television station. Narrated by Robert Redford, the four-part series focuses on the geological, cultural, and developmental history of the Bay and the larger northern California watershed, from the Sierra Nevada mountains to the Farallon Islands in the Pacific Ocean. http://www.kqed.org/SavingTheBay


Photo: Sylvia McLaughlin, a founder of Save San Francisco Bay Association, was honored at a screening of “Saving the Bay,” a 4-part public television documentary about the history of the Bay and efforts to protect it.

WELL NETWORK'S SEAFARER, MARY CROWLEY, SPOTLIGHTS OCEAN GARBAGE

Mary Crowley, a founding board member of WELL Network and founder of Ocean Voyages Institute, is back from her expedition to the North Pacific Gyre to draw attention to the enormous garbage patch that is threatening ocean life and human health. Ocean Voyages' Brigantine ship Kaisei set sail for the Pacific Gyre with a crew of scientists from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography on August 4 to study an area of  plastic debris estimated to be twice the size of Texas and several fathoms deep. Mary's goal is to push for international attention to find ways to clean up and prevent ocean plastic pollution. See htttp://www.projectkaisei.org for pictures and more information. Mary's efforts have received wide media attention: To hear Mary's interview on NPR's Living On Earth, go to: http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00031&segmentID=2
Read about the journey at http://www.mercurynews.com/green/ci_13257694

Photo: Aboard her ship, the Kaisei, Mary Crowley speaks about her voyage to the Pacific Gyre and the threat of plastic trash to the world's oceans.

A LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA
January 20, 2009

Dear Mr. President,

The many crises our country faces–economic, educational, structural, health, and environmental—make it crucial that government, business, nonprofits, and citizens work together, if our children and grandchildren are to thrive and prosper.

As we know, science has confirmed the ecological disaster on the horizon. Importantly, solutions, best practices, and expertise to prevent catastrophe and help us adapt to environmental change, already exist.

Green planning, a comprehensive and proven approach for environmental sustainability, has been guiding The Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand and much of the European community, for decades. Green planning brings together stakeholders to develop a government-led, comprehensive, and binding "Greenprint" for environmental health and economic prosperity.

Corporations, the public, and Congress are ready to move beyond piecemeal efforts to address environmental degradation, and want national leadership to meet these challenges. Please make the most of this opportunity by making America's Green Plan an urgent priority of the Obama Administration.

Annette Gellert
Co-founder and Chair
WELL Network

NEW REPORT CITES BENEFITS OF GREEN PLANNING TO CALIFORNIA BUSINESSES

For Immediate Release: October 14, 2008 For more information, contact: Peggy Lauer, Executive Director, WELL Network 415-299-0791, Plauer@wellnetwork.org Sarah Gardner, Public Relations Director, Dominican University of California, 415-485-3239, sarah.gardner@dominican.edu

A new report, "A California Green Plan: Making the Case for Business," finds that overlapping environmental regulations and agencies are hampering the state's business climate.

The 50-page report, produced by Dominican University of California’s School of Business and Leadership with funding from the Fred Gellert Family Foundation, credits green planning—a comprehensive and integrated management approach to environmental sustainability—for strengthening the economies of the European Union and other nations. A California green plan, the report suggests, would help the state by consolidating functions, leveraging technologies, and creating clear authority and accountability. The report will be presented at the Green Plans in Action conference on Thursday, October 16 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Rafael. The conference, sponsored by the Resource Renewal Institute, comes as California begins to implement the pioneering Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32. More than 100 government, business, academic, and environmental leaders will join international experts in green planning, to focus on how government and business can work together to create a green planning framework for managing the causes of climate change.

“A comprehensive, large-scale, and committed approach to solving environmental, health, and economic issues is the way to make progress,” said Sarah Diefendorf, executive director of the Environmental Finance Center for Environmental Protection Agency Region 9, an advisor on the 'Case for Business" report. The costs of inaction on environmental issues and the resulting crises should outweigh the temptation to do nothing.” "The foundation commissioned the report because we want to offer practical and proven ideas to policymakers, businesses, and environmental grant makers to solve the environmental crisis," said Annette Gellert, co-chair of the Fred Gellert Family Foundation, which funded the report. "Other nations have successfully used green planning for more than twenty years. We believe that if California were to learn from and adopt these principles, it would become a model for the U.S. and other nations," she added. The report states that, like many companies, California has gone through mergers and acquisitions, leadership changes, rightsizing, unprecedented growth and budget constraints. As a result, California’s government has evolved into "silos." This lack of integration limits the effectiveness of the state’s environmental leadership efforts.

For example:

• Four state entities address reducing solid waste in landfills, inhibiting the state’s ability to create a comprehensive waste management program.
  
  
• Pollution prevention is split among three separate programs. There is a lack of emphasis on pollution prevention due to single-issue programs. For example, recycling for bottles and cans is housed at the Department of Conservation while recycling for oil, tires, and e-waste resides at the Waste Management Board.
  
  
• Two agencies—the Revolving Fund at the California State Water Resources Control Board and the Drinking Water Fund at the Department of Health Sciences—operating separately, seek federal water funding, resulting in federal funding below the national average, despite California’s size.
  
  
• California's permitting and licensing processes continue to be a major area of frustration due to complexities, inconsistencies, and long lead times. For example, to open a gas station requires registration, permits, and licenses from nine state departments. A person wanting to open a beauty salon must register or obtain permits and licenses from eight different state entities.
  
  
• California does not have a comprehensive regulatory framework for the regulation of chemicals in consumer products and packaging. As a result, interest groups and policy makers have been attempting to take these safety issues one by one.

When determining the way ahead for the state, business should be part of the solution, said John Stayton, executive director of Dominican’s MBA in Sustainable Enterprise (the GreenMBA). “Businesses bring an understanding of their unique circumstances and familiarity with their stakeholders, and must be at the green planning table from the get-go,” said Stayton. “California’s reputation as a magnet for human resources and ingenuity must be preserved,” said Stayton. “With a proactive approach to green planning, California will become an even more desirable place to live and work, thus attracting the most talented work force.” Lauralee Barbaria, and Nancy Roberts, both students in Dominican’s GreenMBA program, co-authored the report. Dominican's Master of Business Administration in Sustainable Enterprise (GreenMBA) is a graduate business program focused on corporate social responsibility, environmental sustainability, and social justice in a corporate and business context.

The Environmental Finance Center, based at Dominican University, is supported in part by the EPA, and coordinates the development of Green Business Programs for California, Hawaii, Arizona, and Nevada. The Fred Gellert Family Foundation, established in 1958 by Fred Gellert, a prominent San Francisco Bay area developer, homebuilder and philanthropist, funds innovative programs that encourage a sustainable quality of life for present and future generations.
View and download the report: http://www.wellnetwork.org/reports.html