CitiesGoGreen - January 2009 - (Page 25) — INTERVIEW — Local Government in Action Catalyzing Change in Minneapolis Gayle Prest, Sustainability Manager for Minneapolis, shares how she works with partners throughout the community, and how sustainability builds on itself. CitiesGoGreen: Tell us about your job. Gayle Prest: I’m the Sustainability Manager for the City of Minneapolis, and we also have a Sustainability Project Coordinator, June Mathiowetz. We work internally with the city departments and externally with various partners, through grants, outreach to the public, and with all sorts of other partners. For example, June works with a nonprofit called Tree Trust. We have a contract with Tree Trust each year to buy down the cost of large trees, then Tree Trust distributes the trees to residents for $20-$25. Part of Tree Trust’s mission is also to work with at-risk youth, getting them ready for well-paying jobs and getting their skill sets up. So that partnership meets a lot of our needs. In terms of my work, last night for example I went to a Green Carpet Film Festival. I run our climate change microgrants program (see Small Grants with a Big Impact on page 27), and one of our grant recipients, a neighborhood group named Linden Hills Power and Light, held a YouTube contest. You had to have a video of two minutes or less, and it had to be about energy efficiency and the things you can do for climate change. There were 25 films, some wacky dressers and lots of kids. We gave out “Golden Garby” awards, which were little gold trash cans. Most of them were kids that submitted this stuff, kids in high school, even eightyear-olds! Part of the process was that these kids also had to take an energy challenge and talk about what they were going to do to save money and save energy and about their carbon footprint. January 2009 So I do a lot of work with outside partners, with the general public, and with other cities and other agencies, because it’s not just Minneapolis in isolation, it’s also what the region is doing and how we can move forward with that. Then we’ve got the internal side as well. I know when you talked to our mayor he explained how the idea of performance measurement works internally to drive all our different departments to be more sustainable. In terms of my work, in our Purchasing “You would be surprised how many hidden champions Department we have a green there are in an organization and how many partners cleaning policy. We there are out there willing to work with you.” buy 100% recycled copier paper and — Prest things like that, but And you’re supporting and starting kids we didn’t have anything memorialized. on this so young, too. This year we helped them develop a And their parents. I don’t know if you’re new purchasing policy. Our Citizens aware, but there’s a lot of good research Environmental Advisory Committee that shows that if you can work through did the first draft and then I helped kids, their parents have to do what their facilitate it through purchasing, and the kids tell them to do. So that was a really City Council just passed it. So now we’re fun outreach that I did. helping Purchasing get ready for public Yesterday I also met with the education and implementation. Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce. When you look at the city They’re interested in how they can work departments, we’ve got Property more with their members on climate Services putting in solar. They are putting change. Energy efficiency, of course, in a new LEED Gold certified building is such a low-hanging fruit; it’s good with geothermal, and lots of energyfor climate change and it’s good for efficiency projects. I have got people all businesses. The Chamber has the CEO over the city becoming LEED Accredited of Excel Energy coming in November, Professionals, when I’m not even and we’re making sure there will be lots accredited yet, which is great. I’d rather of information there to help get people have people in Regulatory Services and involved in different programs. Permitting be LEED AP than me. They’ve 25 So these eight-year-olds could say what their carbon footprint was and how many pounds of carbon they were going to reduce! We had films of ninjas running around turning on lights, and of course boys running around after them fighting them and turning off lights. There were puppets, and all sorts. There are so many creative kids out there, I can’t believe it. Kids would get up when they got an award and make a little speech. We had popcorn and apple cider. It was great. http://citiesgogreen.com/issues/january-2009/current-feature/catalyzing-change-in-minneapolis http://citiesgogreen.com/issues/january-2009/current-feature/catalyzing-change-in-minneapolis http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/sustainability/ClimateChangeGrants_home.asp http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/sustainability/ClimateChangeGrants_home.asp http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1584 http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1584 http://www.CitiesGoGreen.com
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