Anne Hidalgo

Mayor of Paris and Co-host of the Climate Summit for Local Leaders

Climate change endangers people’s health and poses serious economic threats. Yet by protecting the environment, we not only invest in the future but we also bring immediate public health and economic benefits. By acting boldly to address the perils of climate change, cities can improve millions of lives today—and build a safer, healthier future for the generations to come.

Cities around the world are taking the lead in the battle against climate change, and, in doing so, are determining the course of our planet’s future. Cities are more agile than national governments—cities have immediacy in their relationship to the impacts of climate change. They can take bolder actions and can see the benefits of climate action directly.

Here in Paris we introduced a Climate Action Plan unanimously approved by the Council of Paris in 2007, updated in 2012, committing our city to decrease its overall emissions by 75 percent in 2050 compared to 2004. In this perspective, Paris implements ambitious programs of construction of green buildings and retrofitting of municipal and privately owned buildings, as part of a major energy saving initiative.

On transportation, Paris is expanding Autolib’, an electric car sharing system inspired by the success of the Parisian bicycle sharing system Velib’. Our city also announced a major plan to ban diesel cars from Paris by 2020 and an adaptation and resilience strategy for 2015 through 2020.

City leaders have already emerged through their commitment to the Compact of Mayors and their participation in COP21 at the Climate Summit for Local Leaders hosted by the City of Paris and Michael Bloomberg, UN Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change. The Summit built on the ideas and efforts of the Compact of Mayors, which was established in 2014 by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Michael Bloomberg, in partnership with city-networks, to create pathways for a data driven framework for reducing local greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing resilience to climate change, while tracking their progress transparently. Currently more than 460 cities around the world are committed to the Compact of Mayors representing over five percent of the global population.

The Climate Summit for Local Leaders was instrumental in providing mayors from all over the world who are taking action in their community with the opportunity to come together to collaborate on policy, public engagement strategies and professional development to promote sustainability and progressive leadership. As a result, these leaders went back to their communities with a stronger commitment to implementing climate solutions, setting targets, and measuring progress.

As we turn toward implementing the Paris Agreement, we must recognize that climate change represents an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to society and the planet and requires the largest possible cooperation by all countries and the greatest possible action by all cities.

We also need to make sure mayors continue to look outward, to commit to the Compact of Mayors and work with cities near and far to reach the emissions standards set by the Paris Agreement and help to fill the gaps left by national commitments.

Our world faces many serious environmental challenges. We can meet them—but only if we act now.

LEED ON,

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Originally known as the Sonoma County Grape Growers association, SCW pushed for commission status in 2006. At that time, 1,800 growers voted to impose a self-assessment on the sale of their grapes, which meant that any vineyard in Sonoma County selling 25 tons or more would pay half of 1 percent to help fund SCW. “When the growers voted to do that, it became state legislation to create the commission, and growers vote every five years to continue the referendum,” says Karissa Kruse, SCW’s president, noting that the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) oversees the commission.

“From the very start, a lot of [SCW’s] marketing efforts and initiatives have revolved around the preservation of agriculture in Sonoma…. historically, this has been a farming community,” Kruse adds. Only in the last 60 to 70 years has the economic driver become viticulture, and many local growers have long family histories as farmers of prunes, dairy, apples, and other fruit trees. A major emphasis of the initiative is on continuing that legacy.

Top: Many of these growers have long family histories as farmers of fruit trees. Only in the last 60 to 70 years has the economic driver in the region become viticulture. Middle: The vineyards use a drip irrigation system, which is more efficient than conventional watering. Bottom: Shone Farms’ vineyard in Sonoma County

According to Kruse, the SCW thinks of sustainability in three parts: leaving the land in better condition than it was when initially settled, which includes protecting rivers, wildlife, and biodiversity so that it can be farmed long term; treating employees and neighbors with respect; and making it a sustaining business venture. “We want to be good members of the community and we want to give back,” says Kruse. “[The initiative] takes a triple-bottom-line approach to sustainability.”

To start, they looked at applicable existing programs. “We didn’t feel that we needed to start our own program from scratch. The best thing to do is use programs that have been well vetted by experts and already have a lot of credibility,” explains Kruse. Ultimately, they chose the model used by California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance (CSWA), which consists of 138 assessments (questions) or best practices that a grower must address. The program considers things like water conservation, soil and canopy management, protection and promotion of biodiversity, energy efficiency, employee benefits and training, and external communications, to name a few.

The initial phase of this effort focuses on helping grape growers ascertain and assess sustainable vineyard and business practices already in place. Then, a third-party auditor conducts a site visit to confirm they are doing what they claim to be doing. Those auditors are chosen by CSWA, and tend to be educated in fields like environmental science and biology. Once they approve a property—indicating it meets the sustainability criteria—the grower is certified as sustainable. To maintain certification, they must repeat the process every year. Of third-party participation, Kruse says: “It’s not enough for us to just say we are doing these practices. Instead we wanted to make sure there was an independent [auditor] who was reviewing what our growers were doing on their properties.” It confirms that what is happening on the vineyards is in keeping with the initiative’s goals.

Kruse stresses that transparency is critical to the initiative’s success, which will be accomplished through regular progress updates, an annual “sustainability report card,” and monitoring with a vineyard/winery real-time tracker on SCW’s website. The plan is to assess 15,000 vineyard acres per year for the next four years until every acre of planted vines is under assessment for sustainability status.

In two years’ time, approximately 60 percent of the vineyards have gone through the assessment process (it’s a five-year plan). In other words, Sonoma County’s vineyards have reached the halfway mark to becoming 100 percent sustainable by 2019. “We are way ahead of where we thought we would be at this point,” says Kruse. “Almost half of our vineyard acreage is certified sustainable. It’s pretty incredible.” She is quick to recognize the board and staff for their commitment to pushing the initiative through.

In general, Kruse says growers are very supportive. Any resistance is usually because they do not understand what is being asked of them. Typically, once things are made clear, they find they are already doing many of the things that qualify as sustainable. Other times, it is a lack of awareness or the fact that they may be less engaged in the grape-growing community, which requires greater outreach efforts on SCW’s part.

SCW sustainability efforts apply to both the vineyards and the wineries. “We took the lead on this from the start because if you want to have a sustainable wine, you have to start with the grapes…. That’s why there’s been such a strong push toward the vineyards,” explains Kruse. They have begun working with wineries, too, which have a different set of assessment questions based on energy efficiency, packaging, emissions standards, building materials, solar power, etc.

In terms of progress, SCW has been recognized globally for its efforts and has been invited to speak at some prestigious industry events including Wharton’s Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership’s Annual Conference. In time, Sonoma County labels will be synonymous with sustainably grown and made wines. “As a region, it has allowed us to become leaders in sustainable growing in the global wine industry,” says Kruse proudly. “We are really starting to be the example of how you commit to sustainability and make it happen.”

The weather station is located within Shone Farms’ vineyard in Sonoma County. The device monitors the rainfall totals, wind, humidity, temperature, and other aspects of weather conditions within the vineyard and sends the data to grape growers to help them make important sustainable farming decisions. 

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Clif Bar’s offices on 66th Street in Emeryville, California, are more than a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum testament to a sustainability commitment that began more than 15 years ago. It is a green building rich in biophilic design elements that have made for a happier and healthier workforce while the company has simultaneously grown into one of the biggest brands in the market.

Left: Located in Emeryville, Clif Bar’s new headquarters were designed by ZGF Architects.   Right: Bill Browning is a partner at the sustainability consulting firm Terrapin Bright Green and an expert in biophilic design.

Top: Clif Bar’s director of environmental stewardship Elysa Hammond. Below: The headquarters has a rock wall in its gym.

Working and playing outside is a cornerstone of Clif Bar’s identity. Founder Gary Erickson famously conjured the idea for a better-tasting energy bar during a 175-mile bike ride, and the bars quickly became bestsellers among cyclists, climbers, and the rest of the outdoors crowd after their introduction in 1992. But the company’s first serious sustainability pledge came after an uncertain time, when Clif Bar found itself among the many natural food brands targeted for corporate consolidation. Erickson rejected a buyout offer, and soon after, called old friend and ecologist Elysa Hammond to help the privately owned company make its products organic. “In that process, we realized we needed a holistic sustainability program—a systems approach that looks at the connections between food and agriculture, climate, energy, and natural resources,” says Hammond, now Clif Bar’s director of environmental stewardship. “Plenty of other companies have sustainability programs, solar arrays, and so on, but we made a commitment to organic agriculture as the starting point and moved forward from there.”

Clif Bar first announced its sustainability commitment on Earth Day 2001 and deployed sweeping measures across every facet of its business—from purchasing more than 630 million pounds of organic ingredients and earning organic certification for the majority of its products, to financing wind farms that offset the company’s carbon footprint and offering $6,500 toward the purchase of a hybrid vehicle (among other incentives) to encourage alternative modes of commuting. Along the way, publications from Fortune to Outside endorsed Clif Bar as one of the best places to work.

By 2010, that happy workforce had relocated from its original headquarters in Berkeley into its new home in Emeryville. Designed by ZGF Architects and housed within a repurposed World War II–era manufacturing plant, the two-story building is lined with an abundance of wood that is either salvaged from old barns and railroad ties or harvested from sustainable forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. A smart solar array provides about 80 percent of the building’s electricity, while a separate solar thermal system covers 70 percent of its hot water needs. Repurposed sports equipment abounds—skis, snowboards, and surfboards are refashioned as artwork, and logo-bearing pieces of bike frames are repurposed as door handles. An onsite café, Kali’s Kitchen, serves an ever-changing menu of food made largely from locally sourced organic ingredients. The building also includes other amenities for its 410 employees, like a childcare center, a full gym with a yoga room and rock climbing wall (where employees are paid to exercise 30 minutes a day), and an area for company-subsidized massages. On any given day, you will find at least a dozen dogs roaming the floor.

In 2012, the headquarters became the first LEED Platinum building in Emeryville. “Clif Bar is all about health, performance, and a connection with nature,” says Brenden McEneaney, director of USGBC Northern California. “It’s great to see how they embody those values by providing a healthy, productive space for their workers that has a lighter environmental footprint through LEED Platinum design.”

The building is also rich in biophilic design elements that conjure the outdoors to foster a more productive, content workforce. “For Clif Bar, it was a really natural fit because the connection to nature is a very strong part of their brand identity and corporate culture,” says Bill Browning, partner at the sustainability consulting firm Terrapin Bright Green and an expert in biophilic design. “It’s an expression of who they are, but it then has direct benefits for the health, well-being, and happiness of all the people who work there.” Low partitions lend the open floor plan a quality called prospect—an unimpeded view across the natural-light-soaked space—and allow workers’ screen-addled eyes to relax. The windows provide occasional glimpses of birds and wildlife, views that have restorative effects on focus and creativity. Plantings in the atriums and throughout the office evoke even more of the great outdoors.

Now, Clif Bar is finding ways of bringing the restorative power of nature to the up-to-code sterility of its bakery under construction in Twin Falls, Idaho. When it came time for Clif Bar to build its first bakery from the ground up, the company approached Browning to expand on its initial green design by adding biophilic elements into a 275,000-sq-ft space that was much more strictly regulated. Keeping a sterile environment, for example, means prohibiting plants, wood, and other natural materials in the kitchen, and the 3-shift, 24-hour-a-day nature of operations means the benefits that come with enhancing daylight disappear when the sun goes down. Nonetheless, Browning says, “Even in a sterile white box, there are still things you can do to introduce [a] connection to nature.”

That approach likely means doubling down on the same sorts of biophilic features evidenced in the common areas and break rooms of Clif Bar’s headquarters: a rock wall that mimics the strata of Idaho’s local geology, an outdoor community garden, and an outdoor walking path. “There will be a lot of these features that are very similar to what they’ve done at their headquarters, but almost on overdrive to compensate for what you can’t do within the sterile space,” Browning says.

Within the bakery itself, along with adding windows so workers can see the landscape outside, there are tentative plans to project a changing lineup of images shared on Clif Bar’s social media pages onto the bakery’s blank white walls. “It could be the Grand Canyon, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, biking in a forest, or on a kayak paddling through some other amazing, beautiful place,” Browning says, noting that data shows that simply looking at a picture of nature has many of the same psychological and physiological benefits as being in nature, like lowering heart rate and blood pressure. “The idea is that you have a view of nature inside the space.”

While it’s hard to attribute Clif Bar’s low turnover and generally buoyant disposition solely to natural light, or the luxury of stepping into an open-air atrium to take a phone call, those biophilic elements have an aggregate effect as part of a culture that puts sustainability at the forefront. Hammond relays an anecdote: “One woman [who works in Emeryville] said, ‘At the end of the workday, I used to always feel exhausted. But here, I don’t feel that—I feel refreshed.’” Maybe it is because it felt like she’d been outside all day. 

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The Academy hosts several programs and services, including a lecture series and energy conservation workshops.

Cramer felt that the Green Building Alliance, the local aligned chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), needed to get involved earlier in the process to help schools follow their green instincts. But, she says, “We had no way to be there at the right point and be seen as a trusted resource [to] help influence the decision-making process.”

Since 2008, the Green Building Alliance has been working with K-12 school leaders, students, outside groups, and citizens to help them create sustainable learning environments. The organization held green schools conferences during the first couple years of the effort, but even those events were not enough to create the deep relationships necessary for Cramer and her colleagues to effect change within the schools.

Then, in 2012, the organization launched the Green Schools Academy, a more formal partnership in which select schools work closely with the group. (The name was changed to the Green & Healthy Schools Academy in 2014.) The academy comprises several different programs and services, including a lecture series, energy conservation workshops, technical assistance, and help for schools participating in the Green Apple Day of Service, an initiative of the Center for Green Schools at USGBC. But at the heart of the academy is the two-year School Sustainability Culture Program, an immersive experience that brings stakeholders from six to eight schools (or districts) together for monthly meetings, with the ultimate goal of integrating sustainability into the schools’ buildings, curriculum, and culture. The idea is that schools will come out of the program not only with new knowledge, but also an increased focus on sustainability—so that whether they are building a new school or choosing cleaning supplies, they will do so from an environmentally friendly perspective at the start, rather than trying to green the project halfway through.

“We can’t be there every time a school has to make a decision,” Cramer says. “If we start out by building this really strong ‘why’ that is connected to their values as a school, they can’t unlearn that ‘why.’ From that point, they think about these values every time they do a building project, or they have to purchase new supplies, or they develop a new curriculum. It becomes a part of who [they are].”

“We wanted to create a program that would have a very big impact in a short amount of time,” Cramer adds. “Rather than trying to reach every school, we decided to focus on a few schools and make them models of what a healthy, sustainable school could look like.”

The program was so successful in the city of Erie, Pennsylvania, that the local school district created a new sustainability plan. Doreen Petri, chair of the science department at Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy (a magnet high school in Erie), says the plan has already led to big changes in the district’s elementary science curriculum, with kids at some schools planting trees, maintaining pollinator gardens, building birdhouses, and conducting energy audits as part of sustainability-focused units. After a pilot, Petri says, the superintendent wants to expand the curriculum changes to more schools.

Petri says that the new focus on sustainability will definitely last. “Many times, environmental initiatives are serviced by an after-school program or a club, but then when teachers switch schools or retire—when that champion teacher leaves—that program falls apart,” she says. “This is going to be part of our curriculum.”

Left, above: Guest speaker David Orr discusses the reality of climate change, how to talk to students about the climate, and his work with Oberlin College. Left, below: Workshop attendees receive a personal tour of the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, Center for Sustainable Landscapes. Right, above: Kirsten Christopherson-Clark, head of school of the Waldorf School of Pittsburgh, relies on the expertise of the Green Building Alliance. Right, below: Founded in 1993, the Waldorf School of Pittsburgh is housed in a Victorian-era mansion that is a city-designated historic landmark.

Kirsten Christopherson-Clark, head of school for the pre-K-to-8 private Waldorf School of Pittsburgh, says that participating in the academy’s culture program “was kind-of like having to stretch new muscles” in that it forced her to articulate her vision for the school more fully and clearly than she had before.

As a final project, the Waldorf School engaged its surrounding community in a place study. “We worked with students, parents, and neighbors to look at our campus and see what was there and imagine what could come,” Christopherson-Clark says. In one outcome of that process, a neighboring charity passed along grant money it had available for a “natural playground” featuring boulders and logs.

One benefit to the academy, Christopherson-Clark says, is that schools can continue to draw on the expertise of the Green Building Alliance even after they are done with the program. “The connection isn’t lost,” she says. “At any time, we know we can reach out and ask them for advice, bounce ideas off of them. The investment and the commitment to seeing your school succeed, it’s really genuine. It’s not one-and-done.”

Alumni Notes

“This program has changed the way I look at teaching, work with my students, and think about change itself. I came away with a whole different mindset and way to live my life.” –Kim Bliley, Teacher, Erie School District

“We’re already doing this sustainability stuff. We thought, ‘What can they teach us?’ In the program, we learned so much, and realize we have so much more to learn.” –Bob Gold, Facilities Director, Chartiers Valley School District

“The Culture Program transformed my leadership style and allowed me to support a change-agent mindset for my organization. We went from checking boxes, to getting an award, to changing hearts and minds.” —Nikole Sheaffer, Director of Innovation, The Environmental Charter School at Frick Park

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Those times with his father taught Fedrizzi a healthy respect for work. But more importantly, it gave him a deep reverence for the earth—what Fedrizzi calls his “ability to recognize that our biosphere needs to be respected.”

Under Fedrizzi’s direction, USGBC now leads a segment of the global real estate industry with an expected value of more than $3 billion by 2020. The catalyst for that growth has been USGBC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system. Currently there are LEED projects in more than 150 countries and territories, encompassing 14.4 billion square feet of space (including 4.5 billion square feet that is already certified).

Now, Fedrizzi has explored the role of construction in the future of the planet—in the context of how our country can reduce C02 and thrive economically—in his book, Greenthink: How Profit Can Save the Planet (Disruption Books). Proceeds of the book go to USGBC’s Project Haiti and Center for Green Schools initiatives.

Proceeds of Greenthink will go to the HOK-designed William Jefferson Clinton Children’s Center in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Proceeds also benefit the Center for Green Schools, which promotes global initiatives such as the annual Green Apple Day of Service. Bottom Photo: Ana L. Ka’ahanui

Leonardo DiCaprio, who calls Fedrizzi’s work “revolutionary,” lays out the potential peril to the earth in the book’s foreword, in which he states: “We are living during a period of change unprecedented in the history of our planet.”

In Greenthink, Fedrizzi demonstrates that environmentalism and profit-based business can do much more than simply coexist. They can work together in sublime, syncopated fashion, building on each other for the benefit of the planet and its people. As Fedrizzi writes in his book, “The most successful environmental organizations today work with business, to show them how much money they can save—and/or make—by transitioning to sustainable business practice.”

It is a matter, Fedrizzi says, of rising above the divisive mood of politics, learning how to collaborate, and staring down the old-school attitude that profit and environmentalism do not mix. In fact, business has the potential to succeed in environmentalism in a way that the government has not, he says.

Fedrizzi reflected on the global agreement to reduce global warming, reached this past winter, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. The unprecedented consensus was a big step forward, but now, Fedrizzi says, governments must ratify it.

“It’s the best intentions and the best strategy,” Fedrizzi says of the agreement, “but now the governments have to put their intentions into action.”

Fedrizzi says there is a clear way around the slogging nature of Congress today. “The real change won’t happen in the Paris conference rooms; I think it will happen in business boardrooms,” he says. “Business is the answer; incentives matter. We have to do it the right way.”

Environmentalists, he writes, have traditionally treated the business community as an antagonist, and with good reason. “For a long time, industry was the opponent,” Fedrizzi says. “Today the game has changed—completely. Sustainability is now profitable.”

He mentions businesses that are taking big steps with no urging by government. “Look at companies like Colgate-Palmolive, which has its own carbon-reduction strategies,” Fedrizzi says. “That’s exciting.” Other companies are linking with environmental nonprofits to act more sustainably, he says, such as the Environmental Defense Fund convincing McDonald’s to change its packaging.

The caveat: Such work must be third-party certified, to prevent greenwashing and incidents such as the Volkswagen debacle, in which the German carmaker admitted to cheating on emissions tests in the U.S. “I think everything must be data driven and transparent,” Fedrizzi says. “Everything needs to be third-party certified.” When third-party certification is in place—as it is for LEED through Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI)—consumers get solid information they need to make confident choices in the marketplace, he adds.

Fedrizzi mentioned the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB)—operated by GBCI—an industry-driven organization that assesses the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) performance of real estate assets around the world. Collection of real data, Fedrizzi said, means that sustainable assets then become a basis for large investors’ decisions for their portfolios.

This concept—incentivizing businesses to embrace sustainability—took root for Fedrizzi in the 1990s, when he was a marketing executive at Carrier. “When I was asked by the CEO to help green the company, I knew ozone was just one piece of the story,” he says. “We looked at the refrigerant, the packaging, recycling, transportation, acoustics, air quality, and thermal comfort. When you put that together, you’ve got a holistic story.” It was an enormous success. From there, Fedrizzi teamed with David Gottfried and Mike Italiano to create USGBC.

When USGBC was established in 1993, there were 13 member organizations, 11 of which represented business. “There were 13 members for a very long time,” Fedrizzi says. Today there are more than 12,000 member organizations. Buildings are a substantial piece of climate change, accounting for 40 percent of the world’s energy consumption and a third of all greenhouse gas emissions.

Fedrizzi predicts that in the next 10 to 20 years, LEED certification levels will rise and displace what we know as current building code. As the floor for what is acceptable rises, says Fedrizzi, everybody benefits. “And, at some point, we quit measuring sustainability in square feet; we begin measuring in buildings and entire communities. We have to keep our minds open and think about the context of what world we’re moving into.”

That is what is required, because climate change is such a massive issue, Fedrizzi says. It can be mind-boggling: “Peel back the onion one more time, and we discover another layer.”

“People think, ‘What could I possibly do?’ We could eat less beef, carpool, make better choices. There are so many things we could do, but we get paralyzed.” Setting ourselves on the right course, he says, boils down to education, inclusion, and collaboration. At the end of the day, it isn’t about worlds of government and industry sectors: “It’s all about the people.”

Greenthink implores environmentalists and millennials not to waste an opportunity to participate in what could be a new environmental movement. “Don’t ignore the marketplace,” he writes, “embrace it.”

“Profitability,” Fedrizzi writes, “is sustainable.”

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