This is to reminder that you are welcome to post your sustainable-city related events, initiatives, research & even questions & ideas for free DIRECTLY on SustainableCitiesNet.com!

SustainableCitiesNet.com is a communications hub as “a portal to the future of cities” that are ecologically, socially and culturally sustainable. It serves as a network and communication system to deliver information, to connect people and projects, to accelerate the city’s transformation across the world. For more information about this site please visit “About“.

To contribute a post click here and follow the instructions. If you have any problems posting your data please contact either:
Ferne Edwards, Project co-ordinator & site moderator, at fedwards @unimelb.edu.au or
Simon DAlfonso, Technical support, at dals @unimelb.edu.au.

SustainableMelbourne.com and the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab in association with the University of Melbourne’s Entrepreneurs Week would like to invite you to:

The Sustainable Cities Round Table on Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Tuesday 12 August night, 6 – 8pm
Copeland Theatre, Economics & Commerce Building
University of Melbourne
RSVP now to save your seat at rsvp @sustainablemelbourne.com

The challenge of climate change presents many opportunities for new sustainable ventures. Entrepreneurs working in this space are able to creatively develop innovative solutions that have environmental, social and economic benefits, yet like all entrepreneurial ventures it is not without risks. At this Sustainable Cities Round Table we will showcase examples of proactive entrepreneurs who have taken this step and bravely gone where no mainstream business has gone before!

The evening will feature a series of short presentations, musical interludes, networking opportunities and more!

Speakers include:
Nick Savaidis, Etiko Fair Trade;
Mitch O’Sullivan, Waterwall Solutions;
Samantha Parsons, Family of Sam design;
Alexi Lynch, Australia Manager, Cities for Climate Protection, ICLEI & Co-founder, the Environmental Jobs Network;
Cathy Parry, Owner of Ron D Swan: Bags and Cycling Accessories;
Bruce Rowse, Director, CarbonetiX;
Cam Hines, Co-founder & owner, Mountain Goat Brewery;
Elizabeth Boulton, Founder, Logistick – Sustainable Supply Chain Solutns;
Aldo Penbrook, Central Victorian Carbon Auditing Service.

The Sustainable Cities Round Tables are a regular series of events that showcase local environmental initiatives and encourage networking for people working in urban sustainability issues across the government, academic, industry and community sectors. To view footage of previous events visit www.sustainablemelbourne.com/category/sustainable-cities-round-table/.

Please forward this invitation to others who may be interested in attending.

Best,
Ferne

Ferne Edwards
Sustainable Cities Research Officer
Victorian Eco-Innovation Laboratory (VEIL)
Australian Centre for Science, Innovation and Society (ACSIS)

Please find information below about “The Playbook for Green Buildings and Neighborhoods: Strategic Local Climate Solutions”, originally published by the National Association of Counties.

The Playbook for Green Buildings and Neighborhoods: Strategic Local Climate Solutions, a web-based resource, provides strategies, tips, and tools that counties can use to take immediate action on climate change through: green building, green neighborhoods, and sustainable infrastructure. The Playbook is designed both for communities that are considering making the first steps toward these, as well as for those who want to take existing efforts to a new level.

This webinar from the National Association of Counties addresses how counties can put the Playbook for Green Buildings and Neighborhoods to use. This is just one of a series of webinars that NACo is offering through the Green Government Initiative.

Registration is required; the webinar will run from 1:30pm – 3:30pm Eastern time.

In addition to county case studies, this webinar will cover:
An explanation of the link between climate change and green building, neighborhoods and sustainable infrastructure
How to utilize the playbook, regardless of what stage your county is at
Additional resources available to assist your county in your efforts.

To find out more about this resource visit http://www.greenplaybook.org/.

THE FIFTH MAGRANN CONFERENCE
Date: April 16-17, 20091

Location: Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Climate Change in South Asia: Governance, Equity and Social Justice

Call for Papers
Climate change presents significant challenges for South Asia. While climate change is a global phenomenon, mitigation and adaptation are regional in character. Residents of agricultural and resource dependent areas increasingly face threats to livelihoods due to alterations in precipitation and temperature, such as the disruption of the South Asian monsoon. Concurrently, within South Asia’s dynamic and rapidly growing cities, the increasing frequency and magnitude of extreme climatic events may disrupt economic and social life. Although the effects of climate change on social and environmental systems are likely to be highly uneven (even between communities within South Asia), present trends in mitigation suggest that impoverished regions and populations may bear the brunt of these changes. This discrepancy is also evident in the ability to adapt and respond to climate change. Therefore, addressing climate change within the South Asian context will require new types of social institutions, cooperative responses and new forms of governance. In all cases, efforts to respond, mitigate, or adapt to climate change raise issues of equity and social justice, posing both challenges and opportunities for civil society.

We invite papers that address climate change issues within any country or region of South Asia. Preference will be given in paper selection to those that connect their topic to one or more of the broad conference themes of governance, equity, and social justice. Potential topic areas for papers include but are not limited to:

• Legal, Political, and Economic Frameworks for Responding to Climate Change
• Cultural, Social and Gender Implications of Climate Change
• Natural Resources Management and Land Use Practices Under Climate Change
• Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in Cities and Urbanizing Regions
• Implications for Agriculture Under Changing Climatic and Hydrologic Regimes
• Technological Responses and Innovations

Papers are solicited from established scholars, as well as recent PhDs and advanced graduate students. Partial support will be available to presenters to defray the costs of travel. Abstracts of 250 words or less should be sent to the conference organizers on or before September 15, 2008. Final papers (approximately 4,000-6,000 words) will be due by March 1, 2009.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

• Conference Email: magrconf@rci.rutgers.edu
• Conference Website: http://magrann-conference.rutgers.edu
• Conf. Organizers: Trevor Birkenholtz; Monalisa Chatterjee; Robin Leichenko; Martin Bunzl; Sumit Guha
• Conference Sponsors: Department of Geography, Initiative on Climate and Social Policy, and Office of International Programs, Rutgers University

http://www.climate-l.org

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), in collaboration with the United Nations Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) and the UN Communications Group (UNCG) Task Force on Climate Change, has launched a new tool for climate change policymakers. CLIMATE-L.ORG is a knowledge management project that provides news and information to decision makers on the actions of international organizations in responding to climate change.

In one location (http://www.climate-l.org) users can find the most up-to-date knowledge base on climate-related actions throughout the international community, and specifically with information on United Nations activities provided in cooperation with the UN system agencies, funds and programmes through the UN Chief Executives Board for Coordination (CEB) Secretariat and the UN Communications Group (UNCG) Task Force on Climate Change.

IISD’s Reporting Services team of Issue and Institutional Cluster Experts will provide a constant stream of articles and updates on international climate change activities that are organized and searchable by organization, issue area and the four UNFCCC “building blocks” for a post-2012 climate change regime: mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology. Policymakers following the Bali Roadmap negotiations can use this site to track progress in the various policy formulation streams. The CEB and international organizations will use this database to assist them in coordinating system-wide activities to combat climate change.

The CLIMATE-L.ORG initiative supports the work done by the UN Communications Group Task Force on Climate Change and the UN Department for Public Information to build the UN Gateway to the UN System’s Work on Climate Change http://www.un.org/climatechange/. CLIMATE-L.ORG’s focus is on information for policymakers (rather than the general public), providing more in-depth and policy-oriented materials of a political, technical and scientific nature that will assist the diplomatic and policy communities as they prepare a post-2012 agreement.

The CLIMATE-L list serve, which was launched by IISD in 1998, is celebrating its tenth anniversary as a primary communications mechanism for more than 15,000 professionals in the climate policy community. IISD Reporting Services will use this existing network to distribute a fortnightly electronic newsletter, CLIMATE-L Bulletin, which will contain the key précis and summaries posted to www.CLIMATE-L.org during the previous two weeks, along with guest articles on international climate change activities, written by the heads of UN and other international bodies. IISD will contribute a fortnightly analysis of global activities on climate change, focusing on the inter-governmental negotiations for long-term cooperative action around the areas of adaptation, mitigation, technology and finance.

Phase I (April - June 2008) of the CLIMATE-L.ORG project has been supported by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with special assistance from the CEB Secretariat.

For more information or to find out ways to support Phase II of the CLIMATE-L.ORG project, contact Kimo GOREE at kimo @iisd.org or visit http://www.climate-l.org

Please find an update from the Green Map headquarters below. The Green Map System, http://www.greenmap.org/, supports local Green Mapmakers as they create perspective-changing community ‘portraits’ which act as comprehensive inventories for decision-making and as practical guides for residents and tourists. Over 350 vibrant Green Maps have published to date, and hundreds more have been created in classrooms and workshops by youth and adults. To learn more about the Green Map System visit http://www.greenmap.org/.

An abstract from the latest newsletter from Green Map Systems:

Open Green Map on a Roll!

The enthusiasm is building as the Open Green Map project goes into full-scale production. Already a finalist in the NetSquared Challenge and presented at Beyond Broadcasting and Where 2.0 conferences, this inclusive, participatory social mapping website will put thousands of hopeful green sites from around the world on the map! Open Green Map will also share the public’s insights, images and impacts about each of these significant places.

Mixing social networking, familiar Google Map technology and Green Map’s award-winning iconography, Open Green Map will create a common platform for Green Mapmakers, Green Map users, and a global public that is becoming more and more adept at living green. Users of OGM will be able to select the themes they are most interested in, and explore the world from a fresh vantage point. They will also have quick access to the unique ‘traditional’ Green Maps published locally in each city, town or region.

We believe that every community has resources to help individuals build healthier, greener communities together. But up until now, too many people lack the awareness and access they need to find and connect with those resources. Open Green Map will energize the booming green innovation, ‘go local’, regeneration and ecotourism movements with social networking and interactive mapping, empowering widespread participation in critical local environment, climate and equity issues worldwide.

This season, a dozen dedicated staff members and interns in our New York office, alongside Green Map partners around the world, are hard at work (preview at OpenGreenMap.org). In July, we’ll open the site to our network of locally led Green Map projects. We’re targeting September for our public launch – you will be among the first to know the exact date!

To learn more about the Green Map System visit http://www.greenmap.org/.

Please find a snapshot below of one of the more recent posts from the Mount Alexander Sustainability Group in Australia, part of the Sustainable Cities Network. To view the original post visit http://masg.org.au/.

Please find a snapshot below of one of the more recent posts from SustainableSiliconValley.org, part of the Sustainable Cities Network. To view the original post visit www.SustainableSiliconValley.org.

Cities for Mobility is a worldwide network of local actors engaged in promoting sustainable urban mobility: It comprises almost 500 local autorities, public transport companies and partners from private business, science, education and civil society from over 60 countries from all world regions. The network has been created by the German Municipality of Stuttgart (Mayor Dr. Wolfgang Schuster) in 1999.

If you are interested in joining the network free of charge, please visit the “Documents” section of www.cities-for-mobility.net (”membership forms”) or write to cfm@stuttgart.de.

You are kindly invited to join existing project initiatives and to bring in new ones.

Currently the network members put special emphasis on the crucial issue of rising energy prices in the ending oil age. How will local authorities be able/enabled to guarantee in the future sufficient mobility services to their citizens at affordable prices? The rational use of energy, energy-efficient vehicles as e.g. bicycles or electric mobility (above all Light Electric Vehicles - LEV; http://www.pedelec.com/main.php?language=en) and the use of renewable energy sources in transport are among the most urgently needed and most promising solutions that are already available at present.

C4M members are invited to gather in Stuttgart at the yearly World Congress at the beginning of June (next event: 15-16 June 2009) or at Regional Congresses in other parts of the world.

Please find below a report about the ‘Edible Cities’ movement which was based on some urban agriculture projects a delegation from London, UK, visited in the US, supported by the US Embassy, as part of an exchange trip with Growing Power, Milwaukee.

The ‘Edible Cities’ report can be found here: http://www.sustainweb.org/page.php?id=432, and is available for free download.