A quick plug: With face-to-face networking on hold, we’re helping clients manage both individual and brand social media accounts to grow their networks and generate opportunities. If you’d like more details, please contact us.
Now, onto this month’s thought leadership...
WASTING AWAY WITH PRISONS
Are you aware of the link between waste management and prison labor? Aditi Varshneya, zero waste communities coordinator at GAIA US Canada, highlights how prison labor is being used to prop up our failing waste system. She argues that public and private entities benefit financially from the extremely low-cost labor of inmates, a practice with direct roots to policing practices that essentially re-enslaved Black people in the South following emancipation. "The systems that create prisons and pollution may seem so calcified in society that dismantling them feels unthinkable, but both zero waste and abolition are also about growing the presence of better systems that make their harmful predecessors obsolete," she wrote.
On Medium, 1900 words
Want To Eliminate Waste? Then Let’s Eliminate Prisons, Too.
LET’S GET UNCOMFORTABLE
Jarami Bond, architecture and design market manager with Teknion, called on the sustainability community to do more to cultivate an inclusive, equitable and safe world. If not sustainability professionals, he asks, who will? He offers a list of 11 concrete actions that can help support justice and restoration for the Black community. "If you really want to be a part of the change, it’s time to get uncomfortable. It’s time to expand your social and professional circles," he wrote.
On GreenBiz, 800 words
How Sustainability Professionals Can Uplift the Black Community
URBAN PLANNERS UNITE
In the wake of the devastating wildfires in Australia, a new coalition is organizing to advocate for a “proactive, progressive and feasible response” in the field of urban planning. The founding members of Planners Declare write that the profession does not have all of the answers to the ecological crisis the planet faces, but that it should be a vehicle for positive change, rather than a “safe keeper of the status quo.” The group says it aims to hold planners accountable for their actions, while also supporting good work. “[W]e recognise the delicate circumstances planners face either at the behest of politics or a client. We therefore want to say: we see you and you are not alone,” they wrote.
On The Fifth Estate, 900 words
The Planners Declare Movement Is Here
THERE’S A SERVICE FOR THAT
Many professionals and organizations recognize the value of a strong social media network for distributing messaging and developing relationships. But many don’t have the time, knowledge or human resources to manage it effectively. Two short case studies show how contract social media management by and for sustainability professionals can convey the benefits of a strong social media presence.
From New Growth Communications, 350 words each
Case Study: Individual SM Account Management
Case Study: Brand SM Account Management
Free Download For You (PDF)
21 Green Building Publications That Want Your Articles
Includes descriptions, rankings and tips on submission
RESOURCES
Here is a database of environmental and climate justice professionals who are also people of color. It’s linked to a similar listing of consultants working in anti-oppression, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Great resources to help expand your professional network.
The Diverse Environmental Leaders Speakers Bureau offers to help "shift the environmental conversation in America to become more inclusive and equitable at all levels."
Founded in 1980, The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond is respected for its anti-racism trainings and community-organizing workshops.
The Equitable and Just National Climate Platform aims to create a bold vision (ahead of the 2020 election) for a healthy climate and air quality that includes every community in the solution.
Launched in 2018, the NAACP’s Centering Equity in the Sustainable Building Sector (CESBS) initiative offers reports, a toolkit, webinars and a monthly working group that’s developing a model to ensure equity in all aspects of sustainable development.
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Please take care of yourself and your neighbors.
Bart King
