Ep 51: Urban Greening with Sandra Albro (Holden Forests & Gardens)

06/05/20 • 60 min

In this episode, we focus on how we can beautify our cities while delivering environmental benefits through a process called urban greening. Urban greening refers to public landscaping and urban forestry projects that create mutually beneficial relationships between city dwellers and their environments. We discuss urban greening’s impacts on human health, what listeners can do to promote urban greening, what successful green infrastructure projects look like, and which cities boast the most green space (Scott guessed wrong on which cities were at the top of the list, so we think you’ll be surprised too!).

We’re joined by expert guest Sandra Albro, author of Vacant to Vibrant, a guidebook that explains how inexpensive green infrastructure projects can reduce stormwater runoff and pollution and simultaneously provide neighborhood amenities. In addition to being the author of Vacant to Vibrant and the Project Manager that oversaw the project, Sandra is also Director of Community Partnerships at Holden Forests & Gardens, Co-Chair for the Cleveland Tree Coalition, AND Project Manager for a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Urban Waters project (talk about impressive). Listeners everywhere are sure to enjoy this episode, hopefully as much as they enjoy their local green space. This episode is sponsored by Island Press and also Holden Forests & Gardens with generous support from the Great Lakes Protection Fund.

-----------------------------

Sustainability Defined is the podcast that seeks to define sustainability, one concept (and bad joke) at a time. Hosted by Jay Siegel and Scott Breen.

Each episode focuses on a single topic that helps push sustainability forward. We explain each topic with the help of an experienced pro, place it within our organizational tree, and help our listeners define what exactly sustainability is, episode by episode.

We have divided our organizational tree into the following seven sectors:

Energy

Cities

Natural Environment

Transportation

Business

Policy

Social

Each episode is categorized under one of our sectors and visually depicted within our organizational tree. The more episodes we complete, the more the tree will visually define what exactly sustainability means.

www.sustainabilitydefined.com

-----------------------------

Sustainability Defined is the podcast that seeks to define sustainability, one concept (and bad joke) at a time. Hosted by Jay Siegel and Scott Breen.

We have divided our organizational tree into the following seven sectors:

Energy

Cities

Natural Environment

Transportation

Business

Policy

Social

www.sustainabilitydefined.com

Previous Episode

Ep 50: Hospitals and Sustainability with Julie Moyle (Practice Greenhealth)

It's time for our first check-up on hospitals and sustainability. With coronavirus upending our way of life and infecting so many people, it's critical that our hospitals continue to operate. Sustainability ensures hospitals can continue operations in times of stress, and it also helps hospitals save money, reduce their impact on the environment, and make their communities more healthy. In this episode, we break down how hospitals can operate more sustainably and highlight some compelling examples from leaders like Boston Medical Center and Cleveland Clinic. We also have insights from someone well positioned to tell us about sustainability trends generally in hospitals, PLUS what it's like to administer healthcare first-hand with sustainability in mind. Julie Moyle is both the Member Engagement Manager at Practice Greenhealth and a Staff Nurse at Avista Adventist Hospital Ambulatory Surgery Center. No need to hang around the waiting room--come listen right now!

And in celebration of our 50th episode, we put together a Party Fact Guide! It's beautifuly designed with a compelling party fact from each of our 50 episodes. You can download it here: https://sustainabilitydefined.com/partyfacts

-----------------------------

Sustainability Defined is the podcast that seeks to define sustainability, one concept (and bad joke) at a time. Hosted by Jay Siegel and Scott Breen.

We have divided our organizational tree into the following seven sectors:

Energy

Cities

Natural Environment

Transportation

Business

Policy

Social

www.sustainabilitydefined.com

Next Episode

Atypical Ep 1: Racial Justice, Favorite Sustainability Articles & Listener Voicemails

This is our very first “atypical” episode. It’s gonna sound a little different than what we usually share, and we probably won’t do these too often, but hey, variety is the spice of life. So, first on this episode, we read a statement on racial justice. We’ve done a lot of reading and thinking over the past several weeks and wanted to acknowledge the fact that we have failed in a number of ways when it comes to racial justice. Our self-awareness and anti-racism have fallen short, and we’re coming to recognize the inherent shortcomings of a show hosted by two white, privileged men. We hope you’ll continue listening and growing along with us.

We then break down our favorite sustainability articles over the past few months. Jay even gives a couple video suggestions (Trevor Noah and Matthew McConaughey are involved in these).

Last, we play some voicemails that listeners left us where they explain who they are, what they heard on the show, and what action they have taken based on what they heard. This episode may be atypical, but we hope it has the trademark results of A) learning information that surprises/inspires you and B) shaking your head while laughing at bad jokes.

Read our full statement on racial justice at www.sustainabilitydefined.com/racialjustice

If you want to be on the show like the listeners we feature on this episode, leave a voicemail for us by calling 202-670-7357.