Final Agenda – INSS Annual Conference
April 8-10, 2015
UNC Charlotte Site – Charlotte, North Carolina
This year, in an effort to reduce travel impacts, we are experimenting with a novel hybrid conference model. Several “nodes” are available for participants to gather and engage with us:
UNC Charlotte, Charlotte, NC
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Oregon State Univ. Cascades, Bend, OR
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
University College London, London, UK
Some sessions will be for local attendees only, but many of the sessions, including the keynote session, will be shared during on-line connections times.
All sites will be exploring the intersection of infrastructure and social sustainability. Through our keynote presentation and the infrastructure sub-themes each site has elected to emphasize, we will consider the ways in which we understand, study, and create linkages between infrastructure and social sustainability.
At the UNC Charlotte site in Charlotte, NC, we will focus on water infrastructure and use Charlotte’s sustainability initiatives as a lens through which to compare social sustainability aspirations and accomplishments as Charlotte plans, designs and grows. We have a rich and stimulating agenda for attendees this year, and we welcome you to join us for these sessions.
| Wednesday, April 8, 2015 (red denotes events simulcast across all sites) |
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| 6:00 pm |
We are what we eat, and what we build. Richard J. Jackson, MD, MPH The human species faces grave challenges in terms of environment, economy and health. Cheap resources have disappeared due to increased world population and a large emerging middle class. The CO2 level of the planet has climbed from 300 ppm to 400 ppm, leading to increased amounts of energy and moisture in the atmosphere, and thereby requiring more resilient places to live and work. Medical care costs will continue to escalate not just because of population aging and new technology, but because of the tripling of obesity and doubling of diabetes rates. Piecemeal solutions will fail; solutions must confront challenges across many domains. We need places—homes, buildings, spaces—that bring comfort and foster health at a personal and population level. The presentation will show how good design and building protect and promote health. We can have personal and community health by decreasing fossil fuel use and increasing healthy physical activity, access to daylight, healthy food and air. |
| Thursday, April 9, 2015 (red denotes events simulcast across all sites) |
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| 9:00 am | Addressing the Grand Challenges of Sustainability discussions with coffee |
| 10:00 am | Brunch buffet |
| 11:00 am | Formal Welcome and Site Introductions (all sites) |
| 12:00 pm |
Keynote speaker: Adjo A. Amekudzi-Kennedy, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Tech (all sites) Infrastructure Investment to Create Enduring and Human-Centered Wealth: A Capital Asset Management Theoretic and Analytical Framework Viewing the development of towns, cities, nations and regions through the lens of a capital asset management theoretic framework can tell us different stories about the holistic management of capital to create human-centered wealth. This talk presents a capital asset management theoretic framework and analytical model for conceptualizing and evaluating sustainable development. Sustainable development is modeled as a function of an entity’s capital stocks, and the rates of use of these stocks to generate human-centered capital, relative to their rates of regeneration. The framework is applied to selected nations to explore sustainable development risks and opportunities relative to dynamics in human, economic and environmental capital, and to envision infrastructure investment alternatives to create enduring and human-centered wealth. |
| 1:15 pm | Break |
| 1:30 pm | Cross-site shared activities (select one to attend in person or join online): |
| Bend: Communities of Well-being, Eco-wellness, and Building sustainable mental health systems | |
| Charlotte: Planning for Social Sustainability Using the premise that social sustainability is most useful as a process rather than a set of objective criteria, several INSS investigators will guide attendees through considering how groups can engage in making and sharing each other’s plans to better understand how different “sustainabilities” across different organizations and interest groups complement and contradict one another. We will have the opportunity to grapple with how to help previously disparate groups begin to internalize each other’s priorities. |
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| Lansing: Sustainability, Transdisciplinarity, and Infrastructure in Detroit | |
| London: Building the Engineering Exchange: experiences and lessons | |
| Phoenix: Six major themes/issues related to social sustainability that we are pursuing at ASU | |
| 3:10 pm | Cross-site presentation session (all sites) and heavy appetizers |
| Presenters at all sites will be available (online and in person) to discuss their presentations, which will be available online ahead of time in some format. | |
| 3.30 pm | Panel: Queen City Social Sustainability Initiatives: Charlotte-area leaders discuss their efforts to engage with social aspects of sustainability. Confirmed panelists: Shannon Binns, Founder and Executive Director, Sustain Charlotte Marcus Carson, Environmental Sustainability Manager for Mecklenburg County Candace Taylor Anderson, Director of Sustainability, Belk Stores, Inc. Michael Lizotte, Sustainability Director, UNC Charlotte |
| 4:30 pm | Small group discussions: Each of our sustainability leaders will help guide us through a discussion about their particular area of sustainability engagement. |
| 5:15 pm | Break |
| 5:30 pm | Small Group Debriefing |
| 6:00 pm | Dinner, Reception and Panel Discussion We are partnering with the Keeping Watch on Water: City of Creeks initiative to offer a panel with members who reflect the different lenses through which Charlotteans view our local rivers. Just as in the ancient fable of five blind men who each discover a different part of an elephant and then proceed to describe five vastly different creatures, stakeholders in river conservation also often encounter each other with different values and language. Conservationists come from a variety of disciplines and derive their expertise from a wealth of sources including culture, history, technical training, spiritual education or direct experience. However, sometimes disconnects in values and language can make it challenging to align on objectives and proposed policies. Conservation efforts seem like an endless tug of war between landowners, industries, regulators, environmentalists, citizens and others who engage in the debate. This panel discussion will seek to discover contradictions and complementarities in the various visions of sustainability that are held by engineers, policymakers, river dwellers, and citizens. |
| Friday, April 10, 2015 (red denotes events simulcast across all sites) |
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| 8:00 am | Breakfast |
| 9:00 am | Case studies: International sustainability initiatives: planning for disasters using culture and social relationships (Santa Cruz, Serrano Lazo, Arora) |
| 9:50 am | Case studies: US and North Carolina sustainability research: engaging locals in sustainability efforts (Hjarding, Griffith, Boyer) |
| 10:45 am | Break |
| 11:00 am | Social sustainability initiatives in planning and engineering organizations: We will hear from representatives from several national organizations about their sustainability efforts. Panelists: Rachelle Hollander, National Academy of Engineering Robert Kerns, American Planning Association Richard Wright, American Society of Civil Engineering |
| 12:30 pm | Cross-site conference conclusion |
| 1:00 pm | Lunch |
| 3:00 pm | Experience the Butterfly Highway and learn about neighborhood research in Charlotte, NC Come spend the afternoon with the Butterfly Highway and experience an urban research project that connects underserved urban neighborhoods through citizen science and neighborhood beautification. The Butterfly Highway is a community based project that aims to increase the number of butterflies and pollinators in Charlotte, NC. This will be done through planting native pollinator gardens in resident’s yards and public spaces. The project also trains residents to become citizen scientists through a community based butterfly monitoring program. We will visit one of the neighborhoods participating in the project and take an urban hike along the Stewart Creek Greenway. You will also get the opportunity to participate as a citizen scientist and help collect butterfly observations along the way. We will travel to the neighborhood using public transportation and will walk back to the UNC Charlotte center city campus. The walk is approximately 3 miles (alternative transportation will be provided for those needing it). |
| 6:00 pm | End of conference |
