What does community sustainability mean? How does my municipality achieve sustainability? There are many paths you can take toward community sustainability. This seminar will address those paths via several different presentations. A moderated Q&A session with the panelists will follow the presentations, and we’ll end the seminar with a facilitated discussion on community-based carbon offsets.

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Our panelists include:

• Douglas Smith, Sustainability Planner for the City of Lancaster, will discuss how they became a Platinum Sustainable PA community and how their program has evolved to include greenhouse gas inventorying, climate action planning, and other sustainability initiatives.
• Dr. Peter Buckland, Vice Chair of the Ferguson Township Board of Supervisors and Academic Programs Manager at Penn State’s Sustainability Institute, will talk about how he built understanding and good will with key allies to lay the groundwork for green building, climate action planning, and long-term sustainability policy in Ferguson Township and the Centre Region.
• Stacy Richards, Director of the Energy Resource Center for SEDA-COG, will speak about how she has worked with several communities in Central Pennsylvania to reduce their dependence on costly fossil fuels, decrease greenhouse gas emissions, attain greater energy security, retain wealth within the region, and create new businesses and living wage jobs to produce products and services focused on energy independence.
• Heidi Kunka, Director of USGBC Central Pennsylvania, will share information about the new LEED for Cities program, in which communities can track their performance in water, waste, energy, transportation, as well as human experience and eventually receive a certification.