Sustainable Pittsburgh

Bike to Work Day 2024
2024-05-09 08:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Pennsylvania
Visit one of the Commuter Cafés on your way to or from work. Even if you work from home have the day off, the only requirement is that you arrive by bike! Join or renew your BikePGH membership in person and hear about what BikePGH has going on this year. Biking is better together, so bring a friend!

7 – 10 AM, stop by the Commuter Cafés in Market Square and Schenley Plaza for free coffee, breakfast, and to chat with other bike riders. 4 – 7 PM, meet at the evening Commuter Café at Aslin Beer in The Strip District Terminal for a free drink, snacks on BikePGH, and to chat about bike/ped updates coming to the area.

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2024 Environmental Justice Summit: Reflections, Connections, and Collaborative Action in the Pittsburgh Area
2024-05-09 17:30 - 2024-05-11 12:00 | Pennsylvania
Co-hosted by CPHP and the Cancer and Environment Network of Southwestern Pennsylvania.

The summit will address environmental health disparities, including cancer, due to environmental injustices and feature keynote speaker Sacoby Wilson. Multiple panels and activities throughout the day will engage attendees with community members, community organizations and academic researchers all interested in freeing ourselves and our communities from the environmental injustices that abound in our region. The summit includes a one-day academic symposium (May 10) with multiple community offerings.

Primary Goals

– To connect like-minded environmental justice scholars and practitioners

– To create a community of practice focused on addressing environmental injustices

– To offer community/healing events for people impacted by environmental injustices and/or working in environmental justice

Access Full Schedule & Speaker Information

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OpenStreetsPGH
2024-05-11 10:00 - 14:00 | Pennsylvania
OpenStreetsPGH is a free community event that opens miles of city streets for people to walk, run, bike, and explore spaces that would otherwise be used by motor vehicles.

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Lunch and Learn Series 2024: Your Health and Your Environment
2024-05-16 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual
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Building Up Heat Pump Contractor Networks: Lessons Learned from Massachusetts, Maine, and New York
2024-05-22 13:00 - 14:00 | Virtual
Easy access to qualified contractors is key to scaling up residential heat pump use. In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, it can be very difficult for consumers – even those highly committed to transitioning to high-efficiency, electric heating – to find a knowledgeable and skilled contractor.How can we transform the market to address this problem, especially as Pennsylvania rolls out its Home Electrification & Appliance Rebates and demand grows? We can start by learning from neighboring states who have made impressive headway on electrification.Join the Energy Efficiency Alliance for a webinar featuring speakers with expertise on New York’s, Maine’s, and Massachusetts’s residential contractor programs. They will speak to successes won and obstacles overcome in their programs, sharing lessons learned that other states can draw upon to formulate plans that work for them.

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Ignite Environmental Justice (Ohio Valley)
2024-05-22 17:00 - 21:00 | Whitted Media Content House, 507 Seventh Avenue, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, 15010
New Sun Rising and RiverWise invite you to receive support designing and pitching your community project.

Do you or your community envision a project that could improve health, climate resilience, and/or economic opportunity? Nonprofits, municipal leaders, and residents in Beaver County are encouraged to get support by attending an Ignite EJ workshop. Participants will be better informed about how Environmental Justice relates to their community project and accessing federal Justice 40 grants, while receiving support to develop and communicate their project plan.

The Environmental Justice designation identifies communities that are considered disadvantaged due to exceeding the burden thresholds established in one or more of the following areas: climate change, energy, health, housing, legacy pollution, transportation, waste & wastewater, and workforce development, and an associated socioeconomic burden.

Participants will be better informed about how Justice 40 and Environmental Justice relates to their community project as well as how to prepare for government funding opportunities. Learn more about our Justice 40 Opportunity Navigator and EJ census tracts in Beaver County here.

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Ignite Environmental Justice (Monongahela Valley)
2024-05-30 17:00 - 21:00 | TBD
New Sun Rising and RiverWise invite you to receive support designing and pitching your community project.

Do you or your community envision a project that could improve health, climate resilience, and/or economic opportunity? Nonprofits, municipal leaders, and residents in Allegheny or Beaver County are encouraged to get support by attending an Ignite EJ workshop. Participants will be better informed about how Environmental Justice relates to their community project and accessing federal Justice 40 grants, while receiving support to develop and communicate their project plan.

The Environmental Justice designation identifies communities that are considered disadvantaged due to exceeding the burden thresholds established in one or more of the following areas: climate change, energy, health, housing, legacy pollution, transportation, waste & wastewater, and workforce development, and an associated socioeconomic burden.

Participants will be better informed about how Justice 40 and Environmental Justice relates to their community project as well as how to prepare for government funding opportunities. Learn more about our Justice 40 Opportunity Navigator and EJ census tracts in Allegheny and Beaver County here.

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Open Streets Pittsburgh - The Historic Hill District to Northside
2024-06-29 08:00 - 17:00 | Pennsylvania
This event series is organized by Bike Pittsburgh, a non-profit organization that works on behalf of the Pittsburgh community to transform our streets and communities into vibrant, healthy places by making them safe and accessible for everyone to bike and walk.

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Cutting Costs and Emissions: Inflation Reduction Act Webinar featuring Rep. Houlahan
2024-07-16 10:30 - 11:30 | Virtual
Join this virtual event to hear from special guest speaker Congresswoman Houlahan along with other panelists on how the funds from the Inflation Reduction Act are bringing a whole range of benefits to Pennsylvanians, including of course solar energy. We will be learning more about how these funds will be implemented through the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority, what that will mean for solar projects around the state, as well as an in-depth look at how YOU can access tax credits to both save money and help protect our environment!

Co-sponsors: Conservation Voters of PA, Pennfuture, PennEnvironment, Reimagine Appalachia

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Watt Works? Industrial Process Electrification Summit
2024-08-01 08:00 - 15:00 | Pennsylvania
Are you ready to dive into the world of industrial process electrification? Join us at the Watt Works? Industrial Process Electrification Summit where experts in the field will share their knowledge and insights, as well as technology providers will showcase the latest in this field. This in-person event will take place on Thursday August 1, 2024 at DLC Woods Run Campus. Get ready to learn, network, and be inspired by the possibilities of electrifying industrial processes. Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity to be part of the electrification revolution!

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Economic Policy IS Environmental Policy - An Intro to Sustainable Economics
2024-08-14 18:00 - 19:00 | Virtual
PennFuture is embarking on projects that connect economic development and environmental issues in order to promote a healthy economy, healthy communities, and a healthy environment. This webinar introduces this work and breaks down our recently released report “Economic Policy is Environmental Policy: Prioritizing Environmental Progress in Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development”. This report outlines the ways that the DCED can be leveraged to support Pennsylvania’s transition to clean energy and how that transition can improve quality of life for communities and create family-sustaining jobs for workers.

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How Cities Can Take Advantage of Direct Pay
2024-08-22 14:00 - 15:00 | Virtual
The Inflation Reduction Act provides tax incentives for the production of and investment in clean energy through a tax credit monetization called elective pay, also known as “direct pay.” For the first time, these clean energy tax benefits are available to entities that have been historically excluded from claiming them—such as state and local governments, nonprofit organizations, and other tax-exempt entities like schools, hospitals, places of worship, and many more.Lawyers for Good Government have recently launched the Clean Energy Tax Navigator, a project-specific tool to help tax-exempt entities learn about elective pay eligibility and requirements.Local government officials and decision-makers are encouraged to register for an upcoming webinar on August 22nd at 2 PM EST to learn about the tool and ways to weave various funding sources to maximize clean energy project financing.

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Community Data Justice Collaborative Information Session
2024-08-23 12:00 - 12:45, 2024-09-13 12:00 - 12:45 | Virtual
This is an initiative of the Data Justice in Pittsburgh’s Black Neighborhoods project. Data Justice in Pittsburgh’s Black Neighborhoods is a project of the Black Equity Coalition (BEC) that aims to build decision-making power for Black Pittsburghers and those that have been most-impacted by residential segregation and disinvestment by creating public processes and public power over data as it is used, governed, and disseminated in the City of Pittsburgh.

The Community Data Justice Collaborative are residents nominated from the public and from community organizations that will engage in decisions that the City of Pittsburgh makes about data, technology, and policies that will serve as the foundation of the City’s emerging data governance process. The BEC will engage the Community Data Justice Collaborative and city data stewards in participatory activities to find consensus around how the city uses data and technology.

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Organizing 101 and Direct Action Training - PART 2
2024-08-31 10:00 - 2024-09-01 16:00 | Pennsylvania
Join fellow community justice and MOVEMENT members/LEADERS from across Southwest PA for a two-day intensive training on Organizing and Direct action to make change! Partake in a hands-on learning environment to empower leaders with tools, techniques, innovations and old-school best practices to generate deep community engagement.

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Skyrocketing PJM Capacity Market Prices: What Happened and How Can We Fix It?
2024-09-09 13:00 - 14:00 | Virtual
At the end of July, power grid operator PJM experienced record-high costs to secure the electric grid capacity needed to ensure stable operations. Prices spiked, yielding a 9-fold cost increase for the 13-state territory, saddling consumers with a $15 billion bill for 2025-2026. These record costs for capacity expose serious implications for the reliability of the system, as well as increasing costs for all electricity consumers.

Get the real story on the drivers behind the price spike, including the difficulty in bringing new capacity online in the PJM region and the lack of reliability from natural gas generation. We’ll cover the interconnection queue, fossil vs. renewable energy sources for reliability, transition planning, and related FERC orders (1920, 2222, 2023) to help you understand what’s happening and what steps can be taken to solve this challenge.

Featuring:

–Jon Gordon, Director, Advanced Energy United

–Tom Rutigliano, Senior Advocate, Climate & Energy, NRDC

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RISE PA: A Game Changer for Industry and Union Labor in Pennsylvania
2024-09-11 12:00 - 13:00 | Virtual
Join Evergreen Action, Ohio River Valley Institute, PA DEP, Conservation Voters of PA, and labor and industry groups to discuss a game-changing Pennsylvania pollution reduction program that will create upward of 6,000 new jobs! You’ll hear from:

– Louie Krak, Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator, PA Department of Environmental Protection

– Rob Bair, President, PA Building and Construction Trades Council

– Katie Blume, Political and Legislative Director, Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania

– Jeff Mauk, Director, Policy Network, Eastern Region, CERES

– Joanne Kilgour, Executive Director, Ohio River Valley Institute

By tackling the state’s biggest source of climate pollution, RISE PA will make sure Pennsylvania residents experience improved air quality, along with more good-paying job opportunities. But to effectively do so, potential applicants need to start thinking now about their application and potential partners.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn more about RISE PA and how it will help businesses and communities like yours thrive.

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IRA Tax Credits for Local Governments and Other Tax-Exempt Entities
2024-09-23 19:00 - 20:00 | Pennsylvania
Presented by the SWPA Municipal Project Hub

Presentation and discussion of the Impact of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) Tax Credits on Local Governments and Other Tax-Exempt Entities by representatives of the United State Department of the Treasury and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Governor’s Office, Critical Investments.

The IRA’s Elective Payment provision (also called Direct Pay) creates a generationally unique funding environment for tax-exempt entities (including local governments, school districts, nonprofits, faith-based organizations) considering novel and clean energy projects (solar, geothermal, heat pumps, hydro). Organizations pursuing these projects – having completed them – can apply to the IRS and receive the value of the Tax Credit associated with the investment in the form of a direct check from the US Treasury. That payment could be between 30-50% of the value of the energy project.

Representatives from the US Treasury will present this opportunity as it affects local governments and other tax-exempt entities. Representatives of the Governor’s Office, Critical Investments will comment on plans the Commonwealth is pursuing to maximize the value of these Tax Credits in and to the Commonwealth.

A Q&A and discussion period will follow the presentation. Please note that this event will be held in person and virtually. Please note your attendance type during registration.

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Week Without Driving PGH
2024-09-30 00:00 - 2024-10-06 23:59 | Pennsylvania
Whether we live in suburban towns or city neighborhoods, everyone in Allegheny County deserves safe, reliable, dignified access to the places we need to go. Across the county, 30% of the population does not drive a car.

The Week Without Driving is a nationwide movement to link the needs of disabled individuals and people of all ages with environmental movements and accessible community planning. Together, we will illustrate challenges and opportunities for non-drivers and call for change that improves mobility for all.

Join Pittsburghers for Public Transit, Access Mob Pittsburgh, BikePGH and AARP Pittsburgh in pledging to take a Week Without Driving, and call for true mobility options for all in Allegheny County. You can participate as an individual, organization or elected official.

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2024 Commonwealth Sustainability Week
2024-10-07 12:00 - 2024-10-11 13:00 | Virtual
Provided by: PA GreenGov Council and Penn State Sustainability

Join us for the fourth annual Commonwealth Sustainability Week! The week’s events will feature daily webinars, each featuring subject matter experts followed by an open question & answer discussion providing folks the opportunity to share their questions and receive feedback in real-time.

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Municipal Leadership Summit
2024-10-10 08:00 - 2024-10-13 17:00 | Scranton, PA
Presented by the Pennsylvania Municipal League.

Elected and appointed officials from the Pennsylvania Municipal League, the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Commissioners, and the Pennsylvania Career Fire Chiefs Association convene for the Municipal Leadership Summit.

Officials taking part in the Summit will share resources and innovative ideas, discuss issues of mutual concern and participate in a wide array of educational and professional development sessions designed to address the ways and means of meeting pressing challenges of municipal management and good governance.

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Climate Reality Leadership Corps
2024-10-17 08:00 - 2024-10-23 17:00 | Virtual
Provided by: Climate Reality Project

Join former Vice President Al Gore and The Climate Reality Project for a special online leadership training October 17-23 and discover how together we can build a more perfect union for our nation and a better tomorrow for our planet, powered by clean energy.

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Pittsburgh Regional Carbon Capture Conference
2024-10-22 08:00 - 12:30 | Washington & Jefferson College, 60 South Lincoln Street, Washington, PA, United States
Provided by: W&J Center for Energy Policy and Management

Join industry leaders, policymakers, researchers, and innovators at our upcoming carbon capture conference. This event offers a comprehensive overview of the latest advancements, strategies, and solutions in carbon capture, utilization, and storage technologies.

Attendees will have the opportunity to engage in thought-provoking discussions and network with professionals working in the carbon capture space.

Whether you’re a seasoned expert or new to the conversation around carbon reduction, this conference will equip you with the knowledge, connections, and inspiration needed to discuss carbon capture and its impact on Appalachia.

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ReImagine Appalachia: connecting students to our story a case study in community engagement and action
2024-10-29 14:00 - 15:00 | Virtual
ReImagine Appalachia, Healing the Land and Empowering the People, is available for educators and students to learn about how we moved from ideation to action, and how we are moving our region forward as a leader in economic diversification and policies that benefit communities, workers, and the environment.

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Environmental Justice Candidates Forum 2024
2024-10-30 17:00 - 20:00 | Jacob Woll Pavilion – Renzihausan Park, 2300 Eden Park Blvd., Mckeesport, Pennsylvania, 15132
412 Justice is hosting their 2nd annual Environmental Justice Forum. Come out to meet and understand Candidates’ views, strategies and priorities on Environmental Justice.

As they Confirm Candidates we will be sure to add the list here.

There will be transportation, childcare and an interpreter (by request). So be sure to RSVP so that they can ensure accommodations for all attendees.

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Resilient Rivers: Flooding Solutions and Creative Design
2024-11-02 10:00 - 11:00 | Carnegie Science Center | Science Stage, 1 Allegheny Ave, Pittsburgh, 15212
Provided by: Riverlife

Join Riverlife and a panel of experts to explore how innovative flood risk management, ecological restoration, and public art are shaping the future of Pittsburgh’s riverfronts. Hear from Jennifer Cristobal of the Army Corps of Engineers, the artists of Sans Facon, and Riverlife’s team as they discuss nature-based solutions, resilient climate strategies, and creative ways to connect communities with the rivers.

FREE and Open to the Public

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Data Justice for Pittsburgh’s Black Neighborhoods: Project Launch
2024-11-14 17:30 - 19:30 | The Kingsley Association, 6435 Frankstown Ave, Pittsburgh, PA|PA
Join the Black Equity Coalition’s Data Justice Working Group to explore how data can be harnessed to build power, promote equity, and drive meaningful change in our neighborhoods.

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Scenic Symposium 2024: Scenic Beauty Through Action and Advocacy
2024-11-18 08:00 - 2024-11-20 12:00 | Drury Plaza Hotel Pittsburgh Downtown, 745 Grant St, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15219
Provided by: Scenic America and Scenic Pittsburgh

Join Scenic America and Scenic Pittsburgh for a three-day exploration of how we are creating scenic beauty through advocacy, legislation, and community action. Hosted at the Drury Plaza Hotel Pittsburgh Downtown, the event will feature a full day of programming around scenic conservation, a guided tour through Pittsburgh’s most scenic locations, and more opportunities for networking, education, and brainstorming for scenic action.

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Sustainable PA Conference
2024-11-20 08:00 - 2024-11-23 17:00 | The Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center, 215 Innovation Boulevard, State College, PA, United States
Provided by: Pennsylvania Municipal League

Join from November 20-22 at the Penn Stater in State College, Pennsylvania, for an inspiring and transformative conference that showcases the best in sustainability and resilience! This year, we are thrilled to feature keynote speakers from the vibrant sustainable host community of State College, PA, who will share their groundbreaking insights and experiences.

Dive into interactive workshops and sessions designed to enhance your understanding of resiliency and equip you with practical skills for implementation. Expand your professional network through invaluable opportunities to connect with leading professionals and advocates in the municipal sector.

Explore a variety of exhibits spotlighting innovative sustainable products and services, and gain firsthand experience with guided tours of cutting-edge sustainable facilities in Ferguson Township and State College, PA.

Don’t miss this chance to be at the forefront of sustainable development and make meaningful connections in a community dedicated to a greener future.

View event details and agenda here!

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Watts and Learn: Solar Tariffs and Inflation Reduction Act in 2025
2024-12-13 12:00 - 13:15 | Pennsylvania
For the December Watts & Learn, join for a fireside chat to discuss potential changes to the Inflation Reduction Act and solar tariffs under the new federal administration. Sharon Pillar, PA Solar Center Founder and Executive Director, will be joined by Becky Campbell, Senior Director of External Affairs for Leeward Renewable Energy, and President of the Board of Directors at the PA Solar Center.

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