Attachment 2
2022-2023 Sustainability Speaker Series Proposal
Prepared by the Sustainability Commission
June 2022
THEME AND TOPICS
This following proposal from the Sustainability Commission is for the 2022-2023 Sustainability Speaker Series (FY2023 Series). The Council currently has a Priority for Accelerating Climate Action. The Climate Action Playbook specifies Next Move 5.D to “Implement the Sustainability Speaker Series”. This proposal for the 6th year of the series will be coincident with the 2022-2023 update of the Climate Action Playbook Next Moves.
Up to four events will be selected from the seven proposed. Final speakers and dates will depend on speaker availability and City schedules. The proposed theme for the next series is “Food and Climate”. Food is a fundamental part of everyday life and something which every person needs. The state of California produces over a third of the US’s vegetables and two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts (https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statistics/), and the production of our food is intimately connected with changes in climate, as well as other equity issues such as climate justice and resiliency of farmworker communities especially in light of increasing heat waves and wildfires. In this series, we aim to explore different aspects of the relationship between food and sustainability, from soil and growth practices through harvest and preparation.
The topics proposed in Table 1 below are relevant to residents and businesses in Sunnyvale and are meant to both educate and motivate action. The Sustainability Commission Subcommittee has proposed topics and ranked them in priority order as shown in the first column of the following table. The table also lists potential event titles, speakers, and a brief description of the topics to be covered.
COSTS
The first five years of the Sustainability Speaker Series were funded through a project’s budget, set up specifically for the series. From Fiscal Year FY 2021/22 forward, the Sustainability Speaker Series is funded through the operating budget for the Environmental Sustainability Program in the Environmental Services Department. Costs for the series vary depending on whether the series is held virtually or in person. It remains to be determined if these events will be held in a virtual or in-person setting which could result in differences in how the budget is spent. Typical costs incurred for in-person events include fees for travel costs, refreshments and staff time for set up and take down of event space. Virtual events accrue costs from staff time, advertising and speaker fees. The adopted budget for FY 22/23 includes $25,000 for speaker series implementation.
Attachment 2
Table 1: Proposed Topics and speakers as ranked by the Commission on June 20, 2022
Commission
Rank Topic Event Title Speaker Title / Affiliation Description 1 Induction
Cooking
Plug In to
Induction Cooking:
Healthy Cooking
for you and the
Planet
Rachelle
Boucher
Chef and Founder,
Kitchens to Life
Induction cooktops are an electric alternative to gas
stovetops. Induction cooktops are more than 40% more
energy efficient than gas stoves and have better heat
control. Join professional chef Rachelle Boucher for a live cooking experience to learn about electric induction
cooking: a new safer, healthier, and higher-performance cooking alternative to natural gas – for cuisines of all kinds. The zero-waste and emissions-free meal will use
seasonal ingredients.
2 Community-
based
agriculture
Sustainable food
gardening in our
own backyards
Trinity
Tomsic
Chair, Garden to
Table Silicon
Valley
Garden to Table’s Taylor Street Farm is open to new and returning volunteers at least three days a week, with a mission to educate people how to grow their own food
and create a sustainable, just, and equitable local food system that builds community, improves access to
healthy foods, and teaches residents to cultivate their own fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Volunteers are
encouraged to harvest at each visit! This talk could
potentially involve a field trip to the farm and would be of interest to Sunnyvale residents who do not have access
to their own outdoor gardening space or consistent
schedules to be able to commit to a different model of
community garden.
Attachment 2
Commission
Rank Topic Event Title Speaker Title / Affiliation Description 3 Sustainable and
equitable
agriculture
How can grocery
shoppers
contribute to
agricultural
sustainability and
equity?
Sarah Taber
OR
Michael
Mendez
Crop scientist, ex-
farmworker,
author
Assistant
professor of
Environmental
Planning and
Policy, UC Irvine
No matter how much we shop at the farmer's market, we
all rely on some conventional farming foods. These
agricultural systems have serious sustainability (e.g., soil health, pesticides) and environmental justice (e.g., labor justice/equity) issues, especially as wildfire smoke and heatwaves become increasingly common. This speaker
will talk about the main issues in agriculture and what we as food consumers can do to move us all towards more
sustainable systems in California and the rest of the US. 4 School Districts,
Food, and
Sustainability
How Our Local
Schools Are
Fighting Climate
Change with
Healthy,
Sustainable,
Equitable Food
Options
TBD;
Potentially
Nicole
Meschi,
David
Tuttle,
Director, Student
Nutrition Services
(CUSD); Project
Manager for
District Farm to
School Program
(SCUSD)
Learn about how our local schools are serving our
community and children with educational efforts,
programs, and zero waste efforts. Practitioners will share an on-the-ground perspective of how schools play a
critical role in our sustainability and equity efforts
through food.
Attachment 2
Commission
Rank Topic Event Title Speaker Title / Affiliation Description 5 Food Recovery Let's Glean!
Keeping our
Neighbors Healthy
and Planet Clean
Oakland
Gleaners
Volunteer
Oakland Gleaners Gleaning is simply harvesting extra crops from farms and gardens to give to our neighbors facing hunger. Gleaning offers an opportunity for straightforward environmental and social wins- food waste on farms/gardens is reduced and supply of fresh food to those in need is increased.
Learn from the Oakland Gleaners, a group of volunteers
who pick fruit and deliver it to an Oakland food donation program.
6 Food Systems
and Climate
Resilience
Nature based
Solutions to Food
Resilience
TBD Santa Clara
County Food
Systems Alliance
How does the food system space intersect with climate
resilience? How is climate change impacting agriculture? Learn about how it's important to reduce food waste in
order to reduce methane emissions from landfills, how to supporting local/sustainable/ethical agriculture, and how to provide equitable access to healthy food.
7 Regenerative
aquaculture
Let’s eat kelp for
sustainability
Dune
Lankard
OR
Karen Gray
Eyak practitioner
of regenerative
ocean farming
California Reef
Manager,
GreenWave
The oceans, especially off the California coast, are home to many crucial ecosystems, store an enormous amount of
carbon, and are massively at risk from the effects of
climate change. They also represent a huge untapped
potential to meet the demands of the growing human
population. Speaker would potentially talk about how we can facilitate ocean farming in a more sustainable way, with a focus on using kelp aquaculture to support existing fisheries and rebuild damaged ecosystems.
Attachment 2
SCHEDULING
Up to four events will be spaced approximately every two to three months, coordinated by staff in consideration of speaker availability, staff time, budget, and other City events.
VENUE
The events held since January 2020 have been held in a virtual online environment due to the pandemic. Experience gained in hosting these events will allow flexibility for future events if, for whatever reason, an in-person event is not feasible. Online events allow more people to attend since seating capacity is not limited. When a return to in-person events is deemed safe, the Council Chambers is a first choice of venues because it allows for live broadcast on K-SUN TV as well as recording for later viewing. Other venues including the Sunnyvale Community Theater (capacity 200) and the Community Center Ballroom (capacity 300) are considered when a larger audience is expected. Refreshments will be provided at in-person events with a zero-waste goal.
PUBLICITY
The promotion and marketing of events will be similar to past series. It will include social media, email blasts, Sunnyvale Sun ads, and flyers posted at community businesses. With longer advance notice, the event notices could be printed in Horizon. Additional avenues for outreach to local schools, colleges and universities as well as the business/tech community should also be used.
VIDEO RECORDINGS
Each event will be videotaped and made available on the Community TV channel as well as on the City’s Sustainability website. If the venue is other than online or City Hall, some funding and coordination is needed for video recording services. If a particular speaker does not allow recording/posting of their talk, a summary of the key points will be written and posted online.
COMMUNITY FEEDBACK
Evaluation surveys will be administered, as done in past series, to collect feedback from attendees on the event experience, identify improvements, and gather suggestions for future topics and speakers.
HISTORY
For context, Table 2. below summarizes the history of prior Sustainability Speaker’s Series events.
The 2018-2019 series marks the shift between calendar year and fiscal year planning to align with Sunnyvale’s budgeting fiscal year.
Attachment 2
Table 2: Sustainability Speaker Series Event History since inception
Series
Year
Title Speaker Date General Topic
2017
Electrifying! Beyond Fossil
Fuels in Homes and Businesses
Pierre Delforge May 31, 2017 Buildings
Electrifying Our Transportation
System
Rod Diridon, Sr. Aug. 2, 2017 Transportation
Zero Waste Home Bea Johnson Aug. 30, 2017 Waste
2018
Drawdown: 100 Substantive
Solutions to Global Warming
Chad Frischmann Jan. 31, 2018 Climate
Solutions
Hidden in Plain Bite Katie Cantrell May 16, 2018 Food
The Power of Stuff Annie Leonard Sept. 26. 2018 Consumption of Resources
Home Energy: Taking Charge!
Panel Discussion
Tom Kabat,
Doug Kunz,
Dave Edwards,
Steve Schmidt,
Marianna
Grossman
Oct. 25, 2018 Home Energy
2019
(added to
2018 series)
Climate, Energy & Food: A
Recipe for Action
Dr. Eugene Cordero May 22, 2019 Carbon
Footprint
FY
2019-
2020
Electric Cars Demystified Jane Rosten, Marc
Geller,
Jim Barbera
Nov. 9, 2019 EV
Transportation
California's Rise to Water
Resilience: What will it take?
Felicia Marcus Jan. 29, 2020 Water
Less Traffic, Better Places: How
do we get there?
Patrick Siegman Mar. 11, 2020 Transportation
FY
2020-
2021
California’s Equitable Carbon
Neutral Future
Jarod Blumenfeld
Secretary of
California EPA
Dec. 3, 2020 Adaptation and
CA Climate
Policy
Sustainability goes to School Nik Kaestner,
Director of
Sustainability at San
Francisco Unified
School District
Jan. 30, 2021 Decarbonizing
Buildings
What Moves You - Active,
Shared and Electric
Transportation
Terra Curtis &
Meghan Weir
Principals at
Nelson/Nygaard
March 17, 2021 Decarbonizing
Transportation
Recycling – Beyond the Triangle Mark Bowers Former
Sunnyvale Solid
Waste Programs
Division Manager
May 19, 2021 Managing
Resources
Sustainably
FY
2021-
2022
This Old Zero-Emission House:
Climate Retrofits on a Limited
Budget
Sean Armstrong,
Zero Net Energy
Designer and
February 2, 2022 Decarbonizing
Buildings
Attachment 2
Managing Principal,
Redwood Energy
The Emissions that You
Purchase: Reducing Your Carbon
Footprint
Chris Jones, Director
of CoolClimate
Network, UC
Berkeley
March 16, 2022 Consumption-
based
emissions
A Changing Climate: Through the
Lens of Equity and Resiliency
Violet Saena,
Founder & Executive
Director, Climate
Resilient
Communities
June 8, 2022 Climate Change
and Health