REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Approve the Fiscal Year 2021/22 Sustainability Speaker Series
Report
BACKGROUND
In June 2016, City Council approved Budget Supplement No. 7 (Attachment 1) to create and conduct a Sustainability Speaker Series (hereafter "Series"). The Supplement provided $25,000 annually for five years, from FY 2016/17 through FY 2020/21, for a total amount of $130,855 (adjusted for inflation each year after the first approved budget). The funding supported the implementation of two to four events each year. Funding for the FY 2021/22 Series was included with the adoption of the Climate Action Playbook implementation budget.
The Series is led by a Subcommittee of the Sustainability Commission consisting of Chair Wickham, Vice Chair Kunz, and Commissioner Padgett, which proposes the topics and identifies potential speakers. City Council approves the Series topics. Staff provides logistical support for implementing the events.
The FY 2020/21 Sustainability Speaker Series was approved by Council on February 4, 2020 (RTC No. 20-0180) and included four topics:
1. California's Equitable Carbon Neutral Future (Jared Blumenfeld, California Secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency), December 2020
2. Carbon Neutral Portfolio: From Vision to Strategy (Nik Kaestner, Former Director of Sustainability at San Francisco Unified School District), January 2021
3. Decarbonizing Transportation: From Policy to Progress (Terra Curtis and Meghan Weir of Nelson/Nygaard), March 2021
4. Talkin' Trash: Myths and Realities of Recycling and Materials Management (Mark Bowers and Karen Gissibl, Sunnyvale Environmental Services Department), May 2021
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all events in FY 2020/21 have been scheduled to be online webinars (via Zoom). All events will be streamed live online via YouTube, and video recordings will be publicly accessible on the City's Sustainability Speaker Series webpage following each event.
The one event completed to date had...
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