Week Five

This week was focused on the relevant case studies presented at the SPLC's Summer Summit. We met briefly to discuss the ones that may be interesting for us to learn from in proceeding in our project. From this, I read over some of the case studies that we had decided upon. I made notes on these topics as well as picking out highlights from them. There were case studies ranging from ways to consume less paper up and down the supply chain as well as how to integrate responsible mining into procurement agendas. I also attended a webinar with Mr. Bruskotter regarding Green Peace's work on sustainable palm oil. From the webinar, I learned that they work in engaging collaboration with their suppliers to carry out best practices during the extraction process.

This week also marked the first staff meeting that I was invited to attend. The meeting started off with brief snippits of what was going on in our personal lives before we attended to the business side of things. Garrett and Mikael, two of the members of the climate action team, presented the almost final version the city's Climate Action Plan. They found that they reduced overall emissions of 19.8 percent from the previous action plan. One of their largest setbacks was in the city's Big Blue Bus program as there was an increase in use of single-mode transportation due to lower gas prices. While gas has been reached an all-time low in recent years, the city hopes that pushing for reductions in emissions across the board will encourage residents to become a part of their reduction goals. We went around the table discussing our various projects. The meeting ended with the update from our Chief Sustainability Officer, Dean Kubani, who discussed his meeting with the City Manager and his desire to make major changes regarding impact of the city's offices across the board.

Week Four

This week consisted of more work regarding the professional services and goods excel sheet. While doing so, Mr. Bruskotter went through some of the services with me and helping me get a better understanding of where the city was looking to grow in terms of becoming greener along the supply chain. From our discussion, I learned that the city was looking to grow in one of the sectors that is generally not accounted for when doing their greenhouse gas emission inventory, scope 3 emissions. Scope 3 emissions are defined as indirect emissions not included in the consumption of electricity of Scope 2 emissions. This can include activities such as the extraction of production materials and transportation of services not determined by the reporting agency.

Mr. Bruskotter then sent me to the links of the case studies from the summit he attended in Washington D.C. for the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council. He told me to take notes on the ones that seemed interesting to me. From the studies, one of the ones that stuck out to me was the Greening the Fleet study by the City of Portland. When I was combing through the professional services and goods of the city's purchases, I found that a large sector was dedicated to the transportation sector. I found that the City of Portland was able to successfully reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by implementing hybrid technology into their vehicles as well as complementing these changes with electric vehicles. The City of Santa Monica has similarly implemented some of these changes and are looking to go even further by instituting the improvements set forth by the EPA in regards to their SmartWay transit program. The SmartWay transit program looks to reduce transportation-related emissions which have harmful effects on the planet's climate and an environment.