What progress have we made sowing a collective vision of a Cleveland transformed from environmental disaster (1969) to green city on a blue lake (target date: 2019)?

A year has passed since the first Cleveland Sustainability "2019" Summit, and the second summit kicks off this Wednesday (Sept. 22-23). Again hundreds of 2019 volunteers will convene, check in and figure out how to move their vision for the region into action.

At the same time, a new theme—"Building the Glocal Engine”—will figure out how to plug in the corporate community’s vision for creating green jobs and meld it with the burgeoning local, self-help economies forming around food production, distributed energy generation (and storage), home energy retrofits, vacant land reuse and more.

And if that wasn’t enough, the 2010 Summit will introduce the official Action Plan and Resource Guide for the next 9 years. The product of two months of intensive research and reflection this summer by a team of consultants on how Cleveland can capitalize on its strengths in the global economy to create more sustainable jobs, the plan will be a major organizing force at the 2010 summit.

Particularly the idea of a “Year of…” celebration will help frame the 2019 initiative going forward. The “Year of” concept pre-selects a major focus area for the community for the next nine years. For example, Energy Efficiency is the Year of focus for 2011, and could correspond with a number of local energy efficiency initiatives – from Environmental Health Watch’s Deep Energy Retrofits to the pilot program for Cleveland Energy $aver Program and the energy efficiency special improvement districts (if they clear the next hurdle thrown in their way).

With all of that in mind, the 2019 work groups have gathered a summary of their visions, what happened since the 2009 summit and roadblocks still needing to be scaled. Below is a snapshot offering some highlights from the work group reports.

Public Compact

What happened: The group published the “Cleveland Commitment,” a call to action for us to build and embrace a sustainable Cleveland by 2019. The pledge was presented to Mayor Jackson in the late fall of 2009.

Work ahead: The group will work on a plan to get thousands of Clevelanders to sign The Commitment.

Sustainable Water

What happened: The group launched its “Drink Local. Drink Tap©” campaign, threw a party on World Water Day, and joined the Institute for Applied Phenomenology.

Work ahead:

• Providing information to the public about the dangers of bottled water;
• Promoting the use of tap water through the “Drink Local. Drink Tap.” Campaign;
• Actively supporting policy that protects fresh water sources, especially in the Great Lakes Basin; Increasing access and use of the lake and river fronts in the Great Lakes Basin.

Local Food

What happened: Coming out of the summit with a lot of momentum from an already well-organized group of urban gardeners and urban agriculture advocates, the group made significant progress on its projects, including:

• Create more direct market connections between growers and eaters by supporting more urban-based community supported agriculture (CSAs).
• Explore the feasibility of a Community Kitchen Incubator
• Develop a local food marketing campaign called Growhio
• Started Local Food 365 (a first place winner at Start-up Weekend Cleveland 2009). The initiative revitalizes vacant spaces into urban greenhouses that nourish our local community year round with food, jobs, education, and reinvestment.
• Develop a plan to attract and train 10,000 farmers

Work ahead:

• Growhio received a state grant to promote Ohio specialty crops available at farmer’s markets
• The group is working with Ohio City Near West as a fiscal agent, which hired ACEnet to conduct a feasibility study for creation of an incubator kitchen in the Ohio City neighborhood.
• Tunnel Vision Hoops was formed after the SC2019 2009 Summit. The company designs and builds High Tunnel Hoop Houses from locally sourced materials to extend the growing season for garden farmers in urban, peri-urban or rural settings.
• Local Food 365 - Establish core team to raise capital and funds to build our first system on a vacant lot in Cleveland by June 2011.

Sustainable Business & Business Incubators

What happened: The group “assisted logistically…making connections, and inspiring ideas” for the creators of the Galleria’s Gardens Under Glass project.

Work ahead:

• Organize an Earth Day festival, and bring the Go Green Expo to the Galleria in 2011.
• The group is promoting a Happy Hour after the first day of the 2010 summit at the Galleria to help celebrate the launch of their green resource center.

Sustainable Design, Materials & Manufacturing

What happened: The group has been interviewing business leaders about their sustainability journey.

Work ahead: A report on the resources needed, the tools necessary to create them and suggested actions.

Labs for Advanced Energy Commercialization

What happened: Worked on a vision for advanced energy research labs and targeted networking activities

Work ahead: Working on a web site that hosts advanced energy resources and acts as a portal for the region’s research and development efforts

Advanced Energy Generation

What happened: Hosted conversations on ways to provide regional sustainable clean energy solutions and grow the local green economy.

Work ahead: Continue to focus on grid transformation and clean transportation solutions, i.e. how to produce energy and fuel cleanly and sustainably, keeping distributed generation in mind, along with smart-grids. What are the best technologies, what can be implemented quickly, and what is needed. Policy change to enable these results.

Waste to Profit

What happened:

• Set a Big Hairy Audacious Goals to get 50 organizations to commit to a zero waste action plan
• Created a web site for a zero waste network

Work ahead: Re-energize and reactivate with new members and accelerated momentum around zero waste and waste to profit.

Vacant Land

What happened:

• Members participated in the Re-Imagining a Greater Cleveland efforts and served on the City’s eight Vacant Land Working Groups.
• The group displayed its work at EarthFest where they invited the public to participate in a straw poll on the eight potential reuses of vacant land.

Work ahead:

• Planning a series of meetings across the county for the public to have input on the reuse of large areas of vacant land and potential signature projects.
• Will present its work at Ingenuity Fest and the national Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference, to be held in Cleveland in October.
• The group will serve as ambassadors and engage neighbors on how vacant land regeneration could be hyper-local examples of sustainable land use.

Green Building

What happened:

• Created a strong network of stakeholders
• Conducted research on structures and energy use for buildings in Cleveland and building retrofit programs to identify gaps and best practices, and generated a report.
• Worked with the Sierra Club and EPA to adopt the IECC (International Efficiency Conservation Code) 2009 building code at the state level.
• Revised its goal of retrofit 100% of buildings for 50% energy reductions, to retrofit 25% of buildings by 2019.

Work ahead: Seeking endorsement from Mayor Frank Jackson, the Office of Sustainability and individual members of Cleveland City Council on the above mentioned report

Communications + Branding

What happened:

• Assisted with the rollout of the 2019 Post-Summit Report
• Advising on the platform for inter-group communications
• Engaged university marketing and communication classes on building the 2019 brand
• Partnered with other communications related work groups including, Engage 1.6 million, Post-Summit Momentum, Social Capital and Public Compact to form the “G5”. This larger group of groups successfully organized and executed a presence at the well attended Earth Day event at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.

Work ahead: Continue to work with the City and other partners to communicate and brand Sustainable Cleveland 2019 to the region and beyond.

Raising Social Capital

What happened:

• An Expanding Social Capital Work Group has been convened which has brought together leaders in Cleveland institutions that build social capital
• Hosted an orientation for new participants to the SC2019 Summit (2010)

Work ahead:

• Facilitating roundtables that would create an ongoing forum for issues around raising social capital
• Creating vertical integration via a Social Inclusion Summer Institute, which would recruit from, for example, Neighborhood Leadership Institute, Cleveland Leadership Center, etc.

Collaborative Campus

What happened:

• Worked on connecting the educational instructions around Tri-C Metro into a “sustainable campus”
• Created a blog and engaged youth in a seven week project of asset mapping and community engagement in Cleveland’s Campus District.

Work ahead: Produce a body of local knowledge and ideas that can be presented to the Campus District and Burton, Bell, Carr to inform the neighborhood planning processes.

Engage 1.6 Million

What happened:

• Worked with the “G5” to create a campaign that engages the entire region in creating a green city on a blue lake.
• Helped lead the 2019 presence at EarthFest 2010
• Conceived the “Year of ___” concept which will be utilized in the Celebration Points leading up to 2019.

Work ahead: The goal is to engage populations not traditionally engaged in the issue

Healthy Connections

What happened:

• Increasing collaboration between private, public and civil sector entities currently focused on health through the creation of a cross-institutional regional community health leadership group.
• Creating a one-stop-shop portal for community health information in our area, highlighting all of the learning and treatment opportunities from all sources.
• Supporting development of wellness care through technology aimed at reaching all of our community members

Work ahead:

• Create a targeted message (slogan) to local community centers
• Pilot an HIA on an upcoming project.
• Create a public/personal health video.
• Assist in initiating an anti-idling policy in another Cuyahoga County community within the next year.
• Collaborate with Sanimax and diesel conversion company to establish a grease recycling program.

Social Entrepreneurship Creating Urban Revitalization (SECUR)

What happened: Explored the creation of “CLEVA” that will allow citizens to make microinvestments in local social ventures in the urban core.

Work ahead: Finalize organizational structure and recruit committee members. Create a microfinance enterprise in an online format.

Strategic Partnerships and Learning

What happened:

• Building an online and real space social network for regional collaboration and idea sharing around urban sustainability in the Great Lakes region.
• Proposed an international sister city conference for representatives from various cities around the world to come to Cleveland to share best practices and start collaborations for increased urban sustainability.
• Worked with the G5

Work ahead:

• Partnering with GLUE (Great Lakes Urban Exchange), and tapping into existing sustainability networks in the Great Lakes region to build prototypes; working on a partnership model.
• Working on stakeholder engagement with other Rust Belt cities.
• Planning conference, securing partners, support and funding.

Sustainable Transportation Action Team

What happened:

• Helped lead the creation of a Cleveland Complete Streets brand, “Access for All” and threw a big party for the cause on Sept. 17
• Was an integral part of a campaign to design multi-modal access on the new Innerbelt Bridge
• Raised awareness through multiple media placements of the underperforming aspects of the Euclid Corridor and its complete streets elements; worked with the city’s chief engineer to fix the problems
• Worked on a commitment from Senator George Voinovich for support of Complete Streets; and with Cleveland City Council to pass Complete Streets laws.

Work ahead:

• Meeting with key Cleveland leaders to pass a strongly worked Complete Streets law (Looking for ideas and participants to get involved).
• Working on making the Innerbelt Bridge and the surrounding routes safe and accessible for all users, including the 25% of Clevelanders without cars.
• Working to improve the performance of the Euclid Corridor, and to ensure that new multi-modal infrastructure investments, such as the bike lane on Fulton Avenue Bridge, are designed for better connectivity and to encourage safe cycling and walking.

For more information about each group, go here.