After a two-year hiatus, the Center for Sustainability and Excellence (CSE) is returning to San Francisco, presenting its signature Certified Sustainability (CSR) Practitioner Program, Advanced Edition 2019, October 15-16, 2019.
Why does a sustainability-oriented city need CSE? For that matter, shouldn’t all cities already have well established sustainability plans?
Sustainability Practitioners needed to support existing programs
San Francisco’s Parks Department encourages food production, and the city government requires that Farmers Markets accept EBT cards, making healthier food more affordable. San Francisco is striving to be waste-free by 2020. With less than a year to go, there is still much to do. The public transit system includes zero-emission vehicles, and San Francisco defies the state average of 100 gallons of water per person with a mere 49 gallons per person per day. Cities need sustainability professionals to manage these programs.
Implementation and future planning necessitate a sustainability-trained workforce.
Whether it’s infrastructure, finance, transportation, health care or agriculture, sustainability practitioners are needed in every field and every discipline throughout the community. Varied fields include manufacturing, financials, real estate, energy and IT. Even though schools such as University of San Francisco and Presidio are training tomorrow’s business leaders and social entrepreneurs, sustainability is not only a business or management issue. Engineering, R&D and operations need an approachable means of bringing sustainability into every aspect of the corporate world.
In San Francisco, CSE can speak to a major revenue source – Silicon Valley. CSE completed ground breaking research in 2016 demonstrating that Silicon Valley corporations, for all of San Francisco’s successes, lag behind the sustainability achievements of the Fortune Global 500, many of whose executives CSE has trained. CSE’s report “Sustainability Trends in Silicon Valley” identifies weakness which the CSE Certified Sustainability Practitioner Program helps address. CSE’s second round of Silicon Valley research is forthcoming September 2019.
Time is of the essence
Not everyone has the time or the money to spend four years earning a sustainability degree. Informed employees, aware students, corporate leaders who understand the fundamentals are needed immediately! Modules on Local Legislation, Global Standards and Future Trends provide critical foundational knowledge.
San Francisco isn’t CSE’s only West Coast stop this year. CSE will also host a training in Seattle, Oct. 28-29, 2019. For more information and Early Bird pricing, go to www.cse-net.org/all-trainings.