The Little Rock Sustainability Summit

The Little Rock Sustainability Summit will be held Thursday and Friday of next week (October 28th and 29th) at the Robinson Center in downtown Little Rock. The Summit is a collaboration between the City of Little Rock, the Little Rock Sustainability Commission, and private interests with an interest in sustainability. Here is the schedule:

October 28, 2010

8am-12pm CEU Class
• Introduction to Building Commissioning
• Optimizing Your Existing Building- A Plan for Action

12:30pm-5:30pm Sustainability Expo Hours

1:00pm-2:00pm Registration

2:00pm-2:30pm Welcome Address

2:30pm-3:15pm Sustainable Business Practices

3:30pm-4:15pm Breakouts
• Built Environment/Land Use
• Retrofitting Your Home

4:30pm-5:15pm Breakout
• Business Landscaping
• Sustainable Landscaping and Purchasing for your Home

5:30pm-7:00pm Reception hosted by Capital Hotel (must be registered for the Summit in order to attend)

Friday, October 29

9:00pm-10:15am Mayor Stodola Opening Remarks / Green Cities Committee

10:30am-11:45am Breakouts
• Sustainability Grants for Government and Non-Profits
• Sustainability Tax Incentives Panel

12pm-1:30pm Luncheon with Keynote Speaker (must be registered for the Summit in order to attend)

1:45pm-3:00pm Breakouts
• Landfill Development and Healthy Maintenance
• Recycling & more

I expect that the Summit will present the best and worst of sustainability in Little Rock and in Arkansas in that our strengths – a vibrant and devoted sustainability community, an unusually supportive Mayor and local government, and a core group of creative, innovative, and motivated entrepreneurs – will be front and center, while our weaknesses – for example, lack of a cohesive commercial recycling program, lack of coordination, and plain old inertia – will be exposed.

The Summit is free to the public, and I will be attending and blogging about it. And here’s an insider tip: go online and register. Registration is free, and if you register you can attend the Thursday evening meet, greet, and cocktail reception at the Capital Hotel and the Friday lunch.

More information about the Summit can be found here: http://www.lrsustainabilitysummit.com/