CONTENTS
Climate Rapid Response Network
The Climate Rapid Response Network (CRRN) is a network of community leaders and volunteers who are interested in participating in climate policy initiatives in their towns. We are establishing teams for each town and the unincorporated areas of Marin to work for selected policy initiatives that are being coordinated throughout the county. Your engagement could be as simple as writing an email to your elected representative, showing up at a hearing, coordinating communications with your team or introducing policy experts to your town staff and elected officials.
Sustainable Marin also acts as the fiscal agent to several
impactful, diverse and imaginative projects.
Resilient Neighborhoods
Resilient Neighborhoods offers free online climate action workshops to residents of Marin County. The 5-meeting series brings people together and empowers them to reduce their household carbon emissions and create communities resilient to the impacts of climate change. The workshops offer a range of actions to choose from and are ideal for anyone who is concerned about climate change and wants to do something about it. These popular *free* workshops are offered year-round.
Major accomplishments
2,000 graduates from our climate action program taking over 30,000 climate and resilience actions..
Annual reduction of more than 11 million pounds of CO2 emissions.
Resilient Neighborhoods as a key initiative to help meet the residential climate goals outlined in Marin local government’s climate action plans.
"CPR for the Planet" Campaign - endorsed project of MarinCAN, the County’s mobilization effort to reach CO2 neutrality by 2045.
“Resilient Neighborhood has been very informative and inspiring, action-oriented, fun-loving and positive, along with being well organized and very thorough. Excellent facilitative process.”
“I feel much more hopeful and empowered in being able to make significant changes in the short and long term that can hopefully, ultimately give us a healthy, vibrant earth for years and years to come!”
“ I have to say I’m very proud of what we have committed to. I’ve had lots of good intentions in the past but [the Resilient Neighborhoods] program is what is getting me to take action.”
Time to Lead on Climate
Time to Lead on Climate (TLC) is a coalition of Marin’s leading climate organizations who create major events and initiatives to stimulate, inform and promote positive action. Starting over 10 years ago the TLC began organizing major events directly responsive to global, national or state climate crises and opportunities. The events attract large numbers of people from Marin and elsewhere in the Bay Area and reinforce the extraordinary network of Marin organizations collaborating to combat climate change.
recent events include:
Save Democracy and the Planet in partnership with Green Change – practical actions to help win the midterms.
Getting to Paris Without Stopping in Washington in 2018, featuring Christiana Figueres, architect of the United National Paris Climate Agreement,
Election 2016 – Tipping Point for Climate with Congressman Jared Huffman and others
Events may be viewed at www.leadonclimate.org.
Green Home Tours
Green Home Tours is a partnership of local utilities, cities, towns, the County, and environmental groups promoting the many benefits of decarbonizing our built environment. In October 2022 it created a virtual tour that featured Marin County homes that exemplify creative and cost-effective energy and water efficiency solutions that reduce dependence on fossil fuels and improve local resilience. Links are available to resources, vendors, and sponsors so that participants can benefit from the experience of our local sustainable living trend-setters and leaders.
Accomplishments (partial list)
490 people attended the inaugural presentation
Recruited over 35 businesses, cities, and other organizational partners
Created video footage of 10 homes with innovative and comprehensive innovations to save energy and water
Offers a variety of resources for home retrofits
TETIMONIALS
“Thank you and all who conceived of, organized, participated and produced this fabulous program. We watched every minute of both nights, and have already made three appointments with two of your sponsors to kick-start our action!
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“I am very concerned about the urgency of putting efforts out to combat global warming. This webinar is an important piece in getting the word out in a very concrete way, with things that we can do now. Thank you so much for all the work put into making it happen!!!”
“Green Home Tours seems like a great way to encourage climate action, because it invites us to look at how some of our neighbors are going green. For example, I really enjoyed seeing how Pam and Catherine’s household addressed the same climate challenges that we face in our home. And I feel more motivated to add an electric heat pump space heater/cooler to our home because I saw it in theirs and they say it works well for them.”
Green Change
Green Change is a climate action network serving thousands of people in Marin, the Bay Area and beyond. We help each other live sustainably, grow a community of engaged citizens and support environmental groups. Our nonprofit group offers a wide range of events, online content and community services to help diverse communities fight climate change, in collaboration with our partners. Green Change invites community members to take individual and collective actions and we support over a hundred environmental, educational and community partners, promoting their work and giving them a platform to connect with a wider community. To learn more, visit GreenChange.net, sign up for our events, and subscribe to our newsletter.
Accomplishments (partial list)
Earth 2050 a free environmental festival in Mill Valley engaged 1,200 people in fun activities, art, music, talks, with 50+ booths about climate action hosted by community partners in April 2022.
Green Change Meetups - free Zoom meetups feature expert speakers to help Marin and Bay Area residents go green and fight climate change, by taking a wide range of climate actions in their own lives.
GreenChange.net- Our website features original online content about climate action, such as action guides, green tips and an event calendar, promoting our partners and serving thousands of web visitors.
TESTIMONIALS
“Green Change meetups, presentations, and online guides are a huge asset to the community. The website has grown to be extremely helpful, and it is now my go-to place for consumer and event info.”
“Passionate climate advocates who host good events and collaborate with other environmental groups to help take action on climate.”
“Huge fan! It’s interesting, informative, and a great place for community … Always impressed with the speakers, slides, and new ideas.”
“Love the energy, leaders, quality of resources and info, focus on collaboration.”
Painted Bins
Painted Bins helps reduce food waste in public areas with food scrap receptacles with school children's artwork that tell a story about the benefits of composting. In addition to the education provided by the messaging, QR codes provide access to information about composting, food waste and global warming.
Accomplishments (partial list)
The Town of Corte Madera is placing 8 Painted Bins in Town Park in early 2023 with posters of local school children’s art on the bins, prompting why it is important to compost.
Promoted the Painted Bins poster contest with a 3rd grade and 4th classes at Corte Madera’s Neil Cummins Elementary School. An independent jury selected the 16 winning posters from 63 posters about the importance of composting.
The first Painted Bins Art Show was held at Corte Madera’s Town Center for 3 days over the 2022 Memorial Day weekend. Over 200 visitors stopped by to see the art and learn about composting.
Painted Bins is working with six 9th grade students in the Marin School of Environmental Leadership program at Terra Linda High School.
“We are thrilled to bring Painted Bins to Corte Madera, and appreciate their partnership in helping Corte Madera meet its commitments on sustainability and waste diversion.”
“Kathy has put together a wonderful project that includes inspiring children in environmental stewardship, art and beautifying our local parks. We are happy to support this project and the collaboration between the City of Corte Madera and Mill Valley Refuse. This project also blends perfectly with Zero Waste Marin’s Zero Waste Schools Program.””
“With food composting becoming adopted throughout California, the Painted Bins Program is targeting an overlooked aspect of those regulations, parks and public areas. Adding composting in parks, the potential to divert that food waste material away from the landfill will help California achieve their goals of reducing organic waste disposal by 75% by the year 2025.”
Amazon Boxes - Reusable E-commerce Packaging Ordinance
This draft ordinance encourages retailers to reuse their e-commerce packaging and prevent it from entering the public waste stream. The ordinance authorizes waste management companies in the jurisdiction to run a pay-per-ton (PPT) program in which e-commerce packaging is removed from the waste stream, when economical, and returned to retailers for a fee of $100,000/ton. The money raised from the PPT program is to be apportioned to the jurisdiction for environmental remediation, to waste management companies for PPT program administration, and to nonprofit ocean advocacy groups for the clean up of litter from oceans and waterways. The goal of this ordinance is to reduce waste through reuse.
It targets a twenty percent reduction in gross waste in the jurisdiction, saving communities millions of dollars in disposal costs and making waste management companies more efficient and more profitable on a smaller volume of refuse.
This ordinance has huge environmental benefits because it measurably reduces greenhouse gas emissions from trash pick up, long-distance waste transport, landfills, and the wholesale manufacturing of virgin e-commerce packaging.
It also economically supports smaller waste collection companies and creates jobs in the refuse and reuse sectors.
Sponsored by The Sierra Club Bay Chapter, Zero Waste Committee, and Plastic Free Marin