Meet the 2018 Top Scorers

Highmark Health’s success was built upon past initiatives taken as well as individual daily actions taken by all employees. At Highmark Health, environmental stewardship reflects our strong commitment to the health of community members. The Sustainable Pittsburgh Challenge supports our commitment, providing the opportunity to track our progress in important areas of resource conservation and engage in spirited competition with peer organizations. The SP Challenge confirmed that every action counts and that it takes more than one person or one organization to tackle the issues associated with climate and the environment.

We thank the SP Challenge for pushing us further on behalf of good health.

Our office has about 200 employees and among these employees there are many different levels of cooperation in this competition. When invitations for lunch meetings are sent out to the office, I follow up and reply to all to encourage everyone to bring plates and utensils to use for the meeting or to use the ones that we have provided in the kitchen.

Our office has an annual holiday potluck luncheon. The green team encouraged everyone to bring their own plates, cups, and utensils. Some people brought their plates and others were in line to get their disposable plates. Christine, a member of our green team, had a stack of glass dishes and handed them out to everyone in line that did not bring their own plate. It was hard for them to refuse! I thought this was a funny way to get more people in the office to participate. I notice more people in the office using reusable coffee cups and dinnerware.

This has been Pashek + MTR’s 5th time to compete in the Sustainable Pittsburgh Challenge. The growth of our business equals the growth of our Green Team, which now includes 1/3rd of our staff! And it has been fun to involve all our employees who have been very supportive in sustainable changes in the office and implementing their own at home. It would also seem we can be very competitive!

Despite the fact that many of us enjoy running, yoga and riding our bikes to work, perhaps we all do that to offset the best treat in the office: Elaine’s homemade pies. So, with a pie of choice offered as the prize for our Sustainable Internal Competition…well, let the race begin!

The contest started with several people ready to run a mad dash. As the months lengthened, two employees maintained the even pace it takes to master a good race. But exactly how Sustainable can one person be? What if one toilet is my house is low flushing, but the other isn’t? Can I get a half point? Does every single light in my house have to be LED? How about 85% of a point? All great contests end in a photo finish and this one was no different.

Best of all, while the winner got to choose the pie, we all got to enjoy it. And we all learned that are always things – little things – we can do to be more sustainable. All a person needs is some friendly encouragement…and maybe a homemade pie!

3R Sustainability, under parent company SRI Registrar, is a signatory of the UN Global Compact, a B Corp certified company, and recognized with its JUST Label. It is our mission to set an example of what a good global corporate citizen can be and proudly demonstrate leadership in sustainability here in Pittsburgh.

Participating in the Sustainable Pittsburgh Challenge was a fun and thrilling opportunity to learn and do more about overall sustainability. One focus was the quality of air where we live and work and actions to improve it whenever possible. Our whole team was very involved, and the effort was definitely a collaborative one, earning us our 1st White Ribbon in Air Quality.

One of our proudest achievements was our high participation in the air quality monitoring sessions organized by ROCIS. More than 60% of our team volunteered, monitoring their homes for 3 weeks to measure and record air particles, CO2, CO, and radon. High participation showed we had a highly committed team. Additionally, the 3R office space was evaluated. Based on the office monitoring results, management took action to increase the fresh air supplied into our work space and replaced the filters on the air handling units.

Air quality is always a topic of discussion in Pittsburgh. Beyond improving air quality for ourselves at home and work, our organization is now better educated and equipped to assist clients and the community with air quality improvements. 3R has always had the goal of being a service leader, and now is also leading as a responsible, resilient, sustainable company for its stakeholders, the community, and the environment.

We are fortunate at Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank to have a Sustainability Committee dedicated to the maintenance and enhancement of our regenerative practices. 

In spring 2018, we participated in ROCIS's Low Cost Monitoring project. Through this study we learned about air quality in general and especially in our home base of Duquesne, PA. Many of our staff engaged with the monitors, watching as the CO2 rose during meetings in our large conference room. The more we learned the more we saw how vulnerable populations are more at risk and often in environments where air quality conditions are poor. We immediately connected this knowledge to our own work recognizing the mounting health risk factors for our neighbors in need.

Our experience with ROCIS was so eye opening we knew more members of our staff would want to participate in this program for the health of their own homes and families. In fall 2018, with a well coordinated effort, we hosted a ROCIS Cohort at our facility with all 12 participants being food bank staff. Because we live as far as North to South Hills and Monroeville to Mckees Rocks we gathered a wide swathe of data to look at and discuss daily.

During the Sustainable Pittsburgh Challenge not only did we take inventory of sustainable systems already in place, the challenge also gave us the motivation and courage to try big new things. We gained a perspective on our work we did not have before. When it feels as if there is always so much to be done, the SPC allowed us to take stock of all we, and previous committee members, have accomplished and helped clarify the trajectory for our future sustainability plans.

In the 2018 Sustainable Pittsburgh Challenge, Conservation Consultants Inc (CCI) reached high level waste diversion and investment in renewable energy as our greatest achievements this year!

CCI has measured and weighed its waste streams for years, but it wasn’t until our second full waste audit through Pennsylvania Resource Council in 2018, that we looked even CLOSER look at our waste. The first audit is what led us to separate out paper towels, which represented the bulk of our waste. Last year, CCI evaluated our waste contamination rates and the first results of our pilot “compostable service-ware” program. Together, everything added up to more than a 95% waste diversion rate – plus some great employee engagement throughout the week- long waste-audit!

In 2018, CCI became an official partner of the Climate Reality Project’s 100% Committed Campaign where we pledged to shift to 100 percent renewable electricity. While the pledge is great, CCI went one step further and is now fulfilling its electricity needs with 100% PA wind power. CCI is proud to be partnered with the Climate Reality Project and is excited to be part of a more renewable future!

The Millvale Community Library was inspired and honored by our win in 2017. While we hope to come out on top once again, we know that the competition this year is super tight. Our organizational mission is to be an agent of positive change. Inspired by the work of communities and organizations throughout Western Pennsylvania, we are always proud to build on our work by creating youth and adult educational programming that contribute to the ever increasing understanding of sustainability in Millvale and beyond. This includes partnering with groups like New Sun Rising to create tools like the soon-to-be released Air Quality Dashboard, which will be publicly displayed in the Millvale Library, and will provide real-time air quality data and its implication on our health in order to work towards reducing negative impacts.

Allegheny County was very proud to demonstrate significant water savings last year compared to 2017. Overall, we saw a 13% decrease in the five buildings registered for the Sustainable Pittsburgh Challenge. Individually, we saw the following percent decreases in water use: 22% at the County Courthouse, 13.6% at the County Jail, and almost 13% at the County Office Building. We also have conducted significant education and outreach. About one-third of the respondents to the Sustainable Pittsburgh Baseline Transportation Survey were Allegheny County employees, and overall, the Office of Sustainability reached 2,753 employees and 25,258 members of the public last year.

In terms of sustainability, 2018 was a big year for the University of Pittsburgh – and communicating those efforts campus-wide as part of our Sustainable Pittsburgh Challenge competition is an important piece of creating a culture of sustainability at Pitt.

In January 2018, Pitt formalized decades of green initiatives with the first campus-wide Pitt Sustainability Plan. An introductory letter by Chancellor Gallagher acknowledged: Long-term sustainability “requires deep and lasting changes that will enable future generations to thrive in a world that is environmentally responsible, socially equitable and economically robust. It is a great challenge—one that our University’s mission, which is to harness knowledge for society’s gain, perfectly positions us to tackle.”

In July 2018, Pitt gave campus-wide sustainability activities, strategies, and partnerships a centralized home by establishing the Office of Sustainability. Focused on implementing the Pitt Sustainability Plan, campus-wide sustainability efforts are now tracking measurable progress on the Plan’s 61 goals across stewardship, exploration, community, and culture.

Participating in the Sustainable Pittsburgh Challenge was a valuable opportunity to audit our own practices and extend our organizational goals. We pride ourselves on “growing citizens” who actively engage in making the world a more just and sustainable place for everyone. To do this work, we must embrace each day as an opportunity to deepen our commitment to the planet, each other, and the future. Collaborating with organizations such as Sustainable Pittsburgh reminds us that our collective steps forward make a deeper impact when taken together as a community. This is a lesson that we can mirror with our students as we stand with them shoulder-to-shoulder as partners in this effort.

Central Catholic is very proud of the many achievements it has produced throughout the 2018 - 2019 SP Challenge, but more than anything we are proud that we have inspired some of our young men to become the next generation leaders in the field of Environmental Science and Sustainable Living. The challenges that we have completed in our Environmental Science class and in the Environmental Club have shown the students that they can become difference makers in our school and community by championing green living and turning many small sustainable living practices into significant impacts. This in turn has led some of our students to enthusiastically look forward to majoring in Environmental Science so that they can continue their journey to become the next generation of environmental leaders. We not only see this as an optimistic sign that our youth will prioritize environmental causes, but we are also proud to have inspired our students to become the next generation of morally guided leaders in this incredibly important field of science.