May: Sarah Palmisano

SUSTAINABLE CITY FELLOW
The City of Pittsburgh

Sarah’s work as an SCA Sustainability Fellow in the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and Energy Efficiency generally falls into four categories: education and outreach, continuing personal education, internal work, and volunteering.

Education and outreach work includes things like hosting or tabling at appropriate events, symposiums, or conferences as a representative of the Mayor’s Office or the SCA. Education and outreach for May: tabled at Global Warming Conference for SCA (spoke to 10 people); Root for Trees Rally at Katz Plaza to support TreeVitalize and educate the community on the importance of street trees (1,000 trees given away); SCA Blues Festival meeting for a site visit and initial information gathering.

Continuing personal education includes attending various conferences, symposiums, workshops, or classes to increase awareness and understanding of a wide variety of sustainability and environmentally-related topics.
Personal education for May: attended a Road-mapping Simulation Tool workshop to learn about developing a plan for increasing solar technologies; attended solar panel installation informational workshop; attended Portfolio Manager Workshop to learn how to use the program to better track carbon savings; attended Green Pathways to Prosperity Summit to learn about the emerging green economy in Pittsburgh; attended Green Roof informational breakfast; attended Rachel Carson Biodiversity Conference with E.O. Wilson to learn about human impact on biodiversity.

Internal work describes work being done within the Mayor’s Office to incorporate sustainability into City operations and services.
Internal work for May: stormwater meeting; met with an Energy Savings Company meeting for initial information gathering; met with Sustainable Pittsburgh to discuss possibility of a Green Office Challenge; continuing tracking of hard-to-recycle bin (collected 183 alkaline batteries, 7ink/toner cartridges, 4 cell phones); clean construction meeting to discuss possibility of drafting an ordinance; started streetlight GIS/inventory for downtown and 50 Pittsburgh neighborhood business districts for streetlight retrofit.

Volunteering is anything that she finds fun and worthwhile to help a good cause or a good friend after hours! Volunteering for May: took the Tree Tenders class through Friends of the Pittsburgh Urban Forest to learn about tree care and tree biology.