David Chunn's March Update

In March 2011 my time as an SCA Sustainability Fellow with the Allegheny County Sustainability Program has been eventful and rewarding. I perform a wide variety of tasks in support of efforts to implement measures that will result in a cleaner, more cost-efficient Allegheny County. In addition to such daily administrative tasks as scheduling meetings and delivering documents to County partners, I have also been engaged in numerous projects.

Under Jeaneen Zappa, I have worked with internal “green teams” to identify and support energy efficiency measures that are happening within each respective County department. As part of Allegheny Green’s outreach efforts, I have worked closely with Jeaneen in both designing an electronic newsletter and in research and writing articles for the newsletter. I have proofread and edited numerous documents related to sustainability efforts and recycling, and am currently closely involved with efforts to implement a more comprehensive and wide-spread recycling policy.

Currently we are partnering with the Purchasing Department to rewrite the County’s purchasing policies so that the County uses vendors who supply locally made products that are made safely and with minimal impact to the local environment. In addition, I am also engaged with Human Resources in the hopes that we will be designing and deploying an employee commuting survey that will highlight how County employees get to work and in what ways the County can support those employees who bike, walk, take transit or carpool.

I am very appreciative and grateful for the opportunity that has been given to me. In my opinion, I have an awesome assignment and my supervisor, Jeaneen Zappa, does a tremendous job in keeping me engaged in a variety of tasks that require me to wear many hats.