Updated Capabilities Statement

Want to learn more about who we are and what we do? Check out our updated capabilities statement. It outlines our services, experience, and the resumes of our partners. Please feel free to share with your friends!!!

Nspiregreen has a lot to be thankful for this holiday

Nspiregreen received word on Friday that we are officially certified as a Disadvantaged Business Enterprise with the District of Columbia Department of Transportation and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). These certifications were extremely important as we have a contract pending that required certification. We have a lot to celebrate this Thanksgiving!!!

We are also a certified Women-Owned Business Enterprise by the US Women's Chamber of Commerce and a Small/Local Business Enterprise by WMATA.

Happy Entrepreneur's Day

Nspiregreen would like to wish all fellow business owners a Happy Entrepreneur's Day. People often ask us why we quit our great paying jobs with benefits to start our own company. Nspiregreen wasn't something we cooked up over night. This is something we've been thinking about since the first day we met.

In 2002, we were roommates at a leadership conference for the National Society of Black Engineers. At the time Veronica was in graduate school working on her thesis exploring environmental inequity in DC. Chancee was an undergrad and had a strong interest in brownfield redevelopment. Within ten minutes of meeting each other we developed the concept that we were going to combine our engineering degrees with our community organizing backgrounds and create an engineering company that specializes in public involvement.


Fast forward to April 2009, we read "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. That book was the catalyst taking our dream and making it a reality. In June of 2009, we had a pow-wow at Chancee's house to develop a mission, vision, core values, and begin fleshing out the framework for the business. In January 2010, we stepped out on faith to devote ourselves full-time to bringing our vision of "facilitating the empowerment and transformation of every community on the planet."

We believe we are destined to be a global leader in the sustainability movement.

Here are some quotes that Nspire us:
"Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

"Don't let people who are living their nightmare tell you that you can't live your dream" - Unknown

"There's no sense in blaming the mountain for being too high. Instead, find a way to climb it." - Ralph Marston

"No man ever achieved worth-while success who did not, at one time or other, find himself with at least one foot hanging well over the brink of failure."
Napoleon Hill

The green revolution will be tweeted

On Monday November 8, 2010, I attended "Local Solutions to a Global Challenge" presented by the Humanities Council of Washington, DC. The panelist include Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells, Rhon Hayes of GreenDMV and Cynthia Hartley of the Capitol Hill Energy Co-op.

The panelist addressed sustainability initiatives in DC such as the implementation of the DC Bag Tax (5 cent tax on plastic bags), Capital Bikeshare program (borrow a bike for a nominal annual fee), urban agriculture projects that provide food to the DC Central Kitchen and public schools, and city-wide green building program. Mr Hayes mentioned GreenDMVs weatherization programs as a means to achieve sustainability by meeting energy reduction goals, while creating living wages jobs that increase the economic tax base.


Ms. Hartley describes sustainability as building communities through cooperative living. She provided an example of sharing food from her garden with her neighbor. He gives her vegetables from his garden and she gives him fresh herbs from her garden. Capital Hill Energy Co-op is another example of a community coming together to address renewable energy.



Councilmember Wells described sustainability as 5-minute living. The essence of 5-minute living is that people should be able get to things they need in 5-minutes or be able to access public transportation within 5-minutes. Our built environment should support this lifestyle choice.

All the panelist emphasized the green culture is growing in DC because of dedicated individuals working to make a difference. While DC is still in its infancy in the green movement, we still have the potential to be a leader. Councilmember Wells suggested that we have to continue to push the green agenda using social media. For example, he says the DC Councilmembers regularly read blogs and tweets related to legislative issues while on the dais.

I live tweeted the event from @NspiregreenLLC #WorldHouseSeries.

Written by Veronica
(Photos Courtesy of Humanities Council of Washington, DC)

Lessons from Freiberg

Nspiregreen attended "Green Cities of the Future: A Transatlantic Perspective" at the Goethe-Institut located in Washington, DC. The featured speaker was Wulf Daseking who is the Planning Director for EcoCity Freiburg/Germany. Anyone who has ever spent enough time in my presence knows my fascination with Freiberg. One of these days I'm going to visit to experience the City for myself. When working as an urban planner at my previous job, the top 3 cited Cities for best practices were 1) Freiberg, Germany, 2) Portland, Oregon, and 3) Seattle, Washington. Any time we thought we had an innovative idea we would run to these three Cities only to learn they are already implementing it.


(photo from TU Bergakademie website)


Usually when you say the words "sustainability" or "green", people immediate jump to energy. Wulf points out that we have the ability to produce energy (via renewable and otherwise) to meet our power needs into the future. However, clean water is a scarce resource. Wulf continued with more gloom and doom, such as what happens to solid waste when the population grows? What happens to Africa, as most of the energy and flight patterns are around the country versus integrated into it?


(photo of a quite street in Freiberg)


I will admit I was feeling overwhelmed at all the problems the world could face if we don't change now. I felt a glimmer of hope when he transitioned into his talk about what Freiberg has done. There are plenty of articles and blogs, such as this one from Smart Urban Design, with more analysis on Freiberg, so I'll just highlight some things I thought was interesting from Wulf's talk:

• Freiberg has a parking garage the size of a typical 4 story garage you would see in the US, except this one is for bicycles. The parking garage was financed by leasing space for a cafe' and a bicycle repair shop.
• The City has disallowed motor vehicles in most of the inner city areas. Most of the streets are designated bicycle and pedestrian only.
  
• The City has an extensive tram (street car/light rail-like) system with development concentrated around the stations.
  
• Cities need crowded places, (i.e. public plazas and market places) and quiet places (i.e. passive parks)
• The City doesn't allow large shopping malls that tend to be car-centric. Most of the large shopping is ground level retails that is integrated with housing.
• He advised not to let developers do what they want. The City has to have the political will to tell the developers what to do.
• Cultural centers, such as arts, religious institutions, and schools are should be integrated into the community. He gave an example of a church that is shared by Catholics and Protestants.
• All houses built after 2011 have to be passive, which means the house has to produce its own energy. (Solar panels are commonplace in Germany)
  
• The City has taken an "oath" to not develop outside the growth boundary. In order for this to work the region has to have the same goals.
• There was a questions from the audience on how to make people change. Wulf quipped that people will change when they feel it in their pocket.
  

One thing Wulf cautioned was we can't just take the Freiberg model and apply it to Any City, USA. He stated we have to do it our way, with our people and our culture. That statement gets to the essence of why we do what we do at Nspiregreen. We have implemented public involvement and community organizing all over the US. Through our experiences we have learned that for each community you have to start from a clean slate.

I walked away "Nspired" and I look forward to doing our part to shape approaches, attitudes and practices for sustainable living and community development.

Veronica

Recognized as Members on the Move

Nspiregreen LLC Partners are featured in the Fall 2010 issue of National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Magazine in the Career Engineer" Alumni Extension Members" on the Move section. Both Partners are Lifetime Members of NSBE.


Chanceé Lundy (right) and Veronica O. Davis (left) have waved goodbye to the corporate world to start their own environmental consulting firm, nspiregreen, LLC. Lundy, NSBE’s 2004–06 national chair, and Davis, NSBE’s 2004–05 National Leadership Institute chair, established the company in 2009. Born from a desire to reduce and prevent environmental inequities and inspire global environmental stewardship, nspiregreen assists businesses, governments and not-for-profit organizations in developing and implementing their sustainability goals. Lundy received her B.S. in environmental science from Alabama A&M University and her master’s in civil engineering from Florida State University. Davis received her B.S. in civil engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park and a dual master’s in engineering management and urban and regional planning from Cornell University. For more information, visit www.nspiregreen.com.

Case Study: Defusing Controversy

Their Problem: The City of Alexandria is known for its vocal residents and community organizations. While the City of Alexandria does a great job at facilitating meetings, they were struggling with the “F” Feedback. The City embarked on a controversial study to exam the potential of converting industrial land into transit oriented development. The study brought out supporters and opposition of the existing industrial businesses.

Our Solution: Nspiregreen Partner, Veronica Davis, worked with the City’s Department of Planning and Zoning and the Department of Transportation and Environmental Services to develop a process to collect feedback from the public, and systematically respond to all comments. Veronica proposed a 6-week comment period where people could email, snail mail, fax, or call in their comments. Veronica collected and responded to all comments. The City issued an Official Record of Responses to Public Comments, which was presented to the Planning Commission and City Council.

Their Success: Addressing all concerns and increased transparency by the City resulted in a satisfied public.

Our Model for Public Involvement

Using our engineering careers with our experience on non-profit boards, community organizing, and professional development trainings, we have developed a creative and innovative model for public outreach. Our Listen Engage Analyze Feedback (LEAF Model) is a comprehensive public outreach process that will facilitate success in reaching your target market. The LEAF Model is a continuous and evolving process that yields greater results each time. For each phase of the LEAF Model we employ creative techniques that transform public meetings from ordinary to extraordinary.