Peer-to-Peer Learning Made Easy

Urban Elephant Media produces free sustainability webinars and paid online courses for civic leaders and professionals involved in the day-to-day challenge of building sustainable communities. Join this mailing list to receive occasional notifications about upcoming sustainability training events. 

What would you give to have hundreds of prospective clients sit in an auditorium and listen to you describe your sustainability project or product for an entire hour?

Now you can do that, virtually, for a fraction of the cost!

More than 16,000 local government officials and urban designers have attended our webinars. We currently promote to over 20,000 active subscribers. If your business helps cities in North America reduce emissions, conserve natural resources or become healthier, more equitable places, get the word out by sponsoring a free webinar. You can provide the presenters, or we’ll arrange for a government/nonprofit organization to speak on a topic of your choice. 

We provide a variety of pricing models to fit your needs, and special low rates for government entities.

Call Randy at 563-562-2925 for details.

Free 1-Hour Webinar – Recorded April, 2021
People love grass. But mowing, watering and fertilizing lawns and parks can  take a toll on air quality, consume up to 50 percent of our clean drinking water, pollute waterways and strain the budgets of local governments and residents alike. But, what if there was a better way?  

How the right turf can conserve water, sequester carbon and save money 

In this free webinar, nonprofit sustainability advocate Jackson Madnick, the developer of Pearl's Premium Ultra-Low Maintenance Grass Seed, tells us how his patented, organic turf is helping communities dramatically reduce their water usage, improve water quality, save labor  and reduce emissions by using this special grass that requires mowing only once a month and no chemicals.

The secret is in the slow growth above the soil and roots that grow up to 4 feet deep! Once established, a properly installed and minimally maintained Pearl's Premium lawn:

- Taps into naturally-occurring moisture to minimize watering and better resists drought, disease and salt.

- Produces deeper roots to defeat most weeds and tap into nutrients to minimize or eliminate chemical treatments.

- Grows very slowly above ground to minimize mowing, machine wear, labor and nutrient requirements.

This low-maintenance  grass is great for most municipal, commercial and residential settings,  as well as for use around buildings, along roads, parks, cemeteries and  airports. It's also excellent for green roofs, with one-fifth the wet weight and one-third the cost of other green roofs using grass.

During this webinar, you'll learn how the Town of Littleton, Mass., reduced its peak summer water consumption from almost 150 gallons per  person, per day, down to only 55 gallons per person, per day, simply by  selling Pearl's Premium Ultra Low Maintenance Lawn Seed to local  homeowners at cost. We'll show you how the town water department  promoted the program and educated homeowners to achieve these amazing  results. 

Sponsored by Pearl's Premium

Free 1-Hour Webinar – Recorded April, 2021
Taxes are a primary source of revenue for municipalities. Property use plays a big part in relation to that revenue potential. The value of property may be reduced based on perceived or actual impairments resulting in decreased tax revenue. This presentation discusses the impairments, potential consequences, and remedies that can be employed to improve the likelihood that all available property is utilized to its fullest potential. 

Two examples – one in Anniston, Ala. and one in Oxford, Ala. – will be presented illustrating the benefit of evaluating property utilization in the context of a municipality’s comprehensive plan despite the presence of a perceived or actual property impairment (i.e., property located within a Superfund Site).

In this webinar, Mary Cate Loper, corporate sustainability analyst at Loper Group, Inc., explains how the two cities maximized the value of impaired properties by incorporating property reuse into their comprehensive plans. 

Click here to download the handout.

Sponsored by the Loper Group, Inc.

Free 1-Hour Webinar – Recorded September, 2020
Biogas Upgrading to Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) discusses the characteristics of raw biogas and the equipment needed to produce RNG for both pipeline injection and vehicle fuel. We break down the details for starting this type of project and discuss how biogas producers around the country are making these projects work for them. 

This webinar is presented by engineers from Unison Solutions, an industry leader in biogas conditioning, biogas upgrading, and BioCNG vehicle fuel systems. Unison systems have been installed around the world at landfills, wastewater treatment facilities, dairies, and food processing digester plants.

Click here to download the handout.

Sponsored by Unison Solutions

Free 1-Hour Webinar – Recorded August, 2020
In January 2018, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that three of the city's largest pension funds would divest from fossil fuel companies and in September of the same year announced a commitment to double investments in climate solutions. Since then, 16 other U.S. cities have joined New York in adopting a fossil fuel divestment policy, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors recently passed a resolution supporting what has now become a global movement to build an economic recovery grounded in clean energy. 

In this free 1-hour webinar recorded in August 2020, Lolita Jackson, Special Advisor, Climate Policy & Programs in the NYC Mayor's Office, and city of Pittsburgh Chief Resilience Officer Grant Ervin explain how the two cities are implementing their divestment policies. They walk us through a divestment toolkit New York recently developed in partnership with the city of London and C40 Cities. This new guide was prepared as part of the C40 Divest/Invest Forum, a first-of-its-kind initiative that helps urban leaders make the leap to effective and efficient divestment from fossil fuels, and accelerate green investment.

Click here to download the handout.

Sponsored by www.Hydroecology.org

Free 1-Hour Webinar – Recorded July, 2020  
Lean and Six Sigma are improvement methodologies that have helped organizations and businesses save money, improve delivery performance, reduce inventory and improve quality for decades. These techniques can also be used to help reduce negative impacts on the environment (energy, waste and landfill usage), and improve government agencies, education systems, nonprofits, healthcare, and more. Learn how you can apply these improvement skills to have a positive and rewarding impact in your organization and your local community.

Instructor Brion Hurley is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt at Business Performance Improvement in Portland, Oregon. He teaches Lean and Six Sigma classes, facilitates workshops and events, performs statistical analysis, and mentors employees through improvement efforts. Prior to BPI, he spent 18 years at Rockwell Collins as a Lean Six Sigma consultant. He also led corporate sustainability teams to reduce electricity usage and solid waste, and volunteers his time with local nonprofits. He is the author of the “Lean Six Sigma for Good” book series.

Click here to download the handout.

Sponsored by Business Performance Improvement

Free 1-Hour Webinar – Recorded June, 2020  

Part 2 of a 2-part series

In Part 2, Architecture 2030, Cove.tool, Tally and Autocase team up to examine the importance of considering informed decision making for building designs, and specifically how these tools can help combat climate change. It's critical that projects sequester, offset, and avoid both operational and embodied carbon to do their part in combating the climate crisis. 

In this session, you will learn how to implement these carbon-based goals using tools like Cove.tool, Tally and Autocase. We also discuss the importance of making the case for reduced carbon in a time where stimulus spending on infrastructure is expected.

Our speakers:

• Sandeep Ahuja is co-founder of Cove.tool, pioneering the integration of building performance into the design and construction process by developing and using intelligent technology and software.
  
• Roderick Bates is a principal in the KieranTimberlake Research Group, makers of Tally, using ecological, economic, climate, social, and site data to drive informed sustainable design.
  
• Erin McDade leads Architecture 2030’s public policy and embodied carbon initiatives, a crucial part of which involves developing data-driven solutions for building sector decarbonization.
  
• Shane Minckley is an economist and account manager at Autocase with a passion for environmental economics and mathematical analysis.

Sponsored by Autocase. If you have any questions or want to schedule a demo, please contact caitlin.kitlas@autocase.com.

Free 1-Hour Webinar – Recorded May, 2020 

Part 1 of a 2-part series

In Part 1, our speakers present: "A Triple Bottom Line Cost Justification for Green Buildings – Building the Business Case for Healthy, Sustainable, and Resilient Design - Introduction to Green Building Economics."

Using real-life case studies of buildings whose designs were informed by economic business cases, the speakers walk participants through how to efficiently prepare a comprehensive analysis of sustainable investments. Participants gain a better understanding of the resources that can be used to complete the assessments, and which opportunities can benefit most from economic cost justification.

Our speakers:

• John Peterson, OAA FRAIC, is director of sustainable design & building innovation at MJMA in Toronto, Ontario.
  
• Jeanne Ng is senior associate at MJMA.
  
• Ted Kesik is a professor of building science in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto.
  
• John Parker is an economist by trade and is chief product officer & co-founder of Autocase.

Attendees also learn how they can use Autocase free of charge for 30 days starting in June. Visit Autocase.com/freejune for details.

Sponsored by Autocase. If you have any questions or want to schedule a demo, please contact caitlin.kitlas@autocase.com.

Free 1-Hour Webinar – Recorded May, 2020 

In response to growing interest in understanding how climate risk affects property owners, a Canadian study examines system-wide vulnerabilities and opportunities for resilience investment to reduce risk and increase response capacity to more frequent catastrophic loss events. 

This free one-hour webinar features climate resilience consultant Chris Chopik and Jenny Whyte, strategic foresight and innovation consultant at Northumberland County, Ontario, who discuss their research examining the current and future projected impacts of climate change on property values.

This study reveals a unique framework for resilience investment for commercial and residential real estate markets and demonstrates an innovative approach to asset-centric investment in resilience, which delivers more tangible value to property owners. 

The case study examines climate impacts across all regions of Ontario, Canada's economic hub. The framework presented offers a simple and understandable value proposition that can be used by governments to get buy-in from property owners. This framework is usable by governments for engaging constituents and property owners/managers in understanding the real estate value of investing in resilience infrastructure, and regional capacity to respond.

In addition to the asset-centric approach, this framework advocates a unique process for community engagement in areas both acutely affected by climate impact, as well as those developing resilience plans. This inclusive design approach aims to strengthen the fabric of resilience investment, as communities facing these challenges are only as strong as their weakest link.

Free 1-Hour Webinar – Recorded April, 2020 

Learn how life cycle assessment (LCA) can help quantify the triple bottom line benefits of green building projects.

Beyond just thinking about operational carbon, reducing embodied carbon has become an effective way to reduce a building's overall carbon footprint. This webinar illustrates how Autocase and One Click LCA have teamed up to enable design teams to quickly and easily quantify the whole carbon story.

You'll come away with an understanding of the importance of both embodied and operational carbon plays, how to quantify them, how to make the case for them, and real-world applications.

Our speakers:

• Dr. Rodrigo Castro is senior life cycle assessment expert at One Click LCA. He is an expert in building sustainability with advanced know-how in Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Costing, EN and ISO LCA standards, and their application for embodied and operational carbon.
  
• Sara Kingman is a sustainability engineer at Buro Happold Engineering and is a LEED AP, EcoDistricts AP, and a TRUE Zero Waste Advisor.
  
• Simon Fowell is an economist and account manager at Autocase. He has dedicated the last seven years of his academic and professional career to building a business case for environmental sustainability.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA):

This free webinar describes how to use best-practice economics and life cycle assessment to evaluate the environmental impact of a high-performance building project through its life cycle, from the sourcing of raw materials to the manufacturing, distribution, use, recycling, and final disposal of the building materials.

Sponsored by Autocase. If you have any questions or want to schedule a demo, please contact caitlin.kitlas@autocase.com. 

Free 1-Hour Webinar – Recorded October, 2019 

This webinar describes the evaluation of high-performance building projects using best practice economics to develop a business case for healthier, high performance buildings across the triple bottom line (social, environmental, and financial).

In 2019, Autocase evaluated Miami-Dade County's Building Efficiency 305 Program and its related strategies. Policies analyzed in the report include annual benchmarking for all buildings of 20,000 square feet or larger, and re-tuning and auditing, respectively, every five and 10 years, for all buildings 50,000 square feet or larger. Results of the Triple Bottom Line Cost-Benefit Analysis (TBL-CBA) conducted by Autocase show that the combination of these policies provides benefits to both property owners and the general public by providing more than $7 billion in net value through 2030. This report validates the positive triple bottom line benefits of the program, including social benefits such as health improvements related to reduced air pollution.

In this webinar, featuring Patricia Gómez, P.E., C.E.M, LEED AP BD+C, resilience/energy program manager at Miami-Dade County's Office of Resilience, and Eric Bill, vice president of economics at Autocase, we discuss how occupant health and well-being can be quantified as important components of a building project's triple bottom line. 

By participating in the webinar, attendees are eligible for 1 AIA Learning Unit (LU). This webinar is Part 2, a more in-depth follow-up to Part 1, which was titled: Triple Bottom Line Cost Justification for Green Buildings - Building the Business Case for Healthy, Sustainable, and Resilient Design.

Sponsored by Autocase. If you have any questions or want to schedule a demo, please contact caitlin.kitlas@autocase.com.

Free 1-Hour Webinar – Recorded June, 2019 

There is an increased emphasis on understanding the impacts your building project will have on occupants, the surrounding community and environment, as well as the owner's Return on Investment (ROI). In this presentation you'll learn how Autocase quantifies the impact of your design, using cost benefit analysis, to add location-specific metrics to your story, such as occupant health, improved air quality, and your building's carbon footprint, in addition to the more traditional metrics, such as ROI and Net Present Value.  See how easy it is to make a comprehensive business case for more sustainable, resilient and smarter buildings.

This webinar features Phil Bernstein, associate dean at Yale School of Architecture; John Williams, CEO of Autocase; and Kate Lawson, lead product manager at Autocase, as we discuss how occupant health and well-being can be quantified as important components of a building project's triple bottom line.

 Sponsored by Autocase

Free 1-Hour Webinar – Recorded March, 2019  

The challenges local governments face with water can be put into three buckets (excuse the pun): quantity, quality and reliability. 

This webinar follows case studies in Los Angeles County, Calif., and Jacksonville, Fla. It features Josh Svensson, a civil engineer in the Los Angeles County Public Works' Stormwater Planning Division; Rebecca Vanderbeck, a professional engineer and senior associate environmental engineer in Wood’s Jacksonville office; and Simon Fowell, an economist and account managers at Autocase. The three discuss regional water challenges and how we can use sustainable return on investment (S-ROI) to re-think the value of water in our cities, and in doing so turn single-purpose infrastructure in to public assets.

Sponsored by Autocase

Free 1-Hour Webinar – Recorded February, 2019

This free 1-hour webinar features Christine Knapp, sustainability director for the City of Philadelphia. Among other climate- and energy-related topics, she and Energy Manager Adam Agalloco provide an overview of a new power purchase agreement that will enable the construction of a 70-Megawatt solar facility – the largest in Pennsylvania by sevenfold – providing 22 percent of the city government’s electricity needs.  

In 2017, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney announced the city's pledge to get all of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. This new PPA is just one of the strategies that will help reach that goal.

Sponsored by the Growing Sustainable Communities Conference