Blackstone Ranch Institute is co-sponsoring events with other organizations that share its mission of influencing positive environmental change.  The institute provides support to those who are engaged in vital strategic dialogs at the inception or breakout stage of major social innovation. 

2008

Global Mapping for Languages, Cultures and Bio-Diversity
National Geographic Society
Washington, D.C.
February 21-22, 2008
nationalgeographic.com

National Geographic Society and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages have initiated the Enduring Voices Project to introduce to a broad audience the geography of global language diversity and the language extinction crisis that humanity now faces. The project explores connections between the global distribution of languages and patterns of biodiversity, and the ways in which these systems mutually shape each other.

Participants from the fields of geography, linguistics, conservation biology, bioinformatics and genetics will meet at the National Geographic Society to develop ways of involving indigenous communities in five global hotspots (including the American southwest) in a global effort to save their own languages.

Blackstone Ranch Institute is co-sponsoring the gathering along with the Christensen Fund.

Cascadia Region Green Building Market Transformation Summit
Vancouver, British Columbia
April 16 and Fall 2008
www.cascadiagbc.org
www.sustainablebuildingcentre.com

The Cascadia Region Green Building Council (CRBC) and the Light House Sustainable Building Centre in Vancouver will host two meetings in 2008 of municipal representatives in the Cascadia Region of the Pacific Northwest. Participants will develop ways of consolidating rapidly developing green building practices and standards in a regional approach that is intended to serve as a national model.

CRBC is an international leader in the growing green building movement, and was a leader in the regional initiative to adopt statewide LEED construction standards that have since been adopted by municipalities all over the world. More recently they launched the Living Building Challenge to further upgrade standards, which were adopted by both the U.S. and Canadian Green Building Councils.

Blackstone Ranch Institute is the principal sponsor. Participating municipalities will also contribute funding.

Going Blue with Alexandra Cousteau
National Geographic Society
Washington, D.C.
Fall 2008
www.alexandracousteau.com

Going Blue is an international education campaign about global water resources initiated by Alexandra Cousteau. The campaign aims to make an understanding of water and its role in our lives a fundamental part of individual and collective awareness. It will leverage traditional and emerging media platforms to reach the broadest possible audience across cultures and geographical regions. It will also aim to inspire action and innovative solutions to problems of water quality and supply by individuals and communities around the world. The campaign will be comprehensive in nature, covering oceans, freshwater, wetlands and the need for clean, accessible fresh water in poorer countries around the world.

Alexandra is the grand-daughter of Jacques Cousteau, and along with her other endeavors will use the campaign to further his legacy as one of the great pioneers of ecological awareness in the 20th century.

Blackstone Ranch Institute is sponsoring an initial gathering of diverse media experts and water conservationists to plan the future of the campaign. Both National Geographic and Coca-Cola have expressed interest in helping to promote the campaign worldwide.

Presidio School of Management Executive Intensives
New Mexico
Fall 2008
www.presidiomba.org

Blackstone Ranch Institute and the Presidio School of Management in San Francisco are jointly launching a program of week-long executive intensives for some of Presidio's growing number of corporate and entrepreneurial clients. The intensives will be devoted to problem solving and real world solutions to the challenges participants will be facing as they try to change the culture of American business and provide innovative responses to society's environmental challenges. An early goal will be to develop strategies for making the program itself financially sustainable.

Presidio is one of the first business schools in the country to focus on environmental and financial sustainability, and is now a leader in a mainstream movement embraced by some of the world's top companies.

This will be an ongoing relationship. Blackstone Ranch Institute has provided funding for initial faculty gatherings required to develop the curricula for the intensives, and will work closely with Presidio on the development of the future structure of the program.

Carbon Sequestration and Global Grasslands
New Mexico
Fall 2008
www.holisticmanagement.org

Holistic Management International, a leading expert in agricultural land management practices that increase biodiversity, will host a gathering to assess the current state of knowledge about soil carbon and how agricultural management practices can increase the capacity of soil in grasslands areas to sequester carbon. Participants will include leading soil carbon and agricultural scientists, business representatives involved in the emerging carbon trade, policy experts and representatives from farmers' organizations.

The goal will be to develop grassland carbon credits and create systems to disseminate scientific knowledge to agricultural and business sectors involved in land management, and to identify ways to mitigate the effects of global climate change on the arid and semi-arid areas of the world that are already drought prone. Plans for future funding from both public and private sectors will be developed at this meeting.

Los Alamos National Labs Department of Atmospheric Science and Terrestrial Carbon in New Mexico has been invited to be a co-host.

Blackstone Ranch Institute is the sponsor of this inititial gathering.

Formation of National Business and Ecosystem Leadership Group
World Resources Institute
Washington, D.C.
Fall 2008
www.wri.org

The World Resources Institute will be hosting the first gathering of the Business and Ecosystem Leadership Group at their headquarters in Washington, D.C.. The effort is an innovative partnership between the non-profit and private sectors dedicated to advancing business strategies, markets and public policies that align corporate performance with ecosystem stewardship.

The initial meeting will involve managers from 10-15 Fortune 500 caliber companies drawn from the forestry, agribusiness, extractive industries, manufacturing, retail and finance sectors of the nation's economy. The goal is to form an ongoing roundtable of member businesses that will develop ways to reduce the negative impacts of their various production processes on the nation's ecosystems and encourage the adoption of practices that will stimulate biodiversity and healthy ecosystems.

The group is the first of its kind in the United States, and will be supported by membership dues. Over time, the World Resources Institute aims to change the way corporate culture in the United States perceives and relates to the environment.

Blackstone Ranch Institute is providing the funding for the inception meeting.

Children and Nature: National Geographic Photo Camp
Taos, New Mexico
October 15-19, 2008
photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photocamp

National Geographic Photo Camp is an annual series of photography workshops for youth from underserved communities in the United States and around the world. This year's theme is 'Children and Nature.'

Blackstone Ranch Institute will be hosting and providing logistical support to one of this year's workshops in Taos, New Mexico. Approximately 20 youth will work with a small team of top National Geographic photographers to document nature's beauty in the Taos area. They will be provided with cameras and given lessons, and later be able to present and exhibit their work in Taos and through various National Geographic outlets.

The program is sponsored by the National Geographic Educational Foundation and Mission Programs (with funding from the Ferguson-Judge Fund) in partnership with VisionWorkshops of Annapolis, Maryland.

National Green Plans at Bioneers Annual Conference
Civic Center
San Rafael, CA
October 2008
www.bioneers.org

Blackstone Ranch Institute will be one of several national sponsors of the annual Bioneers gathering. This year there will be a special emphasis on reaching out to government and business constituencies. In addition to the regular plenary sessions, educational panels and networking gatherings, in 2008 there will be professional intensives before and after the main conference that will focus on national green plans around the world, biomimicry approaches to a variety of technical and scientific challenges, ecological literacy in the formal education system, and a Google Earth Outreach team session on how to use their cutting edge technology for public interest purposes.

Blackstone Ranch Institute will be a special sponsor of the intensives on national green plans and host of a panel on California's green cities initiatives, featuring the participation of Green Cities California and the Community Environmental Council of Santa Barbara.

Orion Society
New Mexico
November 6-9, 2008
www.orionsociety.org

The Orion Society will be hosting a gathering of writers and environmental activists from their grassroots network and literary magazine to identify new visions for action on major environmental issues.

A number of participants will be contributing editors to Orion magazine, one of the finest groups of environmental writers in the world.  Others will be leading community activists pioneering efforts to address issues of environmental justice and ecological sustainability in communities around the country that are part of Orion's grassroots network. 

Blackstone Ranch Institute is providing financial support.

The Future of Renewable Energy in New Mexico
New Mexico
December 2008
www.bioneers.org

Blackstone Ranch Institute is continuing its support of the Bioneers' Dreaming New Mexico, an innovative initiative to build a coalition of leading individuals and organizations in civil society, government and business to build a restorative and sustainable economy in the state of New Mexico. 

The institute is supporting the development of a Google Earth Outreach map of future renewable energy resources in the state, which will serve as a point of departure for a strategic convening at the end of the year aimed at developing several future energy scenarios for the state. 

Blackstone Ranch Institute is one of several co-sponsors of this long term initiative, a group that includes the McCune Foundation and the Garfield Foundation.

2007

California Urban Sustainability Directors
Green Gulch Farm
Marin County, CA
May 17 - 18, 2007
www.sfenvironment.com

Government environmental sustainability directors from 10 leading California cities met to develop a statewide agenda on extended producer responsibility and climate change actions for their municipalities. Joint statewide campaigns are planned for 2007-8 that will mandate use of 100% recycled paper and eliminate the use of bottled water in their muncipal offices, establish carbon offsets for government travel and municipal fleet fuel efficiency standards, and encourage their populations to buy more local foods. They will also work on the development of statewide efforts to diminish the use of toxic substances and to reduce wasteful consumption.

The gathering was the first follow up to the national meeting in Boulder. Participating cities included Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, Sacramento, Santa Monica, Pasadena, Oakland, Berkeley and Marin County.

Blackstone Ranch Institute provided financial and logistical support.

Hollyhock Social Change Institute
Cortes Island, British Columbia
May 24 - 28, 2007
www.hollyhockleadership.org

Close to 120 environmental and social change leaders from British Columbia, Ontario, Washington, California and Hawaii met to refine skills and make new connections. With few formal opportunities to build relationships with one another, participants used the opportunity to develop new strategies and government relations plans on land conservation, the Kyoto Protocol, emissions reductions, reduction of toxins and development of renewable energies. A number received help from experienced consultants on fundraising, marketing and public relations.

Blackstone Ranch Institute was the lead sponsor. Hollyhock is Canada's leading educational retreat center.

Hollyhock Social Venture Institute
Cortes Island, British Columbia
September 05 - 09, 2007
www.renewalpartners.com

More than 100 emerging entrepeneurs, investors and social change activists from Canada and the United States who face the challenge of growing an enterprise while maintaining a social mission met together on Cortes Island to share experiences and establish new networks. Many are trying to merge their business goals with environmentally sound practices. The gathering was co-hosted by Renewal Partners and the Social Venture Network.

Community Environmental Council of Santa Barbara
Fossil Free Future
El Capitan Canyon, California
September 20 - 22, 2007
www.communityenvironmentalcouncil.org

A diverse group of more than 20 representatives from local governments, academia and the environmental community reviewed the council´s plan to develop a fossil free infrastructure for the Santa Barbara area. As a result of the gathering, the council has developed new relationships in government and among non-profits specializing in energy. They will help the council follow up the plan with political and social actions that allow them to offer their experience as a model for others on the West Coast who also seek alternative to dependence upon fossil fuels.

California Green Cities
Santa Monica, CA
October 4-5
www.smepd.org

In a followup to their meeting in May, California environmental sustainability directors from 10 cities met to formalize their association. They drew up a resolution creating Green Cities that they will submit to their city councils and mayors for adoption, they pledged financial support from their city budgets to sustain the organization and they agreed to hire a part time coordinator to organize future meetings and keep them informed of legislative developments.

Blackstone Ranch Institute provided financial and logistical support.

California-European Dialog on Climate Change
Santa Barbara, CA
November 13 - 15, 2007
transatlantic.sais-jhu.edu
www.bren.ucsb.edu

A small group of senior government representatives and members of the business and academic communities from Europe and California drafted ‘The Santa Barbara Concensus on Climate Change.’

The agreement emphasizes the importance of local and regional initiatives and supports the emergence of a global carbon market that is based on the auction rather than free allocation of emission rights. It also puts an urgent priority on the need to develop new energy models that would be available to developed and developing countries alike, and proposes the creation of a phased global system of per capita equal emission rights that would provide incentives for developing countries to limit their carbon emissions. The document has been widely distributed to the networks of participants.

Blackstone Ranch Institute sponsored the gathering along with the Luso-American Foundation and the Heinrich Boll Foundation. It was hosted by the Trans-Atlantic Institute of Johns Hopkins Univesity in Washington, D.C. and the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California in Santa Barbara.

Bioneers Annual Conference
Marin County, CA
October 19 - 21, 2007
www.bioneers.org

More than 2500 people from around North America will attend plenary sessions and workshops at the annual Bioneers Conference in Marin County. Leading innovators, educators, thinkers and civil society leaders will offer practical and visionary solutions for restoring imperiled ecosystems and developing an ethic of environmental responsibility in the business world and civil society.

The proceedings will be broadcast by satellite to more than 15 cities in North America.

Blackstone Ranch Institute is one of several co-sponsors. Others include New Leaf paper, Mother Earth News, The Nation, Calvert Online and Organic Valley.

U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Summit
Seattle, WA
November 1-2
www.usmayors.org

Blackstone Ranch Institute was one of several sponsors of the largest gathering to date of the country's mayors devoted to climate change. More than 100 mayors came together to promote effective solutions to global warming at local and national levels. They are among the more than 660 mayors who have so far adopted the US Mayors Climate Proctection Agreement of 2005, a comitment to significantly cut climate warming pollution in their cities.

Featured speakers included former US President Bill Clinton and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Global Forest Carbon Measurement Working Group
Washington, D.C.
November 28-29
nationalgeographic.com

Blackstone Ranch Institute sponsored a gathering of international scientists as the first step toward the creation and adoption of a global carbon accounting system. The goal is to develop a reliable technology for mapping and measuring the world's carbon stocks. It is expected that this technology will play a pivotal role in the future development of global carbon markets, and allow a number of countries to generate carbon credits based upon their allocation of the world's carbon that can be used for poverty reduction programs.

National Geographic Society hosted the gathering, which was the first step toward the development of the global system.  Other partners in the creation of the group include the Clinton Climate Initiative-Carbon and Poverty Reduction Program and World Vision International.

Dreaming New Mexico
New Mexico
Late 2007
www.bioneers.org

A diversity of organizations are starting work on a comprehensive, long term sustainability plan for the state of New Mexico.  Blackstone Ranch Institute is co-sponsoring some of the early cross sector conversational gatherings for the food and farm policy part of the plan in late 2007.  Initiated by the Bioneers, the group includes La Mantanita Co-op, Farm-to-Table, the Quivira Coalition and the Center for Civic Policy.

Forest Ethics Do Not Mail Campaign
Corporate and Non-Profit Dialogs
Late 2007
www.ForestEthics.org

Forest Ethics is extending its action campaign to save the old growth forests along the coast of British Columbia.  After successfully negotiating with leading mail order companies in North America to switch to 100% post consumer recycled paper, its next objective will be to establish a do-not-mail registry with mail order and catalogue companies that currently use paper that comes from those forests.  This will be a serious attempt to reduce the volume of junk mail in North America.

Blackstone Ranch Institute is sponsoring strategic dialogs between Forest Ethics and corporate counterparts.

2006

Rocky Mountain Institute Urban Sustainability Directors Gathering
Boulder, Colorado
November 02 - 03, 2006
www.rmi.org

More than 30 urban government environmental sustainability directors met nationally for the first time in Boulder. Initiated by the Rocky Mountain Institute, the gathering has led to the development of a national network of sustainability directors. One participant referred to it as a tipping point in the urban sustainability movement. Blackstone Ranch Institute provided the financial support.