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On Wednesday night, 40 members and guests gathered at the serene campus of Intuit, Inc. in Mountain View (many thanks to member Georg Gerstenfeld for hosting the meeting!). Starting the night off was Rupesh Shah, Director of Corporate Sustainability at Intuit, who welcomed the group and spoke about Intuit’s efforts to become more environmentally and socially responsible. Afterwards the group introduced themselves by sharing a book, blog, television show they were reading/watching. The group shared an eclectic list of materials including Silent Spring from Rachel Carson, the season finale of “Lost”, Blood and Oil by Michael Klare, and Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. One blog that came up often was the highly acclaimed Story of Stuff Blog and Video revealing the underside of everything we consume and produce.

After introductions, inquiry teams began to present their findings from the last month of research into pressing environmental problems, the organizations that are working to solve them, and the impact that Full Circle Fund members can have in finding and implementing the solutions.

>MEMBERS: Check out the presentations on the members only website by clicking here.

Energy Efficiency and Green Building Inquiry Team

The first presentation was the newly combined Energy Efficiency and Green Building Team lead by members Johanna Werther and Marc Payne. They noted that some of the main issues that should be addressed is the dwindling supply of energy sources, the rising demand for fuel, and the inevitable time it will take to develop alternative energy solutions. They emphasized that energy efficiency, particularly in the way of new greener buildings, is a solution that many organizations are working towards and much impact can be made if there was more collaboration within the field.

Environmental Health Inquiry Team

Stephen Zollman, Environment Circle member and public defender in San Francisco, presented the findings from the Environmental Health inquiry team. He noted that the public sector has been making strides towards solutions for many years, including measures like San Francisco’s Precautionary Principle, but strong citizen knowledge about toxins in our environment and their disastrous effects on the population is still lacking.

Producer Responsibility Inquiry Team

The final presentation was by Patrick Koppula and his inquiry team focusing on producer responsibility. The team presented that the many the organizations working in the field focus falls into three categories: legislation reform, retail, and investments. The team will continue to look into where members have the largest impact and bring these findings to next month’s meeting.

Posted in environment