Hello! My name is Jim Simon, and I am the Director of Sustainability at Gonzaga University. Starting this weekend, I am honored to be joining community and business leaders from across the Spokane region to travel to Denmark and Sweden to learn more about sustainable infrastructure and the green economy.
The trip is designed to:
- Provide a shared experience to allow for the development of a common vision for the Spokane region’s emergence in the green economy—a critical growth strategy for our community.
- Explore solutions to infrastructure and environmental challenges that could be adapted in Spokane.
- Allow for expanded thinking around green business sectors and circular economy strategies that are well-suited for Spokane.Great universities thrive in great cities and vice versa. The existing sustainability synergies between the City of Spokane and Gonzaga are numerous and include Center for Engineering Design and Entrepreneurship (CEDE) involvement in the complete redesign of Sharp Avenue, the Cincinnati Greenway, and the completion of a greenhouse gas emissions inventory for the City of Spokane. This week, the City of Spokane and Gonzaga both launched bikeshare systems using Lime, working together to ensure continuity on, off, and around campus with the system.
I’ve talked with a number of campus and community colleagues who can’t be on the trip, but have counseled me on their expertise, so I will be looking at what I see next week through the lens of climate resiliency planning, waste reduction, the built environment, the hydrogen economy, and more.
I’ll endeavor to share notes and pictures here and our social media (@zagsgogreen) will be tracking progress with the hashtag #isustainspokane2018.