How We've Helped
Developing Low Carbon Cities in China
In July 2010, ISC held its first two Climate Leadership Academies in China, one in each of the country’s most industrialized provinces, Guangdong and Jiangsu. The trainings focused on low carbon city planning and development, and brought together senior municipal officials and other local leaders from 18 cities to help them create low carbon action plans.
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Building the “Next American Economy”
In May 2010, we held our fourth Climate Leadership Academy, to improve, scale-up and accelerate local solutions to global climate change. This latest academy, held in Washington DC, focused on developing green economies and creating green jobs. Senior officials and community leaders from 15 U.S. cities were in attendance.
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Shaping Macedonia’s Future
In Spring 2010, ISC celebrated 15 years in Macedonia by completing a five-year project that helped make Macedonia’s civil society—the nonprofit sector—a more effective, influential, and permanent partner alongside government and businesses in shaping the country today and in the future.
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In China, the Next Generation Takes on Climate Change
On November 13, 2009, in the town of Doumen, Guangdong Province, more than 400 primary school students attended an evening workshop celebrating energy efficiency along with their families, teachers and fellow community members. The workshop featured dancing, games, videos, and displays of student projects—all aimed at helping community members understand the impact of their individual energy choices.
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Rebuilding Sustainably on the Gulf Coast
ISC's Gulf Coast Sustainable Communities Network convened for its third meeting in October, 2009 to learn about creative strategies that communities can utilize to rebuild their neighborhoods and organizations sustainably. The meeting took place in the historic Holy Cross District of New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward, which local advocates and organizations are transforming into a model for Gulf Coast communities looking to make themselves stronger than they were before Hurricane Katrina.
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Paving the Way for Green Transportation
ISC's second Climate Leadership Academy, a three-day workshop held in September 2009, focused on transportation efficiency, smart growth and urban development. It brought together teams of senior municipal, regional and state officials from 16 metropolitan areas around the country for intensive peer-learning and networking. The purpose was to help them tackle transportation carbon emissions, which are responsible for nearly a third of all greenhouse gas emissions nationwide.
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Young Kosovars Reach for the Future
In August 2009, 23 young Kosovars gathered for the Kosovo Summer Youth Leadership Academy, a unique residential program for high school students who are dedicated to improving the lives of their peers in Europe's youngest country. The academy brought together a regionally and ethnically diverse mix of Kosovo’s youth, and helped prepare them to be effective leaders and agents of change in their home country.
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At the Green Boot Camp, City Leaders Roll Up their Sleeves to Save Energy and Create Green Jobs
Together with Living Cities, ISC organized a Green Boot Camp at Harvard's Kennedy School—an intensive training and peer-learning program for senior climate, energy and economic development officials from 16 U.S. cities in early June 2009. The camp focused on promising practices for improving, accelerating, and scaling up integrated building energy retrofits and associated green job creation and is part of ISC's Climate Leadership Academy.
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Environmental Educators Get Fresh Ideas
In March 2009, educators from the U.S. and China traveled to Nishinomiya, Japan for a study exchange to learn about implementing school-based environmental programs, and how those programs can support energy efficiency in the broader community.
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Rebuilding After the Sichuan Earthquake
ISC is helping people in Sichuan use the devastating 2008 earthquake as an opportunity to rebuild thoughtfully and sustainably, explore ways they can live and work in better harmony with their natural surroundings, use fewer resources, and build healthier and more resilient communities for future generations.
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Serbia's Green List
Twelve nonprofits in Serbia band together with businesses, festival organizers, and even the Army to turn the tide on illegal dumping and inspire environmental awareness.
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Two and a Half Years After Katrina
FOCUS, a new community organization in Moss Point plays the critical role of uniting the community and connecting citizens to one another. Their vision? A resilient Moss Point that can thrive in the face of future challenges.
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The Business Leaders Forum: Companies Pioneer Corporate Social Responsibility in Serbia
In June 2008, company executives from across Serbia came together to launch a Business Leaders Forum that will stimulate socially responsible practice among companies in Serbia, supporting and encouraging companies—and their employees—to contribute to social and environmental causes as part of their everyday operations.
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Turning Crisis Into Opportunity on the Gulf Coast
Like its neighbors along the Gulf Coast, the city of Moss Point, Mississippi suffered tremendous devastation during Hurricane Katrina. Today, ISC is helping city officials become stronger leaders, a fledgling nonprofit grow to better serve its community, and the city's poorest neighborhoods—severely flooded by Katrina—engage in the rebuilding process.
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Saving Energy, Improving Lives
Our locally based approach to energy efficiency in Russia is yielding dramatic drops in CO2 and saving millions of rubles—proving that what is good for the climate is good for the community.
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Clean Air, Healthy Children
The Russian city of Nizhnii Tagil straddles the border where Europe ends and Asia begins. Like many places where ISC works, it also marks the dividing line between a toxic past and a sustainable future.
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We never come to a country or community and say, "This is how you do it." We always take great pains to engage the local people and to work with local nonprofits. While we can't provide all the answers, we can offer some hope, some technical assistance and education that can help people solve their own problems.
— Madeleine M. Kunin
Board Member and Founder, ISC