Want to help Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems and offset your carbon footprint at the same time? Reliant and EarthShare of Texas have launched The Reliant EcoShare^SM, a program that allows Reliant customers to support EarthShare of Texas and its participating organizations and help reduce the customers’ carbon footprints through the purchase of carbon offsets.

Here’s how it works: The Reliant EcoShare^SM program gives customers the option of two pricing levels:

• For a flat monthly cost of $3.95, a $1 donation is made each month to EarthShare of Texas, and 500 pounds of carbon offsets are purchased.
• Or for a flat monthly cost of $5.95, a $2 donation is made each month to EarthShare of Texas, and 1,000 pounds of carbon offsets are purchased.

CMPBS benefits, because as one of EarthShare of Texas’ participating organizations, a portion of the Reliant donation is shared with us.
Carbon offsets for the Reliant EcoShare^SM program meet approved standards to ensure that they represent real, verifiable reductions in greenhouse gases.

For more information, follow this link to the EarthShare of Texas website http://www.earthshare-texas.org/2012/02/the-reliant-ecosharesm-program-supports-texas.html or go directly to reliant.com/ecoshare.

This is a great opportunity to learn about the work of CMPBS through hands-on experience and spend a beautiful day outside!

Where: CMPBS
8604 FM 969
Austin, TX 78724
When: Monday, May 7, 9 AM - 5 PM

Volunteers should be prepared to work outside. Closed toed shoes, hats, sunglasses and sunscreen are encouraged! We will provide gloves.

Please check in at the main office when you arrive.

If you are interested in coming out please contact us at Center@cmpbs.org or 512-928-4786 for more information!

Can’t make it? Stay tuned for upcoming volunteer opportunities!

THANK YOU!

Historically, the best ideas develop during challenging times when necessity combines creativity, expertise and varying points of view, resulting in great solutions. It is the ongoing goal of the annual IEEE IAS/PCA conference to be the cement industry’s premier platform for technical interchange and innovation.

Pliny is presenting in the sustainability forum. The forum will consist of 5 speakers (15-20 minutes each), with a Q&A at the end of the forum.

For more information visit http://www.ieeepcaconference.org/

CMPBS is pleased to announce that H-E-B has selected EarthShare of Texas to be the beneficiary of its in-store coupon promotion for April, in recognition of Earth Day. This means that customers can tear off and add check-out coupons worth $1, $3, or $5 to their total bill to support environmental work in the Central Texas, Houston, Gulf Coast, Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio/West and Border, plus North Texas Central Markets.

H-E-B has supported many EarthShare of Texas organizations with corporate grants or in-kind contributions. The April tear-pad promotion enables H-E-B customers to support the environmental program work of more than three dozen EarthShare of Texas organizations. CMPBS will benefit, because the contributions will be divided among EarthShare of Texas organizations with program work in Texas.

Look for the EarthShare of Texas display and tear-off coupons at the check-out stands in more than 250 H-E-B and Central Market stores throughout Texas through April and into the first week in May. And help support Earth Share of Texas and the Texas environment!

CMPBS Co-Directors Pliny Fisk and Gail Vittori, and Kathy Zarsky of Holos Collaborative will be presenting an ecoBalance Design education session at Living Futures 2012 in Portland, Oregon on May 3rd, from 2:30-4:30 pm.

EcoBalance Design balances life support systems (air, water, food, energy, materials) across life cycle phases (source/process/use/re-source) at multiple scales. Its objective is to balance resource flows, working with nature to support basic human needs in a regenerative manner. Most ecosystem processes are non-additive functions of traits of two or more species, because interactions among species, rather than their presence or absence, determine ecosystem characteristics.

Pliny, Gail and Kathy will explore EcoBalance through a biomimicry lens. The session will provide an overview of EcoBalance Design, its contrast with conservation-based methodologies, real-world project implementation, and audience engagement in applying EcoBalance to multi-scale projects and crowdsourcing refinements.

Additional information on the Living Futures 2012 conference is available at http://cascadiagbc.org/living-future/12 

Position details available here

CMPBS’s fellow awardees include The Nobility Project, Austin (Peace Category) and Project Row House, Houston (Development Category).

Thank you to the friends, colleagues and community members who joined us for CMPBS 2012 ecoBalance Series - Food. It was a great success!

Our 2012 ecoBalance Series is made possible with the support of The Stillwater Foundation

A special thank you to our speakers. If you would like to learn more about our speakers and their work please visit their websites.

Skip Connett and Erin Flynn: Green Gate Farm
Paige Hill: Urban Patchwork
Bob Gedert: Austin Resource Recovery
Murph Willcott: Texas Frenchbread

Thank you to Green Gate Farm and Texas Frenchbread for donation of fresh, organic vegetables and bread!

Stay posted for information about the next installment of the 2012 ecoBalance Series!

CMPBS Co-Director Pliny Fisk was featured in the article “Dream Weaver: For green-building savior Pliny Fisk, turning science fiction into reality is the new world order” in the Spring 2012 issue of Austin Home Magazine. 

Pliny discusses his current projects including Plenitude, a conceptual plan for desert cities. Pliny also shares his unique outlook on the future and potential for green building technologies.

A preview of the article is available on the Austin Home website or download the full article here.

CMPBS is proud to announce the launch of our 2012 ecoBalance™ Presentation Series focusing on the ecoBalance life support systems of Air, Water, Food, Energy and Materials.  As with our prior presentation series, we look forward to providing a provocative context to explore these essential ecoBalance “cycles of life.”  The kick off panel is focused on the ecoBalance life support system of Food.

When:  Friday, March 2, 2012
6:30 - 9:00 PM
7 - 8:30 PM: Panel Discussion
8:30 - 9:00: Q&A

Where: CMPBS
8604 FM 969 • Austin, TX 78724

Drinks and light refreshments will be provided.
This is an outdoor event.
CMPBS is a smoke free environment.

$15 Suggested Donation
RSVP to Center@cmpbs.org

Download the Flyer

About ecoBalance™:
ecoBalance™ is a planning and design methodology that assesses the balance of life support systems (air, water, food, energy, materials) across life cycle phases (source/process/use/re-source) at multiple scales, using a powerful measure—balance—understandable by all.  Shifting from a linear, life cycle assessment and conservation-focused metric (use less) to one underscored by the ecodynamics of place where balance becomes the new baseline, ecoBalance acknowledges diversity in context and celebrates balance as a common cross-disciplinary language and metric.

Panel:

Skip Connett and Erin Flynn: Skip and Erin own and operate Green Gate Farms, an independent organic farm located in East Austin. Skip’s boyhood was spent on a magnificent farm in Pennsylvania that got its start in the 1700s. His career has spanned journalism, public health and farming. Most recently, he was a member of the TOFGA Advisory Board and TDA Organic Industry Advisory Board. Though Erin’s family has farmed and ranched in Texas for six generations, she is the first to create a certified organic farm. In addition to farming, she is a writer/ publicist. Flynn is active with Slow Food Austin’s Board of Directors and was recently appointed to Austin’s Sustainable Food Policy Board.
Paige Hill: Paige, founder of Urban Patchwork Neighborhood Farms, has combined her background in community advocacy and urban design with her lifelong experience in environmental stewardship to create a stable, community-based food system that’s renewable and fits in every nook and cranny that an urban environment provides - at the same time making food production “doable” for all of us.
Bob Gedert: Bob, Director of Austin Solid Waste Services, has been involved in recycling and waste reduction programs since 1975. As the former Chief of Recycling for the State of Indiana, Bob wrote many state statutes supporting recycling efforts. With City of Fresno Department of Public Utilities, he increased the recycling diversion rate from 29% to 75%. Currently Bob is the Director of Austin Resource Recovery for the City of Austin where he is working in the implementation of the Austin Zero Waste Plan.
Murph Willcott: Murph is Co-owner of Texas French Bread. After graduating from UT, Murph worked a variety of restaurant, catering and bakery jobs in New York City before attending Harvard Law School. Murph left his law career after 8 years to run the family business, Texas French Bread.  As co-owners of TFB, Murph and his brother Ben promote the techniques of traditional French country and Mediterranean cooking, and Alice Waters’ dictate to seek out the local, the fresh, the simple, the nutritious, and the beautiful, and to serve these in season at their peak.

Generous Art will have a sale of local art to benefit CMPBS during the event. For each piece sold, Generous Art donates 40% to the buyer’s choice nonprofit and 40% goes to the artist, seamlessly supporting community.

Visit GenerousArt.org.