Greenbuild 2012 Best Bike Challenge

The Bay Area boasts progression and passion for sustainability and beyond. The local companies featured within the 500 mile Pavilion are proud to celebrate accomplishments in their varied industries, from general contracting to high performance building system designers; from technology and building materials to engineering and LEED consulting.

Naturally ensuing with this sense of pride is a commitment to community and giving back.  Inspired by California’s Best Buildings Challenge, and in an effort to raise funds for the Project Haiti Orphanage & Children’s Center, the 500 Mile companies are developing a philanthropic challenge you won’t want to miss.

The 500 Mile Pavilion’s “Best BIKE Challenge,” will draw Greenbuild attendees to generate pedal power on stationery booth bikes – the more power generated throughout the conference, the more money donated to the Project Haiti fund. Hosted by Environmental Building Strategies and Integral Group in booths 5516W and 5518W, the bikes will be available every day of the conference for attendees to challenge their colleagues and friends to see who can generate the most power for Haiti.

In addition, on Wednesday night the 500 Mile companies will host an expo hall happy hour (4:30 - 7 pm) with scheduled “bikeathons” between big names in green building. Come grab a drink, cheer on your favorite green building leaders and even jump on the bike yourself to pedal for a cause!

USGBC California Ballot Measure Recommendations

USGBC California takes positions on ballot measures based on current program positions and/or alignment with overall USGBC mission and vision. Positions are developed through member study, discussion and consensus with Leadership Reps of all California Chapters. As a guide to statewide membership, USGBC California makes the following recommendations:

• Become an informed citizen
• Cast an informed vote November 6th
• YES on Prop 30 In supporting the Governor’s tax proposal, we feel that the nightmare prospect of funding devastation to California community colleges and K-12 schools is not something that should be borne, and would be unnecessarily disruptive to an emerging and sustainable California economy. Let’s begin getting our house in order and moving forward.
• NO on Prop 32 Prop 32 is an initiative that purports to be a good government measure but actually is a transparent effort to eliminate the primary union funding mechanism and therefore silence labor’s voices. And if you haven’t spent time lately on where the labor movement (who has greatly impacted such taken-for-granted middle class pillars of our civil society as forty-hour weeks, heath care and social security) is headed in the future take a look through the BlueGreen Alliance/Apollo site.
• YES on Prop 39 USGBC California has been a founding supporter of Prop 39, which closes a tax loophole that every other state (except Missouri) has already dealt with, putting both out-of-state and in-state companies on the same footing: basing their taxes on their sales within California. Proceeds from Prop 39, projected to be over $1B annually, will benefit building energy efficiency projects, education and the general fund in that order. It is telling that how no one admits to knowing how this loophole initially came about; closing it provides direct benefit and needed investment capital to California.

For more information on all propositions, including great non-partisan facts(!) on who is supporting and opposing and funding them, check out Next 10’s California Choices site.” For the Legislative Analyst’s reports on all the Propositions, visit here.