Sustainable Cities and Communities

Following yesterday's announcement that the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, Xylem, a leading global water technology company, issued a statement affirming its support for the agreement.

A network of local and global businesses are collaborating with the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative (MUFI) to transform a long-vacant apartment complex in Detroit’s lower North End into a multi-functional community space that will become one of the most sustainable, energy-efficient buildings in Detroit.

How can we prevent the urbanization boom from becoming a health crisis? Making our cities into places of wellbeing, exciting growth and opportunity will require every sector to join forces on urban health, says Dr. Ann Aerts, Head of the Novartis Foundation.

On World Hypertension Day 2017, the Novartis Foundation and its partners, including Intel Corporation, the NCD Alliance, city governments and local partners, announce the launch of Better Hearts Better Cities, an innovative initiative to address the high rates of high blood pressure (hypertension) in low-income urban communities.

Infrastructure Week allows us to reflect on the modernization needed to drive the new digital grid. A comprehensive view of the infrastructure elements needed to create a more efficient and sustainable energy landscape should include communications networks and embedded computing. Utilities, technology vendors and community leaders will need to work in collaboration to ensure all elements are considered for the digital grid to thrive.

Keep America Beautiful, the nation’s leading nonprofit that envisions a country in which every community is a clean, green and beautiful place to live, today announced Sacramento State has become the national nonprofit’s first collegiate affiliate.

The rise of the smart city will rely on the ability of stakeholders to collaborate, engage citizens and act on data. Partnerships are hard at work and planning is under way to overcome the legacy of siloed services, focus on integrated systems that will ultimately be more adept at delivering critical services, empower communities and elevate our quality of life.

Maven is expanding its flexible mobility platform to accelerate the gig economy. Maven Gig drivers are provided access to vehicles they can use for independent gigs that they choose, such as package delivery, food or grocery delivery, and ridesharing. The program is live in San Diego and will launch in San Francisco and Los Angeles later this year. Initial partners include GrubHub, Instacart, Roadie and ridesharing services.

When it comes down to it, I fear that for many people “sustainable” has become synonymous with “less bad.” That’s not enough, friends.

CBRE is one of more than 250 businesses to have taken the pledge across a range of key industry sectors, representing a total of 260,000 employees.