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SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL DISTRICT
Green Spine and Park Project
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As we look at sustainability and what it means for designing the streetscape and park, it's important to think about how sustainability is defined – its many meanings can vary depending on your geography, age group, cultural background, education, the industry you work in, and more. Sustainability has a plethora of definitions and means many things to many people. This is why it's equally important to gain knowledge of best practices in sustainable development at small and large scales, locally and globally. We will highlight some of these things in this month's issue of the newsletter. | |
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“Healthcare leaders share a common mission — to enhance the health and well-being of individuals and communities. The practice of sustainability aligns squarely with that shared mission and has the potential to accelerate innovation, elevate our value and drive our businesses forward. A wide variety of stakeholders, from employees to suppliers to non-profit agencies and financiers, can look to sustainability principles to inform their decision making.”
-Terri Scannell, Senior Director of Social Responsibility, Vizient, Inc.
SWMD Best Practices Advisory Committee Member
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SWMD Team in the News!
The Dallas Morning News paid a visit to Pegasus Park this week to talk about urban heat and equity: "Here's why some Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Dallas are hotter than other areas" Read more...
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Regional Center for Expertise (RCE)
North Texas Annual Summit
November 9-10, 2022
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Sustainability Education, also known as Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), is recognized as a critical tool for the transition to sustainable development particularly since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, a framework for action, was agreed by 178 member states.
In 2003, the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) launched the ESD project, including a global multi-stakeholder network of the Regional Centres of Expertise on ESD (RCEs). An RCE is an existing formal, non-formal and informal organization that facilitates learning towards sustainable development in local and regional communities. As of December 2018, 168 RCEs have officially been acknowledged by the United Nations University worldwide. RCE North Texas is a network of 75 multidisciplinary stakeholders, including higher education institutions, businesses, non-governmental organizations, community associations, and local, regional, state and federal government agencies. The North Texas RCE comprises the sixteen counties of North Texas. Of the ten ecoregions within the state of Texas, the sixteen-county North Texas RCE is located predominantly in three of them, Dallas, Tarrant, and Collin County.
This year's summit will support Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) by hosting multiple industries and representatives in education, the public sector, private sector, and not-for-profit by offering presentations from experts advancing SDGs in North Texas. Texas Trees Foundation CEO, Janette Monear will be presenting in the SDG 4 Panel on Quality Education, with a presentation titled: "Rooting Education in Forestry".
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Sustainability and Healthcare
The medical community, recognizing it has a major role to play in combating the environmental pollutants negatively affecting human health and is tackling climate change through multiple efforts. Click below to learn about some of these “Gold Star” initiatives that are in progress. Read more...
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What is Sustainability?
The 2016 Southwestern Medical District Urban Streetscape Master Plan outlined a framework for healthy systems, healthy people, and a healthy environment that is supported by sustainable guidelines for the landscape, hardscape, site amenities, and implementation. Learn about how design guidelines will incorporate these elements to ensure a balanced, harmonious coexistence between the built environment and nature for today’s Medical District users. Read more...
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Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) for Cities
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) assists member states and stakeholders to achieve relevant SDGs on cities including SDG 11 (sustainable cities and human settlements) with specific focus on access to housing and basic services, sustainable transport system, sustainable urbanization, access to public spaces, sustainable buildings, per capita environmental impact of cities, and policies towards climate change, resource efficiency and disaster risk reduction
The main areas for the current work on sustainable cities are:
- Sustainable consumption and production roadmap for cities covering all the sectors
- Upstream interventions through policy, technology and financing to reduce and manage pollution and waste
Read more...
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Video: Is Sustainability a Lie?
While ‘sustainability’ might be everyones favourite buzzword, what does it really mean?
Watch video...
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Interview with Dr. Robert D. Brown
Professor of Landscape Architecture & Urban Planning, Texas A&M
SWMD Best Practices Advisory Committee Member
"It can be pretty discouraging, how little control we have as an individual, but with microclimatic urban design, students find that they can have a huge amount of control over local communities – though they may not influence the global scale, locally they can." - Dr. Robert "Bob" Brown
Read more...
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Quotes from the TTF Staff | | |
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The Case for Net-Zero in Health Care
Health care’s climate footprint accounts for nearly 5% of global net emissions. An emerging body of work examines how health care organizations might reach a goal of net-zero emissions. Authors demonstrate how embracing net-zero and other environmental initiatives will benefit the organization, its staff, patients, and community in several ways, from business results to moral well-being that include financial, clinical, and reputational outcomes.
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More than 80% of the people in the U.S. and Canada living in cities where the built environment dominates, limiting access to natural and outdoor environments that are critical to human health and well-being. Learn about best practices in evidence-based landscape architecture (EBLA) through case studies. Examples include school-yard design for safe levels of solar radiation, to neighborhood parks and sidewalks that encourage people to walk; Integration methods for EBLA in private, public, and academic landscape architecture practices are outlined, along with potential opportunities and barriers to implementation.
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Podcast: How Walkable Cities Foster Public Health
Billie Giles-Corti, director of the Healthy Livable Cities Lab at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Melanie Lowe of the University of Melbourne, and Geoff Boeing of USC, talk about their papers in The Lancet Global Health series: How does walkability contribute to public health? How does Sao Paulo connect policy and outcomes? How can cities can use bus-stop and intersection density for positive health outcomes?
Photo Credit: 'The 10 Most Walkable Cities in the World. 2018. The Culture Trip Online.
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In our efforts to expand engagement and stay connected, we've expanded to LinkedIn! If you are a current LinkedIn member, please like our new page. You’ll find educational content, best practices, and updates on the District’s transformation.
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