This year the Portsmouth Sustainability Fair is offering a “Sustainability at Home” Tour on Saturday May 15 from 10 am to 2 pm. The tour highlights homes, businesses and green spaces in our area that are currently utilizing sustainable practices in building materials, energy use and conservation, and stormwater management practices. Home and business owners are showing increasing interest in sustainable practices for both the positive environmental benefits and because they know that these practices can save money. Making the switch to a sustainable practice is best done when you are well informed about the practice and what better way to find out than by talking to your neighbors and friends who are utilizing these systems. The Committee hopes you find the tour informative as well as fun and that it helps you move to a more sustainable life style. We also hope that you will consider show casing your sustainable practices in the tour next year.

” The Sustainability at Home Tour”  information and brochure will be available at the Farmer’s Market at the Portsmouth City Hall Parking lot and at the Home Tour booth during the Portsmouth Sustainability Fair on May 8, 2010. On the day of the tour, May 15th, the brochure will  be available at the Farmer’s Market and at the Portsmouth Public Library. It will be available here as a PDF that you can print out at home. There is a suggested donation of $10 for the tour which you can give at any of the sites. The donations help to support the Sustainability Fair.

Enjoy the tour!

Portsmouth Sustainability at Home Tour Committee

The Speaker Series is open to the public and intended to generate ideas and enthusiasm regarding Sustainability. The Sustainable Speakers Series will be prior to the Sustainability Fair to allow people to create a better understanding of the issues and possible solutions, when they talk with vendors and others at about specifics at the Fair.

The Portsmouth Sustainability Fair Speakers Series is set to begin a Monday evening series. Each evening will feature multiple speakers and a panel discussion. Please join us and make this a great networking event.

Leadership in Sustainability
April 19, 2010, 6:00 - 8:00 PM

The Workplace Environment
NH Department of Environmental Services
Jessica Morton
Solving Dilemmas for employees and the environment

Material Safety Data Sheets
Kathleen Hurley
“What are they and how do they fit into sustainability?”

United Way of the Greater Seacoast
Robin Albert
“Renovating? Where can that office equipment do the most good…?”

The Piscataqua Sustainability Initiative Story
Bert Cohen

The above presentations will take about one hour.

Public Presentations; two-minute performance (live or recorded) conveying through story, song, poetry, theatre, etc. your message about your product, services, or activities, that highlight leadership in sustainability.

Central to making this event successful is having fun and giving the attendees something they may not get at the Fair, an opportunity to: meet with others who are committed to sustainability, meet other vendors, polish their marketing and presentation skills and be identified as sustainability leaders.

Drawing: Selected leader(s) will receive Bob Willard’s The Sustainability Champion’s Guidebook.

Transportation Forum
April 26, 2010, 6:00 - 8:00 PM

* Welcome and Introductory Remarks — Senator Martha Fuller Clark
* Overview on sustainable transportation and Portsmouth 5 Year Sustainbility Plan transportation actions — William Lyons, Transportation Planner
* Seacoast perspective on transportation, land use, and affordable mobility — Cliff Sinnott, Executive Director, and Scott Bogle, Senior Planner, Rockingham County Planning Commission/Seacoast MPO
* The role of public transit — Rad Nichols, Executive Director, COAST
* The role of biking — Josh Pierce, President, Seacoast Area Bicycle Routes (SABR)

* Panel discussion with audience (William Lyons, facilitator)

All speakers will comment on the ways their topics address The Natural Step:

Four System Conditions, http://www.naturalstep.org/en/category/topic/4-system-conditions

The Sustainability Fair will be held Saturday on May 8th, from 10 am to 3pm.

The fair, organized by a committee of volunteers, will again be sponsored by Portsmouth Listens, The Piscataqua Sustainability Initiative and the City of Portsmouth, as well as the support from many local businesses.

• Using locally grown foods
• Using organic products
• Employing fair business practices and paying a living wage
• Composting, recycling, using compostable products, or employing any other practices which help to sustain the well-being of our local community.

If you are interested in participating fill out an application under For Vendors>>. Food vendors are also required to complete the necessary food permits and fax them back to the City Health Dept by 4/16/10. Thank you!

http://www.cityofportsmouth.com/health/permits/summertempfoodpermit.pdf

In conjunction with the
Portsmouth Sustainability Fair – Saturday, May 8th, 2010

Local artists were asked to submit work created from recycled materials. Their individual responses are shown throughout the library and are meant to challenge us to think about what we throw away every day and to encourage us to see beauty and possibility in everyday objects.

Working in a variety of formats, styles and with materials at hand, artists have taken the ordinary, the overlooked, the “junk” that we produce each and every day and asked us to consider the extra-ordinary that can be created from them.

Some of the artists are using found objects from the natural world and using these shapes and forms in a way that enhances our awareness and understanding of their native beauty.

We hope that you enjoy and are inspired by the show!

The goal is to have zero waste to the landfill.

Recycling everything from the fair and everyday use means a cleaner and safer Earth. Typical items like plastics, glass, aluminum and paper products currently have mainstream recycling efforts, but composting is another way to recapture the embodied energy and value of house hold food scraps and use them without going to the landfill.

The 2008 Fair produced about one and a half bags of trash to the landfill. In 2009 we are anticipating no bags to the landfill.

Please come and see how we do this and how you can do this at your home or business. It is easier than you think.

Zero Waste or Bust!