Summit Ties Sustainability to Improved Public Health

summit ties sustainability to improved public Health Armed with enthusiasm, expertise, and a desire for sustainable solutions to meet the current and future needs of society, participants met 7–8 November 2011 in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, for the fourth annual summit of the Research Triangle Environmental Health Collaborative, titled " Incorporating Public and Environmental Health into Sustainable Solutions. " 1 Over the course of the 2-day summit, the attendees discussed and fine-tuned a list of suggestions addressing the 3 pillars of the sustainability paradigm as defined by the United Nations 2 —society, environment , and economy. Suggestions revolved around finding concrete ways to connect the cost savings associated with sustainable products and services to improved public health outcomes, communicating with the public and engaging it in sustainability decision making, and focusing on long-term creation of a built environment that supports healthier people. The final recommendations will be presented by the Collaborative to policy makers on the local, state, and national levels and submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication. Facing the reality of the gap between what the Earth can provide and what humanity needs has led to an increase in innovative initiatives in the public and private sectors, said Jay Golden, director of the Duke Center for Sustainability and Commerce, although as he noted in his plenary speech, industry has been more aggressive than the public sector, mainly because of strong drivers that include rapid urbanization and expansion of the middle class worldwide, as well as regulatory frameworks , consumer demand, and the quest for market share. Sustainability has become a major selling point among environmentally conscious consumers. Golden discussed some of the sustainable practices and programs being adopted by producers in the consumer product industry aimed at conserving resources, including sustainable production practices implemented by the Outdoor Industry Association 3 as well as the creation of such manufacturing and industry entities as the Sustainable Apparel Coalition 4 and the Sustainability Consortium. Sustain ability Research Networks competition , which funds the development of new transdisciplinary research collaborations in sustainability science, engineering, and education. 6 In his speech to summit participants, Adam Finkel, executive director of the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Program on Regulation and a professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey School of Public Health, discussed the use of risk assessment information in a more targeted, tangible way …