Sustainability Showcase Challenge

Innovation in Land Reuse to Preserve People, Planet, and Resources

CCLR’s Sustainability Showcase Challenge celebrates and amplifies the diverse ways land reuse practitioners are incorporating sustainable practices into their projects. Our society is grappling with the challenges of reducing the impact of climate change, inequity, and environmental destruction or degradation, all of which are considered during the land reuse process. The Sustainability Showcase Challenge will recognize the innovative ways you are addressing these challenges and magnify positive impacts by allowing others to adopt and replicate your work. We look forward to reading and sharing your Submission!

By entering the Challenge, you and your project will be considered for:

• Case Study development
• Webinar topics
• Panel placement at upcoming conferences
• Posters to be displayed at the California Land Recycling Conference
• Blog post on CCLR.org and inclusion in our newsletter
• Inclusion in sustainability best practices resources
• Use of the Sustainability Showcase icon

Enter the Challenge

Open to all reuse professionals in the United States, the CCLR Sustainability Showcase will assess projects on four core sustainability principles:

Resource Conservation:

• Reduced use of water, energy and materials during the remediation or construction process.
• Innovative use of recycled or reclaimed materials or bioremediation.
• Design and material use that will conserve resources throughout reuse.
• Use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to address full impacts of a project.

Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, and Resilience:

• Minimizing emissions and air pollutants during the remediation and construction process.
• Well connected projects with walkability, access to transportation, and new jobs and retail.
• Adapted design: passive cooling and heating, water capture and reuse, and extreme climate resilience for fire, flood, and other natural disasters.

Ecosystem and Land Use Conservation:

• The restoration or improvement of existing open space such as invasive species removal or species reintroduction that improves the quality of open space for humans/habitat.
• Protection of ecosystems through land swaps, protection agreements, or pledges that save greenfields from development in exchange for infill.
• Native support and biodiversity: use of local species, programs to protect or reintroduce local species, education and jobs surrounding the local ecosystem.

Community Revitalization/Protection:

• Green jobs training programs or job creation.
• Local business support using local contractors, spaces developed for local businesses, and programs to help local businesses stay in the area.
• Community benefits: improving access to local food, health and recreation facilities, assistance to keep residents in the neighborhood, unique partnerships with nonprofits and community groups to provide ongoing benefits.
• Actions that protect vulnerable populations

Projects may include a variety of sustainable actions from the above categories with an option to add additional actions which were not included in this list. Sustainable improvements can range from small and easily implemented changes that can be adopted industry wide, to far reaching and large scale solutions to unique problems. If any aspect of your reuse project goes above and beyond the status quo of sustainability we want to hear from you!

Enter the Challenge

Submission Benefits:

CCLR will also help develop a poster for your project to be presented in the hallway of sustainability at CALRC, a blog post on your sustainable solutions posted to the CCLR website, and entry in the CCLR newsletter. Additionally, projects may be turned into case studies or stand alone webinars. The most innovative solutions may be highlighted at a panel at National Brownfields Conference in Detroit, MI or California Land Recycling Conference (CALRC) in Carson, CA.

Submission Guide:

The Sustainability Showcase is designed to highlight all the ways sustainability may be implemented during a reuse project. Check all categories that apply to your case study, and provide more information on how your choices were innovative in the project overview section.

Please provide visuals that help tell your story. Help us with submission organization by naming your visuals SubmitterLastName_ProjectName_PhotoNumber i.e. Harrison_RiverCommons_1

If you have any questions about the submission process, contact [email protected].

Sustainability Showcase Resource Guide