3Qs with Dr. Nancy Anderson of The Sallan Foundation

The Sallan Foundation, led by Dr. Nancy Anderson, is unique in the green movement.  As an operating foundation, it doesn’t give grants.  Instead, it promotes sustainable cities through education, outreach, and advocacy.  A sustainable urban environment has energy-efficient buildings, transportation, and infrastructure: in industry parlance, this concept is known as “high performance.”  The Foundation supports many events to foster the exchange of innovative ideas and best practices, and commissions research, including “Decoding the Code,” an in-depth examination of New York City’s 2007 “green” building code revisions.

Dr. Anderson, the Foundation’s founding Executive Director, has created an excellent website that is rich with topical information on emerging green issues.    She is one of the best advocates for high performance urban systems in the nation’s biggest city.  A constant presence and frequent speaker at green events, her commitment and enthusiasm is infectious. 

Her passion for the city runs deep: she was raised in Brooklyn and has lived in Manhattan ever since.  She serves on the Steering Committee of the New York City Apollo Alliance, which brings together environmental, labor, and community activists to develop and advocate for sustainable energy policy in the US, and she chairs the CUNY Building Performance Lab’s Stakeholder Consortium, a cross-sector coalition that was convened to address the sustainability of New York City’s buildings.

Before joining the Foundation, Dr. Anderson spent twenty years in New York City government, most recently as an environmental adviser to city comptrollers.  She also worked in the city’s Sanitation Department, where she worked with communities to decide on locations for waste management facilities and sewage treatment plants.  “I got the real benefit of witnessing the interface between communities and city government,” she says, “and I saw how communities and government can work together.”

1. What was your environmental epiphany?

When I first came to work in the city government at the Sanitation Department, which was part of the newly formed Environmental Protection bureau, I told all my friends, “I have this great new job!”  People would look at me funny.  “Environment?  City?  How can you put these two words together — environment in the city?”  That was a fair question.

There were two things that I realized.  First, environment is everywhere — air, water, natural resources.  And second, most people live in cities and the environmental impact of cities on the planet is big.  And it goes the other way: it is absolutely necessary for cities to have clean air and water. In New York City’s case, overwhelmingly our drinking water comes from other parts.  Also, what the city does with its waste materials is important — we send most of ours elsewhere.  That was my epiphany: that environmental protection matters for the city.  The French poet Rimbaud said, “Life is elsewhere.”  I learned the opposite.  Environmental life is right here.

2. Who or what are you inspired by right now in the green movement?

I’m inspired by governmental scientists like Jim Hanson, who has taken what he has learned as a scientist and stepped out of his role as a government bureaucrat in a bureaucracy that has been very hostile and has become a global source of information and encouragement to do the right thing.  And he has done so facing real potential negative risks for himself and career.  It think that is admirable and very brave.

I’m also inspired by [New York] Mayor Bloomberg.  He didn’t come in as an environmental champion.  He got it on the job.   He was willing and has been able to mobilize resources to say, “I got it now and I’m going to do something about it.”

3. What are three ways you actively reduce your carbon footprint and one way you don’t?

I don’t own a car and I wouldn’t buy a car.

I don’t use air conditioning at home unless it gets above 90 degrees, and then I give up and turn it on.

I love to travel and when I travel to faraway places, I take a plane, and I know that adds to my footprint.  But on the good side, if my destination is less than 500 miles from home then I use alternative transportation — I usually take the train.

To learn more about some of the things Dr. Anderson spoke about, check out:

• My post about “Trashin’ the Big Apple,” a short documentary that looks at the life cycle of waste in New York City.
• Dr. James Hansen, the climate scientist and head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia professor, who was censored by NASA.
• Mayor Bloomberg’s policy road map for New York’s sustainable future, PlaNYC 2030.