In her opening remarks at the Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference (OHESC) at Portland State University, Institute for Sustainable Solutions Director Jennifer Allen encouraged attendees to think of ways to “link arms and harness our assets together in a way that we can really move the needle on [sustainability efforts].”

With public-private partnerships that promote urban mobility, the integration of energy and sustainable design, ecosystem services work and watershed stewardship, collaboration is the hallmark of Portland State’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions, which is charged with advancing sustainability research, education and outreach at the university.

A higher education sustainability conference in this region provides a unique look at partnerships that exist among public and private sectors that would normally compete with each other. For a full list of speakers and presentations, see the conference program. Slides from each presentation will be posted by the end of February.

Portland-based AASHE staff members Margo Wagner (marketing & communications) and Judy Walton (publications) attended the January 31-February 1 event, recording their takeaways on the theme of collaboration:

Earlier this morning the official opening of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) occurred amid dreams, hopes and disappointment. The watering down of the language to achieve greater levels of agreement has resulted in a many NGOs rejecting the document and declaring the conference a failure.

Building on the Vision for STARS 2.0 that the STARS Steering Committee distributed last month, AASHE would now like to encourage those with ideas for improving STARS to send them to stars@aashe.org.

In between cross country skiing and tasty meals, I hope to catch up on a backlog of reading. In case others are looking for some readings over the holidays I've compiled some recent publications (many that were publicized in the AASHE Bulletin).