THE SALLAN FOUNDATION ANNUAL REPORT 2006

Executive Director's Report

As the world becomes increasingly urban and resource intensive, and as its population continues to grow, the environmental impact of these trends on every sector of human endeavor is enormous. Now, the challenge of climate change is moving to the top of the environmental agenda and the role of cities will prove pivotal. It is in this context that the world's urban aggregations, with their concentration of science, technology, media, finances and cultural creativity, can become both critical centers for emerging sustainable practices and effective broadcasters of appealing new ideas.

The Sallan Foundation focuses on initiatives emerging in global cities, which can be carried out at an urban scale, which contribute to global sustainability. Nancy E. Anderson, Ph.D., Sallan's Executive Director, targets the Foundation's efforts to identify, incubate, and disseminate new trends and practices that could transform the built environment and its underlying energy systems. These form the core of Sallan's work. Though this work the Foundation serves as a force for envisioning and advancing useful knowledge for greener cities. It fosters development of an informed public that will give priority to high performance urban agendas while it cultivates effective advocacy for greener cities. The Foundation is not aligned with any profession, discipline or political party and thus serves as an independent convener and facilitator of collaborations among stakeholders and the public.

In 2006, the Sallan Foundation carried out its mission by broadcasting emerging ideas, refining and disseminating useful knowledge in the field of urban environmental sustainability and cultivating effective advocacy to make cities into centers of environmental innovation on the part of government, business and civil society.

2006 Highlights

The Sallan Foundation accomplished the following:

Broadcasting Emerging Ideas

The Sallan Foundation website serves as a crucial communications component of the Foundation's work. Dr. Anderson authored seven Torchlight columns and she solicited seven Snapshot columns written by guest contributors. When a new column is posted, each preceding column is archived and remains available on the website.

An article reporting on the last of four panels in the Sallan Foundation-sponsored High Performance Building in New York City panel series was posted. Sallan also sponsored and published an eBriefing on Market Muscle: Can Cap and Trade Cut Carbon? as part of a panel co-sponsored by the Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences Environmental Sciences Section.

Three regular new feature pages were initiated on the website to widen its informational scope and to enhance its education impact.  "Nancy's Subway Reading" Worldwide" and "Climate Change" provide a constantly changing array of press, academic and NGO articles and feature reports from around the world.   The Events calendar provides up-to-date information on happenings around town. It pinpoints Foundation-sponsored panels as well as conferences and other events of importance to urban environmental sustainability, provides up-to-date information on happenings around town.

Fostering an Informed Public

Sallan developed and produced the panel series High Performance Building in New York City in partnership with the Municipal Art Society, the Committee on the Environment, a project of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the NYC Apollo Alliance. In early 2006, the fourth and final panel in the series was a by-invitation-only panel targeted at elected officials and their staffs held. It was designed to inform and educate public officials about the architectural, design, market, financial, and environmental developments in the fast-growing world of high performance building. By convening experts and advocates along with public officials participants were able to identify, develop and have an in-depth discussion about core concepts and real-world experience for making green or "high performance" building into New York's "new normal".

In late 2005, New York City enacted a Green Building Law and in early 2006, Sallan initiated the Local Law 86 Roundtable, a series of meetings about the new statute. Roundtable membership reflected the constellation of advocates who supported the passage of Local Law 86 in addition to other high performance building experts and advocates. Seeking to educate the public about the purpose and status of Local Law 86, the Roundtable invited experts to make presentations on high performance building in NYC. Participants also met on several occasions with members of the Mayor's staff responsible for program implementation in order to share information and new developments. At the request of the Mayor's staff the Roundtable wrote a lengthy memo with recommendations about the form and content of the mandated Annual Report.

Over the year, Dr. Anderson continued to serve as a member on the Environmental Sciences Section of the New York Academy of Sciences. This membership enabled the Sallan Foundation to advocate for broad agenda setting, to meet with environmental leaders from around the world, and to plan individual panels. In 2006, the Foundation produced Market Muscle: Can Cap and Trade Cut Carbon. This event brought together a distinguished panel of environmental and financial experts that made in-depth presentations about the Northeastern States Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. This event forged a substantive link to the Sallan-sponsored climate change event at the Academy the previous year. Again, Sallan supported the writing of a companion eBriefing that was co-branded and posted on the Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences web sites. Dr. Anderson also helped plan a panel on Street Science.

The Executive Director advanced the Foundation's goal of fostering an informed public by successfully reaching out to the mass media. The Foundation had six items printed in media outlets including the New York Times and Crain's New York Business and was a "featured" environmental website on Treehugger.com

Effective Advocacy

The Sallan Foundation continued to serve on the Steering Committee of the New York City Apollo Alliance, an environment-labor-community coalition dedicated to developing a sustainable energy policy for the US and supporting the development of high performance building. As well, the Foundation continued to serve on the Advisory Board of the Healthy Schools Network, an organization focused on the construction and maintenance of green, clean and healthy schools in New York. In 2006, Sallan became a member of the US Green Building Council and joined the New York Chapter. Membership in these organizations provides the Sallan Foundation with opportunities to work strategically with organizations dedicated to similar goals and to make best use of the Foundation's resources for carrying out its mission.

The Sallan Foundation, Inc. is committed to transparency and integrity with regards to our financial reporting responsibilities. In the spirit of good citizenship we have made our accountant's review report available for download below.