Photo by: Leah Robinson

On August 10, the Brooklyn Community Foundation launched Brooklyn Greens, a three-year, $750,000 initiative which aims to bring together the communities of Williamsburg’s Southside, Bedford Stuyvesant and Cypress Hills for collaborative environmental improvement projects. (Brooklyn Community Foundation president Marilyn Gelber [third from left], Brooklyn Borough President Marty Marokowitz [in green] and Councilwoman Diana Reyna [in white] apply a symbolic patch of roof paint.)

On Friday, the Brooklyn Community Foundation hosted a day-long conference on “Greening from the Ground Up,” or finding local methods to increase sustainability while at the same time fighting for social justice.

We asked presenters to make their case to a wider audience: What role do neighborhood groups play in the global effort to save the environment? What does sustainable living offer to low-income New Yorkers?

Click on these links to see what they said:

Two Sides of the Green Story

The environmental progress New York City—and Brooklyn especially—have made reflects federal legislation and local infrastructure. But it’s also been a story of community groups working to make their neighborhoods healthier.

Go Green. Fight Poverty.

Even in poor neighborhoods not home to power plants, waste transfer stations or the other egregious environmental offenders, physical conditions sustain not just ill health, but poverty as well.

Let’s Streamline the Weatherization Process

While the establishment of programs like Green Jobs Green New York has certainly helped scale up programs that use weatherization to attack a set of urban ills, there remains work to be done.

Community Developers Must Help Green NYC

To both reach PlaNYC’s ambitious goals–and to exceed them in those in areas where PlaNYC fell short –community-based organizations must be essential partners.

Feds’ Green Could Be Even Greener

Federal weatherization funding can be used to address not only the energy efficiency of buildings but also their financial sustainability, resident health and safety, all while upgrading green skills for workers.