The Presidio Conference
The Presidio Conference
In 1995, it was the 25th anniversary of Earth Day, and the Presidio had just been converted from an army base into the country’s largest urban national park. To help achieve the park’s vision of becoming a magnet for environmental organizations and ideas, it was selected to be the site for the final meeting of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development. EPC was asked to design and host the conference.
EPC planned a two-day conference in San Francisco attended by 250 leaders from business, government, community and environmental organizations, as well as the academic and scientific communities, to discuss the principles and goals proposed by the President’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) in the contest of the major trends shaping the world’s economic, environmental and social fabric at the dawn of the new millennium.
The four in-depth plenary sessions included:
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Exploding Urban Populations: What Impact on Sustainability?
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The Rules of the Game: Must they Change?
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The Global Economy: Is Sustainability Possible?
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Jobs and the Environment: Is Technology the Answer?
The summit, which provided a substantive context for the principles of sustainability, was highly successful and attended by a number of influential environmental policy-makers and advocates, including Vice President Al Gore, Amory Lovins, Paul Hawken, David Brower and more. The PCSD principles discussed at the event were eventually approved in the "Report to the President" (Clinton), and the Presidio Trust garnered a place in the national spotlight.