 This is State Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Hi, welcome to Hawaii, the State of Clean Energy and our guest, Chelsea Harder. We have a topic in June and July of sustainability, climate change, adaptation and mitigation. And Chelsea is the sustainability dashboard coordinator. So I want to thank you for coming, Chelsea, and we want to hear about what it is that you're doing and what are the results that you're gathering so far. Great, well thanks for having me, Maria. I'm the sustainability dashboard coordinator for Hawaii Green Growth and we are a public-private partnership that catalyzes action across government, private sector and civil society. And we serve as the backbone organization for the Aloha Plus Challenge. So a set of six integrated goals that reflect social, economic and environmental priorities for the state. And we are tracking and reflecting those on the state dashboard. Excellent, so your six priorities include energy and green house gases. And so maybe, I don't know if you can start off by saying a little bit about what those six areas are. Sure, sure. So the key priorities, the social, economic and environmental, are really rolled up into energy, natural resource management, solid waste reduction, local food, smart sustainable communities and green workforce and education. Wow. Quite a mouthful. That covers a lot of ground. Right, right. So just the social, economic and clearly the environmental part is in a lot of the titles, but it's all really integrated throughout and really happy to be here to talk, to get kind of nitty gritty in how we're tracking key statewide priorities. Excellent. And if we start off or focus on energy, that's great. But it's all integrated, as you mentioned. Absolutely. Right, and in terms of clean energy, of course we're tracking the 100% clean energy by 2045 and the mayor's commitment to the 100% clean transportation by 2045. We're also tracking the Paris Climate Agreement. Oh wow. Right. So we'll dive in a bit to those numbers in a bit. Okay. Yeah. So you've got a website that tracks all of these different metrics. What do you call it, metrics, areas? Right, so we have the six goals and each of them have corresponding targets. Okay. Within those targets we have indicators. So the indicators really measure where we've been, where we are and where we're going. So we can see are we on track to achieving this 100% electric energy by 2045 or do we need to make some improvements. So it really highlights gaps and opportunities for further collaboration and the beauty of this dashboard is that it's really a mechanism for accountability, transparency and action. It can really highlight what are important things in the state that we need to do to achieve our goals and just to create a better future for Hawaii. Yeah. We were talking about prioritizing actions in previous conversations and it's so important to measure your progress and to celebrate the progress while you're also looking forward to the next challenge and working towards making even more progress. So I'm glad someone's coordinating this information and the dashboard I think is going to be an excellent tool for folks to rely on. So what year did you start from? When you're looking at, okay, this is 2018. Does it go back a couple of years or does it start? So the Aloha Plus Challenge was launched in 2014 and the larger goals were launched at that time and then for every year two of the goals were developed and by develop I mean there's a robust multi-sector process that took a number of years to populate all the goals and it really defines what are the key indicators and target areas that show us where we need to go with these goals. Okay, excellent. And we like to say we measure what matters. We make sure that the right people are in the room and that we're measuring the things that are really going to get us to our goals. Okay. So where are we? Yeah, I would love to bring up the first slide actually. Great. So as you can see here we have the Aloha Plus Challenge with our six goals on that wheel on the left-hand side and this is really a localized model for sustainable development globally. So we've actually been recognized by the United Nations as a mechanism for localized implementation to achieve those 17 sustainable development goals that reflect what developing and developed countries need to do to achieve sustainability. So they're saying that because these are so broad and overarching we really need localized implementation to anchor that. And if you want to go to the next slide please, great. So here's another way of looking at it. We have our six goals on the left-hand side and with their corresponding target statements. So it kind of gives you a snapshot of what do we mean by clean energy? What do we mean by local food? And on the right-hand side, if you haven't already gone to the dashboard you can see that that's how we've rolled up our goals. So those tiles there are the targets for each of the goals. You want to go to the next slide please? So just breaking out one of them, energy. If we're looking at... Okay, let's look at the dashboard. We have our 100% clean energy by 2045. If you look at the first box on the left we see that this is how we're tracking on that. So we're tracking this by the percent of renewable energy generated statewide. So we're at .7% as of 2017. And in addition to that, to bolster that we have approximately 20% of energy efficiency that's helping to bring us closer to that goal. So as you can see by that little icon there, we are on track for that one. Oh, I see a little check mark. Yeah, so if you're on the dashboard right now you can actually click on that tile and below some of those graphs will pop up and we'll show you trends. How we've been doing is are we going up or are we going down? And in addition to that we have contextual narrative in there. So for people that aren't data wonks like me they can go in there and understand, oh, this is a snapshot of what's happening and this is why it's important. Oh, okay. So I see those are the graphs that you show on the right. And then if you look at the far right for our transportation goal you can see it doesn't have the check mark but it needs improvement. So this is tracking the 100% clean transportation by 2045 and we're measuring that in million gallons of petroleum used per year for ground transportation. So if we assume a linear progression we should be at about 400 million gallons. We're at 516.9. So this highlights the opportunity for us to work together to bring that down. Yeah, yeah. So the trend on the transportation has kind of been up, hasn't it, recently? Slightly, yeah. I mean it varies. It varies with cost of oil. The year that cost of oil went up a lot and that actually the people's use went way down. So the dashboard really highlights those trends with the contextual narrative saying this is why it's going up, this is why it's going down and this is what we're doing to achieve it. Yeah, so are you tracking on the vehicle side the fuel efficiency? Are you able to get that? That has always been a little tricky because so many people are using vehicles, purchasing vehicles, you know, retiring vehicles. So one thing that we are tracking is VMT vehicle miles traveled, so that's 9,430 vehicle miles traveled annually and we have on the dashboard trends for that showing is it going up right now, is it going down right now and that's with the U.S. Census Bureau so there's going to be new data coming out very soon on that. And then we're also tracking mode share. So it's looking at are people driving alone to work? Are they carpooling? Are they taking a bike? Are they walking? And it shows right now 66.6% of people drive alone which contributes greatly to traffic but we're also showing the new bike paths that are there and showing the amount of people that carpool to so to really highlight for people like these are actions that you can take yourself to affect these metrics. Yeah. So that seems like a lot of information to be gathering. Do people help you? I mean where do you get your information from? Sure. So we have our Hawaii Green Growth is a 100 plus member public-private partnership so we have some really great partners at the state level, the county level, private sector, community level that all help us really roll up this data. So we have authoritative data from state and county and we're also looking to track community data through a new prototype that we've developed. So starting with local food because it's very tangible. Oh, there you go, yeah. And a lot of people, they look at the dashboard and they get really excited and they say, what can I do? And so we've developed a mechanism for that so people can go on their phone, go on their computer and they can say I harvested 10 avocados or 10 pounds of avocados from my tree today. Or these students at school in their school garden have fed how many students through local food. Cool, yeah. And I guess as you develop these mechanisms for involving folks and having them, because it's exciting to see that you're not the only one doing it. There's this sense of community and progress. So as you develop some of these mechanisms, let's say around food, and maybe that might also translate into some of the other measures, like even in the transportation one. Absolutely. And I mean, especially if we're looking at the water energy food nexus, for example, if we're looking at water rates for agriculture, that's affected by electricity rates because you need electricity to pump the water, to water the food, and to produce local food for people. So it's really an interconnected system and we're always looking to show that through the dashboard. Yeah, I can see a lot of fun projects that would be integrated with the dashboard somehow, you know, community level or family level or group level, you know. Absolutely. And there's actually a lot of schools that are interested and they actually use the dashboard at this point to develop their curriculum around sustainability because it offers different layers of it. So if they say, what is sustainability? They can look at the dashboard at a very high level and say, okay, these six goals will take it from here or they can get really nitty-gritty and look at the data and analyze it and show connections and look at some of the layered maps. So yeah, it's really exciting and it's really for everybody. Yeah, so on the energy side, there has been progress and it's on track. Are you working to enhance the progress in that area? I mean, like the energy efficiency side? Or is it that the dashboard is measuring it and we can see the progress and you're publicizing the existence of this measure. And so the member organizations are the ones that are pushing the policy changes or the technology piece. Yeah, and it's really a hub to serve those groups. For instance, we have a sustainability business forum, which is another one of our portfolios where we have executives at the private sector that look to make commitments together and decide how for sustainability and decide how can we all move forward together. So we learn so many times this cross-sector collaboration or even collaboration within one sector can really take us a long way. And this can be a place where people can reflect their successes or put out challenges or have information and resources where they can learn more about it. Yeah. Cool. So do you have any news, anything exciting coming up? Like, you know, I mean other than our show, you know, get the word out, right? Get folks to go and look at it and see what they can do personally or what their organizations can do. Is there anything coming up that's, you know, going to be an opportunity to celebrate together or to work together to improve something? Sure. We have a few things. In the past, last year we went, we were at the Verge conference and I moderated a panel on data dashboards and innovation and we talked with state, county level, and private sector and community level partners. So four of them. All we're talking about the value of open data and how we can really move that into what we do. And that was really interesting to hear all the comments from the audience and just the excitement. And as well, we participated in a sustainable tourism session last week that Verge hosted and to really define sustainable tourism in a different way because that's definitely a multi-sector issue that we're really interested in learning more about how we can really define key actions for like hotels and, you know, taxis and Uber and trolley system and what we can offer visitors to really show this sense of place in Hawaii. So it's a big issue. It's like a natural convergence for Hawaii to be doing that. Absolutely. And we should be a leader in that, really. I mean, it's our primary economic driver and everybody wants to come to Hawaii. So happy about making progress on that. Well, we need to take a quick break, but we'll be right back to hear more about the sustainable dashboard. Great. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. As you review here on Think Tech Hawaii, join me every Monday afternoon from 5 to 5.30 Hawaii Standard Time for an insightful discussion of contemporary Asian affairs. There's so much to discuss and the guests that we have are very, very well informed. Just think we have the upcoming negotiation between President Trump and Kim Jong-un. The possibility of Xi Jinping, the leader of China, remaining in power forever. We'll see you then. Hey, we're back and we're not done yet because we haven't even talked about some of the other aspects of what's on the sustainability dashboard and we're going to end with a discussion of how important this all is. So let's take a look. I think there was one more slide. Yes. If we can look at the four slides, please. Last one. Yes. So we had talked about community engagement. So if you look at the left-hand side, so this is the app that you can use. This is either on your computer, on your mobile phone, and we've selected local food as a prototype for people to be able to input their data onto the dashboard. So if you see there, there's a number of fields and there's also a geolocation component. So communities can understand what is happening around them and they can also look at their neighboring communities and see what they're doing. So it's really a shared learning opportunity and it's kind of a friendly competition as well to see how community members can contribute to local food. Does it kind of track the whole thing about the mangoes? There was a discussion during mango season, you might have a lot of mangoes and other people might want. Would that be something that somebody would do on here or is that a different topic? No, that would be great. We haven't gotten into the mangoes specifically yet, but when a season is really blossoming like the mangoes, it's helpful to know where those things are happening, so if they have a farm stand or something. So when people enter in that app, they have an opportunity to make a comment. If they say like, oh, choke mangoes or something like that, people can come to my house and get some. So it's really a community tool that can engage other people. We can also show that on social media to tweet it and things like that. Farmers markets? Are those there? Yes, so we're tracking the number of farmers markets across the state. So we have an interactive map where wherever you go, let's say we're going to the Big Island next weekend, you can open up this map on the dashboard and you can see where the local farmers markets are. It tells you when they are, what time, location. So it's really a tool that would be another way to support local industry through tourism, for example. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very good. So what else can folks do directly? Ha. So that's interesting, yeah. And that's something that we're really looking to build and we're also looking for community input and what does the community want? How do they want to participate? For instance, I ride a bike every day to work and I want to know how can we build that? So would there be some sort of web application or place in the dashboard where I can enter, like, bike to work every day and how many other people are biking to work? So understanding those communities and how they intersect. And maybe suggestions. Like, hey, I wish I could get my bike here or something like that. Yeah, and it's really a tool for those conversations. If more and more people are feeding into that, then it really highlights a point of action. This is something that we need to take for our communities because there's this drumbeat. Yeah, I remember there was ride sharing and I think there still is a lot of those ride sharing. There were those buses. You could do a subscription bus or something. So some of those matching of the, especially commuting trips, because if you're going every day to and from the same place, there are entities that support that, whether it's a business supporting that for its employees or an independent company that's offering those types of buses. Right. Yeah, we're really looking to be able to capture all of that. So folks can make suggestions like that. At this point, it's something that we're looking to build out in there. So right now we have local food and the reason why we're doing that is because it was really inspired by three schools that are doing this zero waste schools project. So they're taking all their food scraps or the food waste from lunches. They have interns and students working with this group and they'll actually take it and make compost piles out of it. And through that compost, they will create vermicast. So this super rich soil that can help grow really nice local food. And the sales to that goes back to the school and different programs. So it's really an example of circular economy, and that was the impetus to develop that app. So I'm always looking for more ways to do that. Yeah, I remember when I was in elementary school, we would put our food waste into the bin and it would go to the pigs. That's great. Yeah. I never saw the pigs. I was like, yes, we're feeding the pigs. Yeah, so really looking to capture those stories for sure. And in addition, another gap that we're looking at for the dashboard is really for solid waste reduction. We're doing well in reducing that, but we're also looking for more robust metrics for source reduction. So how are we not taking plastic bags and how are we refusing plastic straws, things like that? And then what is happening to our waste? Can we show the life cycle of that? So really working with partners across the state to figure out what is the visual story that we want to tell through the dashboard? And I think the more and more people that are using it, the more and more robust we can make it. Yeah, so I guess it's a sense of community, too. Absolutely. Yeah. So I guess there's a sense of urgency, I think, that we got from the previous topics we covered. We talked about the sea level rise report. And if you have, I guess, the three feet of sea level rise is pretty much what Noah said, that's going to happen. But the question is, as we're reducing our impacts on the climate, we're avoiding the higher levels of sea level rise. And so there's a bit of urgency. It's a race against the elements and that type of thing. So how do you balance that sense of community and the joy that comes from working together towards a common goal and the bad news story of this is something that we're trying to avoid? So the value of these communities with government, private sector and civil society coming together is really exciting. But it's also not all good news that we're working on. It's really work all committed to having robust metrics and really key actions that are going to have an impact. So we definitely have rigor involved in these convenings that we do. And of course, the dashboard is used as a mechanism for policy action. So as the legislature open up, legislators can go into the dashboard and say, I need to make a decision on this bill. What is happening with this area? What's happening with education? They can go on the Green War Force and Education dashboard, click into the tiles, and they can really learn, oh, this is the landscape of what's happening and this can inform how I make my decision. And the Aloha Plus Challenge, it didn't come out of nowhere. Really, it's building on decades of sustainability initiatives. So inspired by Malama Hawai'i, building on Hawai'i 2000 and the Hawai'i 2050 sustainability plan. So it's the same people that are coming together and saying, this is what more we can do. And it has political coherence. We have the signatories are the governor, the four county mayors, and office Hawaiian affairs that have signed on and committed to these goals. So we're really all in this together. We know it's urgent and we're tackling it. Yeah, so now I want to go check and see what's in there, you know, and what might be missing too. So if somebody says, hey, this is really important and it needs to be put in there, who did they call? Do they send an email? I mean, how do you handle the suggestions or the feedback to the folks who either want to get involved or have a recommendation? Great question. We have a number of networks where that can happen. Of course, our public-private partnership with our partners will flag different things and say, we need to highlight this. We need to move on this. And as well, we have social media accounts. We have Facebook and Twitter and Instagram where people can leave comments and learn more about kind of the drumbeat of what's happening. So we'll reflect key priorities like June of last year, the state committed to the Paris Climate Agreement. So that's achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. So that's what we're also tracking on the dashboard. We're looking at the percent reduction of greenhouse gases. So on the original slide that you showed, it had those two circles. And is that one of the elements in the right-hand circle? Yeah, let's bring that up again. Can you bring up the first slide, please? Great. Yes. So on the left-hand side, of course, we have the Aloha Plus Challenge. And on the right-hand side, you see the Sustainable Development Goals, those 17 goals very similar to the Aloha Plus Challenge. And by the way, Aloha Plus came out a year before those. So that... I don't know how. We don't have the same ideas there. The reason why we bring up the global component is that if we're similarly to our networks in Hawaii, if we're not all working together, we're not getting to the same place. And we have to do that globally as well. We can't do this in a vacuum. If we're not connected, it's not being shown. So we're really excited to be a mechanism for localized implementation for that. Yeah, I had been thinking very often people say, oh, well, Hawaii's small and our emissions don't make a huge amount of difference in the global. But it seems to me that to a certain extent what we do, if we can publicize it, as you said, to the global community or to other localities who are looking for examples, and we can share examples of success and things that maybe were less successful, if we can learn from each other, then you're multiplying the effectiveness of what it is we do. So for every ton that we avoid emitting, if we are communicating with everybody about how we did that, then it has a multiplier effect. I don't know how anybody would quantify that, but it seems to me that that's actually an extremely important aspect of what we're doing. So I'm really glad that you guys are making those connections. So would the folks who are looking at the global question be looking at your dashboard, or is there a formal reporting system? They definitely are. Well, because we really serve as a microcosm for global challenges and we have our small, finite island, we really have the opportunity to see these impacts quickly. So sea level rise, we're going to see it in every island very fast. And in addition, we have finite resources. So we are a model definitely that people can look at to achieve these goals and to look at how sustainability can really be done. We also sit on the bedrock of traditional knowledge. We have this wonderful cultural aspect that we can really bring to it, so that we can show other global leaders how they can scale and make place-based solutions for sustainability within their own communities. Yeah. Well, I think we have a good story to tell, and we have a lot to learn and a lot to do. And so I really appreciate the efforts you guys are making to pull together the information to put it an accessible dashboard that's nice. You know, it's very well organized, and you can click on things and get more and more detail as long as you can stand, you know, and you can contribute your ideas as well to this effort. Right, and we'll just keep getting better, more interactive, and we'll get more people on the dashboard and ready to take action. Thank you very much. Thank you.