Accelerating hope for the Southland.



The CSO Strategic Taskforce brings together Chief Sustainability Officers from government, business, and education and other institutions of civil society from across LA County to focus on Southland sustainability as a whole and innovate professional-community collaborations. Programs serve professional development, higher ed, and community learning.

We help LA’s sustainability professionals collaborate in innovative ways to meet the County’s ambitious sustainability goals. We’re building on four years of experimentation and success. We have a membership and community base; an innovative model for professional-community collaboration; an understanding of the infrastructure we need to make our work be more effective, and ideas for scale.

A professional-community collaboration model is the centerpiece of our work and defining feature of the Taskforce. Our model involves Taskforce members in everything from innovating strategic opportunities to matchmaking between professionals and community teams, and allows members to plug in as advisors and mentors at stages throughout a project’s development — from project conceptualizing and implementation to sustainability impact assessment.

The CSO Strategic Taskforce was launched as a Pando network in 2017 at the suggestion of Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz with Caltech’s CSO and Interim Vice President John Onderdonk as founding chair. As a Pando initiative, staff work for the Taskforce is handled by Pando with the addition of volunteer support.

Originally created with a core of “chief” sustainability officers, the Taskforce soon evolved to include a range of professionals from government, business, and institutions of civil society who carry sustainability briefs.


Download Mark VanderSchaaf’s updated and expanded book:


New Study Analyzes Sustainability Planning in Metropolitan Los Angeles.

Mark VanderSchaaf’s Sustainability Planning in Metropolitan Los Angeles: Products and Processes is the first to identify and analyze the wide variety of contemporary sustainability plans affecting the LA region.

Taskforce co-founder Andy Shrader observes: “Meticulous research and deep understanding of the subject matter.”

“It has such clarity and depth,” writes Charles Landry, international urban creativity adviser and co-founder of the Creative Bureaucracy Festival in Berlin.

The book is a publication of LA’s CSO Strategic Taskforce in collaboration with the Regional and Intergovernmental Planning Division of the American Planning Association.

Available for free online. Download here.


TASKFORCE CHAIR: Heidrun Mumper-Drumm, Director of Sustainability Initiatives, ArtCenter College of Design.
FOUNDING CHAIR (2017-21): John Onderdonk, Chief Sustainability Officer and Associate Vice-President of Facilities, Caltech.

MEMBERS OF THE CHAIR’S ADVISORY COUNCIL (in addition to the above): Robyn Eason, Long Range Planning and Sustainability Manager, City of West Hollywood (frmr.); Dean Kubani, Principal, Kubani and Associates, LLC, and Chief Sustainability Officer (ret.), City of Santa Monica; Sr. Maribeth Larkin, General Director, Sisters of Social Service, Encino; Pablo La Roche, Principal and Design Lead, Callison RTKL, and Interim Director, Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies, Cal Poly Pomona; Luis Navarro, Associate, Langan Engineering and Environmental Services; Marcela Oliva, Professor of Architecture and Environmental Design, LA Trade Technical College; Eugene Shirley, Founding President, Pando Populus, and founding principal of the CSO Taskforce; Andy Shrader, Executive Director, Environmental Affairs, Health & Sustainability Policy for Councilmember Paul Koretz, City of Los Angeles (frmr.), and founding principal of the CSO Taskforce; and Mark Spears, Founder and Chief Strategist, common + value, and Director, Sustainable Business Practices (ret.), Walt Disney Company.

TASKFORCE MEMBERS (in addition to the above): David Abel, Chairman, Verde Exchange; Nadereh Afsharmanesh, VP of Sustainability and Education, ECOS; Scott Ammons, Regional Experiences, So Cal, REI; Mandar Apte, Executive Director, Cities for Peace; Bonny Bentzin, Deputy Sustainability Officer, UCLA;  Jonny Blitstein, Co-Founder, Tandem Pictures; La Ronda Bowen, President, Bowen & Associates; Tim Brick, Managing Director, Arroyo Seco Foundation; Randy Britt, Consultant for Sustainable Practices in Energy and Resilience and Chief Sustainability Officer (frmr.), Vanir Construction Management; Siobhan Burke, Principal, Lyric Design and Planning; Sasha Calder, Head of Sustainability, Genomatica; Julie Christeas, Founder, CEO, Tandem Pictures; John B. Cobb, Chair, Pando Populus and Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Liz Crosson, Senior Climate and Water Policy Advisor, Los Angeles County; Austin Eriksson, Director of Energy & Sustainability, California State University Northridge; Gary Gero, Chief of Staff for Councilmember Katy Yarosklavsky, City of Los Angeles; Chief Sustainability Officer, Los Angeles County (frmr.); David Grannis, Managing Partner, Point C; Russell Greene, Chief Sustainability Officer (ret.), Cheesecake Factory; Dominique Hargreaves, Director, Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility, American Realty Advisors; Christopher Hazen, Co-Founder/COO, Northwest Prevention Science, and Principal/Owner, Horizontal 8, LLC; Adam Lane, City Policy and Government Affairs Manager, Waymo; Mary Leslie, President, Los Angeles Business Council; Loraine Lundquist, Commissioner, LAUSD Board of Education Redistricting Commission at City of Los Angeles, and Faculty Associate, Institute for Sustainability, Cal State University at Northridge; George Lu, Associate Director, ESG Technical Analyses, Reporting and Strategy, ADEC Innovations; Carey Lundin, Executive Producer, Viva Lundin Productions; Chebon Marshall, Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President for Government and Community Affairs, CalArts; Katherine Miller, Director of Campus Development, Facilities and Workplace Services and Chief Sustainability Officer (frmr.), Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, and principal, KM3 Consulting; Ignacio Munoz-SanJuan, Vice President, Biology, CHDI Foundation; Vickere Murphy, Administrative Assistant to the Associate Vice-President, Caltech; Carrie Norton, Founder and CEO, Green Business Base Camp; Jenni Ogden, COO and Co-Founder, 4D Fun Inc and President, Executive Producer, Eye Q Productions; Kristen Pawling, Deputy Chief of Staff, Environment, Transportation and Planning, LA City Council District 5; Ellie Perry, Sustainability Director, Cal State University at Dominguez Hills; Matt Petersen, President and CEO, LA Cleantech Incubator (LACI); David Porges, Sr. Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences; John Rego, Vice President Sustainability, Medical and EHS, Sony Pictures Entertainment; Craig Reiter, Senior Director, Sustainability and Energy, LA Metro (frmr.); Christopher Rhie, Founder and Principal, Rhie Planning LLC; Larry Rich, Sustainability Coordinator, City of Long Beach;  Claire Robinson, Founder and Managing Director, Amigos de los Rios; Margaret Sanchez, Creative and Social Media Manager, California Air Resources Board; Shannon Scrofano, Associate Director of Design and Production, CalArts; Ezra Silk, Political Director, US High Speed Rail Coalition; Youn Sim, Assistant Division Head, LA County Department of Public Works; Jesse Smith, COO, CalArts; Evonne Soon, Program Manager, Extended Product Responsibility, Amazon; Michael Swords, VP Government Affairs and International Relations, LA Cleantech Incubator; Mark VanderSchaaf, Regional Sustainability Planner, Pando Populus; Mike Wallace, Chief Decarbonization Officer, Persefoni.


Meetings:

April 14, 2024

April 9, 2024

August 24, 2023

April 16, 2023

October 1, 2022

March 31, 2022

October 7, 2021

April 7, 2021

October 27, 2020

February 16, 2020

October 16, 2019

August 22, 2019

April 23, 2019

December 5, 2018

October 9, 2018

March 18, 2018

November 17, 2017

July 31, 2017


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