9.15.2006 - 09:45am ET

(CSRwire) MINNEAPOLIS- The Alliance for Sustainability announced that Dr. Michel Gelobter, Executive Director of Redefining Progress, has been selected as the fifth recipient of the Second Annual Sustainability Awards. The Alliance is pleased to recognize Gelobter's outstanding work developing measures of sustainability that address the real state of our economy, our environment and social justice, as well as promoting and creating new frameworks that accurately articulate sustainability's broader vision.

He will receive the award at a gala public celebration the evening of September 25 at the famed Fitzgerald Theatre in St. Paul, MN, home of Prairie Home Companion. He and the other recipients will speak at a public Sustainability Symposium at the University of Minnesota the next morning.

"Michel Gelobter has been one of the most prominent voices addressing environmental justice and its deep relationship to issues of sustainability," noted Terry Gips, Alliance for Sustainability President and Event Co-Chair. "He's spoken eloquently of a transformative new framework that has the power to astonish, delight and liberate," he said.

Dr. Gelobter moves easily between the realms of academia, activism and public administration. Prior to joining the staff at Redefining Progress, he was a professor in the Graduate Department of Public Administration at Rutgers University. Prior to that, Dr. Gelobter started the Environmental Policy Program at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, served as Director of the Department of Environmental Quality for NY City and was a Congressional Black Caucus Fellow.

"Dr. Gelobter has made the link between the experience of communities of color in the US, and the deeper meaning of sustainability," said Alliance for Sustainability Executive Director Sean Gosiewski. "He's made a bridge between environmental and civil rights groups, ending the denial about social and cultural policy being at the root of both racial injustice and environmental degradation," he added.

The award selections were made by a distinguished Awards Advisory Committee and the Alliance for Sustainability Board following an international nominations process. The other recipients include: Ray Anderson, Founder and Chair, Interface, Inc; Eureka Recycling; Alisa Gravitz, Executive Director of Coop America; and David Morris, Vice-President of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Previous recipients include inspiring author Frances Moore Lappé, artist Peter Max, Aveda Corporation Founder Horst Rechelbacher, Native-American activist Winona LaDuke and Seventh Generation Corporation.

Sponsors of the Awards include the Aveda Corporation, Utne Magazine, French Meadow Bakery and Café, E - The Environmental Magazine, Jedlicka Designs, Aurora Strategic Advisors, Sustainability Associates, Target Corporation, Dolphin Blue, Indigenous Designs, CSRwire and the University of Minnesota College of Design.

The Alliance for Sustainability was founded in 1983 and has been one of the original proponents of sustainability, developing a widely used four-part definition. Its mission is to bring about personal, organizational and planetary sustainability. It has partnered with diverse business, government and non-profit groups to create the CERES Principles, Living Green Expo, and Congregations Caring for Creation, as well as numerous public policies. It offers trainings on Sustainability and the Natural Step Framework and has an e-newsletter Manna, website www.afors.org, numerous publications, a Sustainability Resource Center, and internship program.

For further information about the awards and both volunteer and sponsorship opportunities, please contact event Coordinator Karen Engelsen at the Alliance for Sustainability, In the Hillel Center at the University of Minnesota, 1521 University Ave. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55405; phone 612-331-1099, email karen@afors.org, and see www.afors.org.

Summary of Nomination (Details at www.afors.org)

Dr. Michel Gelobter, Executive Director, Redefining Progress

1904 Franklin Street, 6th Floor, Oakland, CA 94612 510-444-3041x303 www.rprogress.org

Michel Gelobter has been one of the most prominent voices for sustainability and addressing environmental justice through his leadership as the Executive Director of Redefining Progress (RP) since 2001, writing (such as co-author of the essay "The Soul of Environmentalism"), and speaking on the topic of cultural relations to the environment. RP works with a broad array of partners to shift the economy and public policy towards sustainability.

Dr. Gelobter has experience as an academic, activist and administrator. Prior to joining the staff at RP, he was a professor in the Graduate Department of Public Administration at Rutgers University. During the same period, he founded and ran CAPE, or Community/Academic Partnership for the Environment, a regional research entity spanning NJ, NY and Puerto Rico. Prior to that, Dr. Gelobter started the Environmental Policy Program at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

From 1990 to 1992, Dr. Gelobter was Director of Environmental Quality for the City of New York, and an Assistant Commissioner for its Department of Environmental Protection. He also served as the environmental and health issues director during David Dinkins' successful mayoral campaign in 1989. Gelobter was a Congressional Black Caucus Fellow and served with the U.S. House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee from 1988-89.

Dr. Gelobter earned his B.A. in conservation and resource studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984 and then a M.S. from U.C. Berkeley in 1986, with an emphasis on the environment and the poor in industrialized countries. He earned his Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group in 1993 and did his doctoral research on race and income distribution of air pollution in the US. He has also written more broadly about environmental justice, lead poisoning, global warming, sustainability, commons management, and the relationship between environmental protection and tourism in developing countries.

Dr. Gelobter was the founding chair of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council Subcommittee on Air and Water and served there for six years. He presently serves on the boards of the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment; CERES; the Telluride Association; Next Generation, and Redefining Progress.

Redefining Progress has developed measures of sustainability including the Ecological Footprint and the Genuine Progress Indicator. RP contrasts the roles of data and culture in achieving sustainability, with an emphasis on cultural drivers of our relationship to the environment. RP measures the real state of our economy, our environment, and social justice with tools like the Genuine Progress Indicator and the Ecological Footprint. It then designs policies--like environmental tax reform--to shift behavior in these three domains (economy, environment, and equity) towards sustainability. RP also promotes and creates new frameworks--like common assets--to replace the ones that are taking us away from long-term social, economic, and environmental health.

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