If we have any public speakers that have arrived, the uh clipboard to sign up is over to my left, what would be your right right here on the table uh next to KPRC.

Um welcome to the resilience committee meeting.

Uh it is two o'clock.

We'll call the meeting to order.

And uh want to recognize uh first off, we've got council member uh Julian Ramirez and staff from uh councilmember Peck, Councilmember Martha Cassex Tatum, and uh Councilmember Alcorn's offices.

Thank you all for being here.

Um really excited today for the presentation.

Um Elizabeth Carlson uh came came uh to visit me a few weeks ago, and I was really excited to hear uh what's the what the uh FIFA is doing for the World Cup in response to resiliency and sustainable projects.

And so I believe Elizabeth, you ready?

We're ready for you.

And so we have Elizabeth Carlson, chair of the sustainability subcommittee for FIFA World Cup Houston 2026.

I have a seat, and we're we're glad you're here.

Well, I guess they will pull up the presentation table.

Let's she should.

Well, while she's doing that, I'll start with a quick intro.

Um, first of all, thank you to Council Matter for allowing me to speak here and for sharing this committee.

Um I'll maybe do a quick introduction of myself across a few hats and kind of why I'm here and involved in this program.

Um for those who don't know me, my day job is as chief sustainability officer for Tricon.

We're a chemical distribution and trading company headquartered here in Houston.

And my volunteer hat is chairing the sustainability committee for the Houston 2026 World Cup host committee.

Um, and I'll add my third hat is a bomb of three kids.

So um that all comes into play in some of this presentation that we're about to go through.

Um, you know, why invest time in this sustainability committee?

For me, it's related to all three of those roles.

You know, for industry, Houston is a center of industry.

We want to showcase the best of who we are and our leadership on a global stage.

Um, as a mom, this is all about how we build a better future for our kids, and we'll talk a little bit about how some of these environmental initiatives tie into health as well.

Um then finally, for me, the World Cup is really a once-in-a-generation opportunity to bring people together and make that positive impact and legacy in Houston.

Um it's our moment to lead.

We can show the energy capital of the world, our innovation hubs, our green spaces, our resiliency efforts.

Um, and I'll jump in in a minute here.

Is it showing for you guys or not yet?

Technical.

Looks like they're having trouble getting the presentation.

That's fine.

Give us just a minute.

Yes, I'll open some of my visual aids while we do that.

I'd like to recognize staff from uh councilmember Thomas's uh office has joined us.

Thank you for being here.

You all can be the first to get our nice new stickers for the World Cup efforts.

Um just got these printed, so we'll talk a little about why these exist.

Um but maybe two while they're pulling it up.

We have a lot of these different stickers I'll go over, but they're centered around a theme called Sustainability Starts with You with HOU.

And the idea is that in the lead up to the World Cup, we want every individual business, school to have the opportunity to take action on resilience and sustainability.

Um, and then depending on what action they take and kind of what organization they are, they'll earn these these badges or stickers.

Have you all are you engaging with school districts around what how do how are you doing on on that?

I'll show a slide on that in a minute, but um, and if we can't get it up, I can just talk through.

Um, and I think you all have the presentation from it being sent out, so I'm happy to just kick off.

Technology doesn't always agree with us if that if that works.

Um it looks like it's an HTV problem.

So you may want to go ahead and get started and we'll get them to catch it up as soon as they get it online.

Evidently, they're working with HTV.

Thank you.

Perfect.

I will just kick off.

Good thing I kept some notes, so I'm not relying on the screens.

Um I'll talk about the schools in a second.

Um, just you know, on the background of the sustainability committee that you'll see in the slides.

Um, the way this is structured is that FIFA contracts with each sort of host city differently.

Um, and in our city, it's through the um Sports Authority Foundation and the host committee.

And so under that, the sustainability committee sits as a volunteer effort.

Um, so most of our people involved, oh, perfect timing, are in the um our volunteers.

All right, we can jump to the next slide.

I think we are right there.

Yep, perfect.

So this is the structure that I was just starting to go over.

Um we have the sustainability committee, and then under that we have various work streams and project groups, people who are experts in different subjects working together on the different initiatives that we'll go through.

And then we also do broader stakeholder engagement sessions.

Every month we have an open meeting where anyone can come and learn about what we're doing.

Those are sometimes in person, sometimes virtual.

Um, there's a link on our website where anyone who wants to get those updates can register to receive them as well.

And you can go to the next slide.

And just to give you an idea of themes, because I know that sustainability or resilience can be very broad topics.

Um there's something in sustainability that we call materiality, which is kind of narrowing down what's important for the issue at hand.

And so for events like this, FIFA gave us a set of material issues, and that's mostly what you see on this screen, the technical areas like climate and energy, air, water, nature, waste and circularity, low carbon transport, and then cross-cutting themes.

We they also leave a place for host city-specific initiatives, and we, through that stakeholder engagement, um, added resilience and innovation.

Um, because we believe those are cross-cutting themes that really cut through all that we do and are really a way that Houston can lead.

So those are unique to Houston.

And then the next slide.

So the other piece of materiality is that we can't impact everything as much as we might like to.

Um, with limited resources and a lot of volunteer efforts, um, where can we have the most impact on the community?

And so this little, these little circles kind of highlight that.

We have the event sites themselves.

So the stadium, which FIFA controls the fan festival in Eto, where we'll be doing a lot of the sustainability initiatives that we're working on.

And then um, sort of as a second tier, we also have the opportunity to influence or impact the hospitality sector because so many people will be coming in to stay in hotels and restaurants, and then from a broader standpoint, how do we make a positive impact in the community in the city and in our systems?

Um, what does the World Cup really bring?

You know, a lot of people think it's funding.

I wouldn't say it's funding because of the model, but I would say what it does bring is the opportunity for Houston to lead on the global stage, the opportunity to bring people together through the power of sports.

So in the committee that I talked about when we formed it, we were very intentional to make sure that government and public agencies were represented, private sector from industry to hospitality was represented, civil society and NGOs were represented, K through 12 education was represented, and um universities were represented so that we could really make a cross-cutting section.

Um and then the other piece is just mobilizing that long-term change.

So how do we create legacy using this moment?

So these are all the introductions to kind of what we're doing.

One more introductory slide if you want to go to the next one, which is our timeline recap.

So just to kind of give you an idea that we've been working on this for about two years.

Um FIFA requested the plan in summer fall of 2023.

We did very rapid stakeholder engagement to try to get as much input as we could, put that into a plan, submitted it to FIFA, kind of waited for their feedback.

Um, and then really in spring is when we kind of got the confirmation from FIFA that it was okay for us to move forward in 2024.

And so we spent that summer with technical experts across those sectors that I talked about, really saying how do we take that plan from a high-level objective and turn it into a detailed work plan so that we have specific actions, we can measure the results, it's clear, we can report back to the community on our progress.

And so that's what we did really the second half of 2024 again, all volunteers working together collaboratively on this.

Um, and then 2025 is really our implementation year.

So we've started getting things done in 2025, and that will be our focus going forward in 2026 on a much accelerated timeline.

Um next slide.

And then this is just a very brief overview.

I'm gonna talk specifically about some of the projects that I think are more relevant to this group.

But this is kind of how we break down the plan.

There's a very long Excel sheet with a lot of detailed steps.

But I come from uh actually the construction sector is where I spent most of my career, and so everything is a project execution plan.

So that's how I've kind of structured our plans is project execution plans, and so each of these projects has their execution plan behind it.

And so I'm gonna highlight you know some of these specifically in a second, but some that I won't go as much in detail on just to quickly go over is our fan festival plan.

So there is a whole you know very detailed plan, not just on sustainability, but we've been able to integrate environmental responsibility into that plan and particularly on waste, because that's one of our biggest concerns.

You have a lot of people, a lot of trash, uh it ends up in the bayous, it ends up in the ocean.

So we want to make sure that we're really possibly managing waste management.

Um the other one that I'll just note quickly is um on the resilience and carbon mitigation.

We were looking with FIFA at an opportunity to do kind of nature-based carbon impact mitigation.

They've decided to do a partnership on tree planting, and so we've rolled in that resilience carbon piece into the green corridor that I'll talk in more detail about.

We can go to the next slide.

So these are the some of the stickers I mentioned.

I think we have a few more now.

Um, but this is the campaign really that brings all those projects together.

So this is about all of us.

This isn't about FIFA or specific games.

As the councilwoman said earlier, um, this is really about how to make a difference for the community, um, not just while FIFA's in town or while these games are in place, and so we really want to focus on how different groups can get involved in these specific programs.

You'll see the sustainable schools badge on there.

I'm gonna talk specifically about that.

Um, but the idea is to have tangible actions and ways that different parts of the community can contribute or feel a part of the World Cup efforts, at least on the sustainability and environmental side.

And we just like stickers.

Um the next slide.

Okay, so I'm gonna break down some of the projects that are a little bit more detailed.

This is the sustainable event management system.

It's required by FIFA, there's an international standard, ISO, um, that outlines expectations and how to manage events in a responsible way for both social and environmental.

Um, but we said, you know, why should we spend time developing a system for FIFA?

Like we should just develop a system for Houston, and then it can be used for any event going forward, and we'll just adapt it to FIFA.

So that's what we did.

We had a group of volunteers, environmental management experts, and others, university um environmental leads who put together a toolkit on sustainable events.

Um we hope to publish that probably early next year.

We're working on some even cooler collaborations, and we use that toolkit to make the required FIFA sustainable event management system so that we could actually use the World Cup as a test event.

One of the reasons we focused on this is because these events can have you know impacts on air quality, water, trash and waste, um, transit and so on.

A lot of these themes tied to resilience.

And every time we have a big event come to Houston, which I've heard a rumor that we host the most sports events like in the world.

I don't know how true that is, but that's what I hear.

Um every time we have an event coming, it's like we have to reinvent the wheel sometimes because the knowledge is in someone's head.

And so when I started this process, I was talking to someone at the city who had been very involved in the Super Bowl, and he was retiring.

And I said, uh oh, like we need to make sure we capture everything in his mind because it wasn't documented anywhere.

All the great things that he had done and worked towards, and so that is really our goal here is to make sure that this is legacy, that what we do, that we report it, that we share it, it's available to the community for the future, and we don't lose those lessons learned for other events.

Next slide.

So this is one that really ties to the theme of resilience and soccer.

Um grow the game is an initiative by FIFA and the host committee to engage more kids in soccer.

And our committee said, you know, can't we find a way to tie that to flood resilience and heat resilience?

Because kids are playing in these neighborhood fields, it's hot, the fields are flooding, how could we address this?

Um we brought experts, top experts from the EPA in DC and here in Texas.

Um we brought in people from TCEQ, from county, from city, from HPAD, from the dynamo, just a lot of different experts, Texas AM to say how could you design and maintain neighborhood soccer fields in a way that would make them more resilient to heat and flooding.

And we put together these guidelines.

They'll also be published shortly as another toolkit available to the community as legacy, and then we're hoping to actually demonstrate and implement those guidelines in some soccer fields in the coming year.

And the idea here is you know, this should be a learning moment.

Kids, when I talk about the tie between environmental and human health, you know, a lot of people ask, like, what do what does this have to do with soccer?

And and this is the example, right?

Literally the field, the soil, the grass, all of that is about resilience.

And if we think about what we want for our kids, ultimately it's a safe place where they can play.

And safe includes that it's not too hot, that it's not flooding all the time, and so we have to think about these things kind of holistically.

So that's another group.

We have a great group of volunteers that put that has put that together.

Next slide.

And then the school sustainability.

So I think I sent this presentation before I had all the stickers in place, but this the school sustainability sticker you saw there will be kind of the badge that schools and kids can earn.

So we have this menu.

We haven't formally launched this.

It will launch probably in January.

We're working with teachers and classrooms right now in school districts like HISD to see how we can start prepping classes in this semester and then kind of launch the program for next semester so that kids can do their project between January and June.

This is a menu that several nonprofit organizations here in Houston, the Children's Environmental Literacy Foundation, the Houston Zoo, and others helped us put together that are kind of small-scale projects that kids can do that have you know STEM or learning components, but also link back to our World Cup sustainability goals.

And so we'll be doing kind of a matchmaking, looking at how kids, teachers, PTOs, PTAs, etc.

who want to get involved can do this, and we'll have a little process, and then the kids will earn all of those, all of those stickers.

To the next slide.

Okay, and then air quality.

So I have a lot of updates on this one since I actually made this presentation, but I'm really excited about this piece because again, I think the opportunity for the World Cup is a lot about awareness and a lot about engaging new audiences in themes around resilience.

And if you think about the heart of like our community where we are, um, I work in industry on a day-to-day basis, and there was a very famous human rights report that came out a few years ago about Houston and the Gulf Coast.

And it said, you know, really the top issue is air quality.

And it said that because of the strong tie to health and particularly to children's health.

And so this is something we knew from the beginning that we wanted to focus on.

But a lot of people said, what does air quality have to do with sports and soccer?

And really, it has everything to do with it because you cannot play outside as a child, you can't be an athlete if you don't have clean air.

This is so fundamental to the future of sports and the safety and health of our children.

Um, so we wanted to come up with a project here, and it's just been amazing to see the collaboration.

Just to give you an idea, this this picture on my left-hand side is from the air quality summit held in September, which HGAC hosted.

This was something that first of its kind that brought together again all those different sectors and collaborators to talk about health, air quality, monitoring action, and how we can all collaborate on these air quality initiatives to make Houston safer and healthier in the long term.

HGAC you know has said that they'll continue this event as a legacy, so it's an opportunity to just keep collaborating across stakeholder groups.

Again, sports bring people together.

We're also working with community stakeholders, including the city, to look at increasing uh air quality monitoring during the event, before the event, and having a legacy of community air quality monitoring in third ward and Edo.

So we'll be announcing more on that very soon.

Um we've integrated air quality risks into OEM's uh risk matrix so that we can make sure that any health impacts for visitors or people vulnerable populations that we're taking those into consideration, um, and we'll be looking at the actually the air quality impacts from the World Cup.

So we'll be measuring, you know, what is community, what is the air quality look like before, what does it look like during, what does it look like after, especially in Edo and Third Ward, just given kind of um the fan festival and another project that I'll talk about in a minute.

Um, and so that's kind of a first of its kind thing that we're trying to do is actually actually measure what are the air quality impacts from these types of large-scale events.

Next slide.

And very similar to air quality, um, we just held these two training sessions recently, um, and we did a cleanup in September with our committee, but we also want to make sure water quality and water pollution is our issues are raised through these initiatives.

So we'll have a calendar finalized, hopefully on December 10th, which we'll then update our website with, where we're going to be hosting different bayou cleanups with Splash Buffalo Bayou Partnership, another NGO and civil society partners, and these will be similarly a way that will measure trash in the bayos before, during, and after the World Cup.

Obviously, it's not totally scientific because rain, wind, everything can impact how much trash is in the bayous, but we do want to make this an awareness piece as well.

Hopefully, you all know, but any time a styrofoam cup from our favorite fast food restaurants flows into the street, it goes to the drainage, it goes to the bayou, which leads to Galveston Bay and the ocean.

So I myself have done a lot of Bayou cleanups, and it really changes your perspective on different waste items.

So I really encourage everyone to check that out.

And then we'll be recording the results in the Texas litter database.

Um, so it'll be transparent and all of that, and you can see just from the one cleanup we did, 1,100 pounds of trash in like two hours.

One site.

Next slide.

This is our reuse concept.

So we have, I put an asterisk here because it's what we call a big idea.

Big idea meaning unlikely to succeed, but we want to try anyway.

Um why is it unlikely to succeed?

Because to bring reuse as a service to a city like Houston, you need enough volume and scale to make it economical.

And so, in essence, everyone has to agree to do it, or a lot of people have to agree to do it.

And anytime you need everyone to agree to make a major change, that's very, very hard.

So we've had some meetings and workshops to talk about you know what that looks like, the economic impact.

The goal would be to reduce 3.6 million single use items only from sporting events every year.

So phenomenal how much billions of units, single-use items are sent to landfill every year in the United States, which is really phenomenal.

Um, so the big idea is could we stop that?

Um, but we'll see if we can get it done.

And then just a couple more last couple projects here if you want to go to the next slide.

This one is so I mentioned a few toolkits, right?

Like the menu for schools, um, the sustainable soccer fields.

So the first one we launched is this hospitality toolkit.

So this is the actual printed toolkit, it's on our website, but all of those other toolkits will kind of follow a similar format process.

You've got the sustainable life starts with you campaign here, and this toolkit basically has easy to use, easy to do and harder items that restaurants and hotels can put in place in the lead up to the World Cup, and then they'll earn incentives on that, and of course, a sticker.

Um, so I can go to the next slide and I'll talk a little bit about what that looks like.

These are some of the actions that they can do.

And so we have like this quick reference flyer, it has the actions on the back.

They can quickly say, Oh, yeah, I already do this, I already do this, or I'm committed to doing that.

The idea is that these are actions that would improve community well-being and environmental responsibility.

Um, we've already had a couple hotels submit, which we're really excited about, and we'll start you know launching this more and more.

We've worked with the Texas Restaurant Association and the Hotel and Lodgy Association to get this out there.

And if you go to the next slide, just an example to tie all these things together.

This is a picture from the Bayou from one of the cleanup activities.

And like I said, a lot of what you'll see in there is some of those takeout containers and those um styrofoam cups.

So if we can get restaurants to switch out their takeout containers or switch out to reusable materials, that's just a direct way of reducing the amount of waste that's ending up in our bayous.

So it's all connected in these themes, and all of our um the toolkit has these sort of like how-to sections and Houston-based resources that people can access.

And the next slide.

And this is just about how the toolkit works.

So they earn a badge, one, two, or three stars, and a sticker.

Um, it's anyone in HGAC, any restaurant, hotel, motel, bar, coffee shop, food truck is eligible to earn marketing incentives, and they just have to fill out a quick Google survey where they check out, check off what they've done.

Um, next slide is just the overview of how that looks.

We have a lower bar of entry for small businesses, so we want to make sure that you know, small coffee shops can have more acting, they don't have to do as much as a large chain organization might have to do.

But it's great incentive package, so we're really hoping that we can get restaurants and hotels to take some of these actions.

It's things like plant trees, you know, put in a native pollinator garden, um, start recycling, donate your coffee grounds to a local park, a lot of different options that they can use in the toolkit to earn these incentives.

Next slide.

All right, so last project, hopefully you're still engaged here, um, is the green quarter.

So this is this was another big idea that's actually happening, so that's exciting one.

Um the idea here, it started with hey, people are gonna be moving around Houston.

We wanna keep cars off the road as much as possible just for traffic and safety and all of those things.

We have this great red line that goes from downtown to NRG Park, the fan festivals in Edo, that can connect through the purple and green line, or people can walk.

But also we have very few people could realize we have the Columbia Tap Trail that connects to Brace Bayou that connects to the Almeda uh bike lanes all the way to Energy Park.

So we have a completely sustainable full transit loop.

And so we thought, what if we took that transit loop?

And this was not my idea.

Somebody named Anna's idea.

She gets full credit.

What if we took that loop and we told Houston's story through that loop of resilience and innovation?

And so that is this project.

And if you go to the next slide, it has a little bit more about what we mean by that.

So I am not a map builder.

I've learned a lot about maps in the last few weeks.

So this map, this version of the map is missing the Almeda connection.

But you can you can see the red line, you can see the tap trail coming down into Brays Bayou.

And as we think about that, we want to tell the story that already exists.

There are so many great organizations just in this little chunk of Houston doing amazing things.

You have Herman Park, you have Discovery Green, you have the zoo, you have uh Midtown and the Innovation and Ion District.

Um you have the trail itself, you have all the Bayou activity and resilience and flood control measures that have been taking place.

So we want to use this as the story to celebrate what we're already doing, and then with some support from sort of sponsored donor activity, we'll do some small scale demonstrations along that highlight, you know, what is resilience specifically, like on a pollinator garden or a rain garden or a um innovation site near the Ion district.

And so we're working very collaboratively across so many different agencies.

I feel like most of my most of my time is spent on different phone calls talking to different people because we want everyone to feel part of this and have a have a say in it.

Um just a little bit more about it.

It's it's an experience, it's how do we demonstrate resilient infrastructure.

You know, people think of infrastructure as our roads and our metro lines, but infrastructure is also our trees, it's also our native grasses.

These are things that help our community in a very real and tangible way, and we want to increase education about that as well through the World Cup.

So you're gonna have fans and community members who just traditionally haven't been exposed to some of these concept, and that's our audience.

It's not people like me who are sustainability or whatever it may be, it's the average person.

How do we show them?

Hey, that little prairie over there that looks like it hasn't been mowed is actually like helping mitigate flood waters.

Those are the kind of messages we want to get out through this story.

And then just one more, one or two more.

Next slide.

So this is a little bit of the map.

Again, I'm not a map person, so these are like a crowdsourcing of maps.

We are gonna make an actual pretty beautiful map, um, which will be what they call a story map, and it will have images, visuals, stories, messaging, as well as sites that you can go see and actually experience the green corridor for yourself.

And so highlighting these different aspects, parks and green spaces, multi-use trails, energy sites, universities, and so on.

And then I think there's one more or two more.

Um, so just you know, background on the green corridor too.

We also did just an observational assessment of all the metro sites, the Columbia Tap Trail, the bus stops in that area with our volunteers, and we saw some really good practices.

I just want to highlight that, you know, from a showcase what's already being done.

We have a lot of good shelters in place.

We have my favorite stop.

I've learned so much about Metro that I'm actually excited about, but my favorite stop in all of Houston is the museum district northbound.

So you should go to that stop, see what it is.

It has great like trees integrated into the stop, it's really nice.

Um we saw good accessibility from a very basic standpoint.

We didn't do a full assessment on that.

Um we saw some, you know, some art, waste bins at every shelter, which was great to see.

Um, and actually, when we did visual inspections, everything was pretty clean, looked good.

But what did we see missing?

Um, public water stations, you know, just not having basic access to water considering the heat here in Houston.

Um, just connection to place, you know, you get off the metro stop and do you feel that connection to where you are and the resilient infrastructure that's there.

A great example is McGowan at Midtown Park, and we're working with Midtown on this.

You know, it's amazing what from a resiliency standpoint what Midtown Park has done, but you don't feel that or know that when you get off the metro stop.

So, how do we like help people lead people to that experience?

Um, and and just you know, we are the energy capital of the world, but when you when you look around these stops, we don't see the energy innovation, we don't see the technology and stuff that we're doing.

So, how can we kind of do some just spot demonstrations for that?

Um, and no recycling, sadly.

Um, and most of the waste bins had um plastic bottles, which are high value recyclables in them.

That's a whole more complicated subject.

Um, but that was just a few of the things we noticed.

And then just on the last slide is some of the next steps that we're doing for this project.

So we are going to kick off, I think next week, our first tree planting, um, and getting in place maintenance agreements to make sure that everything that we do can be maintained and is legacy, you know, we want to avoid one-off temporary items when we can.

Of course, some things have to be temporary, but hopefully as much as we can can be permanent improvements.

Um, we'll do our first pollinator garden demonstration site in a week or two.

We're working with all of the startup ecosystems here in Houston to look at what heat mitigation, energy and circularity innovations and startups we can feature, highlight in some of these demonstration sites.

And then we're hoping to do a student art program.

Um just waiting for some approvals and things like that on the sites, but hoping that that can be a way to feed in learning moments and wayfinding through art and beautification.

Um and we'll have, like I said, the map, an event calendar, a tourism itinerary, so really a way for visitors and community members to engage.

So I think that covered all of the main projects.

I'm happy to answer questions or talk through anything else that might be interesting.

Well, thank you, Elizabeth.

That's a great presentation.

And you know, I think one of the big takeaways that I I see in what you're doing is you're involving youth.

And um it's not lost on me that VIPA is headquartered in Switzerland.

And um, you know, uh in Europe, there's a whole different thought about sustainability and recycling.

And you know it's something that has to be taught from the ground up, right?

And so I I really am excited to see some of your projects, and certainly I'm going to welcome welcome you back after the World Cup.

And and uh as we talked about measurables, I'm anxious to see uh the end result and and how we can continue uh some of your work in the community.

Um I think that like I said, um uh if FIFA is uh engaged and uh has signed off on your project plan, um, it's very good because they're ex I think that their standards are very high because like I said in Europe it's very focused on sustainability is to is not like we are here.

But um thank you for being here.

I I loved your your um the styrofoam and the bayou on that boat bayou tour a few years back, and wow, that's an eye-opener.

We Houston, we have a problem.

So um any questions, Councilmember Ramirez has got a he's in the queue.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Elizabeth, for the presentation.

Um there's a lot of information in there.

I'm just curious to know um what uh stakeholder groups or neighborhood groups uh you all have engaged with as part of this.

Yeah, many, many.

I think we have about 420 people on our stakeholder list across those different sectors.

So if I break it down, I mean from a university standpoint, we have we've worked with Rice University, UH, UHD, TSU, and Lone Star mainly, K-12 with HISD and some of the Children's Environmental Literacy Foundation, um, on the sort of civil society side, um Air Alliance, for example, um, Trees for Houston.

Um, we had a whole airwater nature group that was centered around environmental NGOs and environmental education NGOs.

On the industry side, it's been obviously the World Cup has different sponsors and donors, so all of those, um, as well as different um industry and businesses that wanted to attend and get involved, so there's a lot of those on the list as well.

Like I said, the Hotel Lodging Association, Houston First, um, Texas Restaurant Association, and kind of the hospitality stakeholders, the Motel Association, the Asian American Association, a lot of those like groups there.

So yeah, sounds like you're getting pretty good response there.

Yeah, it's that's the power of the World Cup.

We people want to participate, which has been positive.

Sure, sure.

And um the funds for for this particular effort, can you tell us where they're coming from?

I mean, most of it is volunteer, as I said.

So all of this was developed by volunteers who just love Houston and want to see it better.

Um I myself am volunteering, and then the limited funds we have are coming through the host committee and the donor and sponsorship opportunities that come in.

And we try to accelerate what's already going on.

So you know, if there's a program that's already happening, like when we developed the toolkit for um schools, the Houston Zoo already has a partnership with schools, the Children's Environmental Literacy Foundation already works with schools.

So we tried to tap into those existing programs and amplify and elevate them in that toolkit rather than reinvent the wheel on something new.

Well, we'll certainly appreciate all the volunteers that that have given their time and uh sweat to uh this this big effort.

Um whether any part of the plan involves uh funding for for any of our stakeholder groups for for their efforts or or projects.

Um it depends.

I mean, like for example, the trees, we haven't officially signed any like agreements, but um our plan for the trees next week is with trees for Houston, for example, because they're you know a very big stakeholder and making sure that tree canopy is covered here in Houston.

Um we haven't like awarded grants or things like that to date.

Not to say that we won't do that.

I mean, we were talking earlier some of these projects like school, we're hoping to do some microgrants, so we might work with again those environmental educational NGOs.

Um I mean the benefits for these programs are really like the restaurants and the hotels, right?

We're not like granting anything out, but they would have access to a lot of these benefits.

I'm trying to think through I mean the Green Corridor definitely will have some investments, right?

Um tree planting, native planting, local landscapers, um, potentially um some of the startups that we might decide to do demonstrations with.

And most of that is being coordinated by um in collaboration with the management districts and different public agencies as well.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

Appreciate it.

Typically, uh when you have a large scale sporting event and the league, if you will, uh familiar with MLB, but the league, such as FIFA in this case, um the stakeholders are using the FIFA platform to advance their voice and and and their work too.

So typically there's I've found in the past there's not a lot of money involved.

It's really that that association with the brand that is what is um certainly I guess the takeaway for some of the stakeholders.

You mentioned Air Alliance.

I was talking to Air Alliance uh a couple days ago, and we've been working on the air monitoring, and I their dashboard is great, and I'm keeping my eye on a couple of places around town.

And uh, we were talking about air monitoring, and I'm so I'm glad to see that you're doing that, especially in that east end.

Um certainly it's necessary, and uh as you know uh from Air Alliance, there's some ongoing issues, and and certainly to be part of that and and pay attention to that's important.

So I was glad to hear from Air Alliance.

So you I mentioned you.

I said, what are you doing with FIFA?

And they're like, oh, you know, so good.

Good to hear all good stuff.

Uh a question from Councilmember Thomas's office.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Elizabeth, for your presentation.

Um, our office, we just want to inquire some more information on your public safety plan, especially in regards to human trafficking.

If you can just touch base on that piece, please.

Yeah, so I'm the sustainability chair, so I'm not the best person to speak on public safety and trafficking, but I can say that there are committees um similar to our committee working diligently on those plans.

And if you go to the website, um there is a human rights section that touches on the trafficking piece specifically and the various public safety stakeholders, HPD, um, OEM, everyone has been involved in those plans as well.

I'm sure we could get you an update if then going back to slide eight.

Um, I know you kind of touched base on the small businesses.

Um so how are you all focusing on the higher Houston First initiative?

So again, not something I can comment because I'm not involved in that piece on the environmental side.

We just tried to create opportunities for small businesses to get additional recommendations.

Um I think there is going to be some communication coming out soon about some small business events.

Okay.

Or business events that will be held for the sharing that with their offices as well.

I can get back to you on that.

I'm not directly involved in it.

Okay, myself.

Thank you.

Question from Councilmember Peck's office.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh hi, Elizabeth.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

I have a question for you.

So I understand that a lot of these projects will center around the downtown Edo area.

Uh for projects like, for example, the sustainable soccer fields and education programs, are those citywide or is that also focused around those areas as well?

Yeah, so the hospitality toolkit.

Um so the incentives available for restaurants and hotels is all of HGAC boundaries, so that's even broader than the city.

I always forget if it's 13 or 14 counties.

Um greater greater Houston.

Same for the school program.

That will be Greater Greater Houston.

Um and then sustainable soccer fields and and the Grow the Game initiative that um that my counterparts are working on, that's being done in collaboration with HPARD and the counties, and so it's uh from what I understand, it would not be limited to that space.

Awesome.

And if you guys need any assistance from our offices regarding parks or anything like that, please do reach out to us.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Any other questions?

And we at uh we had two public speakers signed up to comment today, but I don't see either of them here.

If there's anyone that wishes to ask a question, you're certainly welcome to do so at this time.

You're off the hook.

Well, you you gave such a great presentation, great overview, and I'm really excited.

And I, you know, certainly as a volunteer, you must be one of those high-paid volunteers because you're doing a great job, and and and uh certainly we're we're very fortunate to have you here in this city and look forward to working with you.

So thank you for being here.

Uh there are no further questions, and that means we're done.

So thank you all for uh participating, and uh we look forward to seeing you at the next resilience committee meeting on December 11th.

This meeting is adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.