GreenUP is the recipient of two Ptbo Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Awards!

Congratulations to GreenUP Executive Director, Brianna Salmon for being awarded one of the 4 under 40 awards at the Peterborough Chamber of Commerce, Business Excellence Awards on October 19th.

The ‘4-under-40’ awards recognize individuals in the Peterborough community who are under the age of 40 and who are making their mark in the Peterborough-area. Recipients have shown that their individual achievements through business success, community involvement and contributions to the not-for-profit sector.

Brianna Salmon has been an active and engaged member of the GreenUP team and the Peterborough community since 2008. Their passion for cycling, active transportation, and supporting urban infrastructure is evident through the success of the programs they manages.

They expertly engage with diverse stakeholders and organizations from across the region to develop and implement impactful programs and creative strategies to seek to address the complex environmental challenges we face in Peterborough. They work passionately with GreenUP and beyond, to increase the health and resiliency of our environment by facilitating positive community actions.

Brianna was named as GreenUP’s Executive Director in April 2016, though they have long been committed to the work of GreenUP. Brianna joined GreenUP in 2008 as an educator and quickly moved into the position of Manager of the Transportation and Urban Design Department. In this role, they managed highly successful community, neighbourhood, workplace, and school-based projects that worked to address local and global issues including climate change, public health, land-use planning, and sustainable development. The initiatives that Brianna has fostered have lead to significant expansion of community partnerships, collaborative projects at local to national levels, and strengthened relationships across sectors.

Brianna is an engaged member of the Peterborough community, with recent volunteer activities including serving as a board member with the Trent Community Research Centre, B!KE: the Peterborough Community Cycling Hub, and the Endeavour Centre for Sustainable Building. Brianna has strong ties to the academic community, having completed a Masters of Sustainable Studies at Trent in 2012, and more recently, a Masters of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership at Carleton University.

They have responded to the needs of the Peterborough community by developing innovative programming, facilitating collaborative relationships with community partners, and contributing to municipal and provincial planning processes.

One example of this is Brianna’s leadership with the, Active Neighbourhoods Canada Peterborough Project. With their connections throughout the province, Brianna became aware of a new participatory planning project being initiated in 2013 by the Toronto Centre for Active Transportation and quickly assembled a local team of stakeholders from government, institutions, academia, other non-profits, and neighborhood groups to develop a proposal, which resulted in Peterborough being chosen as one of four pilot communities. The Active Neighborhoods Canada Project has advanced the concept of collaborative participatory urban planning in our city, engaging citizens in the Stewart Street area by reimagining public spaces to create a healthier and more sustainable neighbourhood.

This project has garnered much attention both locally and nationally, receiving requests for consultations and presentations about best practices in participatory processes, and is considered to be a great asset and influence as the City of Peterborough moves forward with new participatory planning and community engagement practices.

In addition, Brianna has designed, developed, and delivered Peterborough’s Annual Active Transportation Challenge, Shifting Gears to be one of the most successful transportation demand management initiatives implemented in Canada. Engaging thousands of residents each year, the challenge results in significant reductions in vehicle trips, decreases in greenhouse gas emissions, and elevated rates of physical activity. In her role as program ambassador, Brianna provided essential support and encouragement to all participants, and worked to tailor the program in ways that ensured individual needs were being met and impact was maximized.

Over the past five years, Brianna’s leadership and commitment to Shifting Gears has helped to steward the program into one of the largest per-capital active transportation programs in the country, and the personal connections they have built with residents has made this program a valued part of our community’s social fabric.

Last year, community members participating in Shifting Gears logged almost 14,000 trips around the city and county by walking, biking, using public transit, and carpooling. This included over 150,000 km using sustainable modes of transportation during the Shifting Gears program, which translates to a reduction of 28,912 kg of CO2 saved and over 400,000 minutes of healthy activity added to the lives of Peterborough residents.

In 2014, Brianna designed and co-authored the Peterborough City & County Active Transportation and Health Indicators Report, in collaboration with the City of Peterborough and the Peterborough County-City Health Unit. One of the first of its kind anywhere in Canada, this report increases awareness about the impact of transportation on personal health, identifies critical issues and trends to inform policy, and establishes indicators to measure progress for a more walkable, bikeable, and transit friendly community for Peterborough City and County. At its provincial release at the 2014 Complete Streets Forum, the report was enthusiastically embraced by those working in the field of active transportation, who saw great value in the report’s ability to interpret statistics, plans and policy, and relate them to public interest in health, the economy and the environment. Many municipalities, health units and non-profits have consulted with Brianna and her co-authors on plans for reports of their own.

Brianna’s work in Peterborough, Ontario has gained global recognition, and they have shared their innovative research at the International University Partnerships for Health Conference, the World Winter Cycling Congress, the North American ProWalk ProBike ProPlace Conference, and the National Compete Streets Forum.

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We are also very honoured to be recognized for our work in the Peterborough community and County by being awarded the Environmental Practices award at the 2016 Peterborough Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Awards.

This award is given in recognition of a business that displays environmental responsibility and who has adopted new practices that encourage the sustainable use of renewable resources, or the protection of environmentally sensitive areas, with demonstrated community involvement.