SHARE BEST PRACTICES
When one organization figures something out, everyone benefits.
Nashville has hundreds of schools, businesses, and community organizations working toward sustainability. Most of them are figuring it out on their own — which means the same mistakes get made over and over, and the same breakthroughs get rediscovered in isolation. Urban Green Lab connects them.
Through peer networks, shared resources, and community conversations, we help Nashville's organizations learn from each other, avoid reinventing the wheel, and move further, faster. Because when knowledge spreads, the whole city benefits.
Nashville Sustainability Roundtable
Every other month, sustainability professionals from across Nashville — corporate, nonprofit, government — come together to swap what's working, troubleshoot what isn't, and build relationships with people who get it. Nearly 150 workplaces have been represented since the Roundtable launched. It's less a formal meeting and more a working community of practice.
Whether you're just starting to think about sustainability at your organization or you've been at it for years, the Roundtable is where Nashville's sustainability leaders grow together.
The Sustainability Directory
Finding the right resource — a vendor, a partner, a program — shouldn't be hard. Our Sustainability Directory connects Nashville organizations with the people, services, and tools they need to move their sustainability work forward. If you're looking for something, it's a good place to start. If you offer something, we want you in it.
Community Conversations
Some of the most important sustainability knowledge in Nashville lives in communities — in the people who understand their neighborhoods, their challenges, and what actually works there. Our Community Conversations create space for those voices to be heard, shared, and connected to broader efforts across the city. These are honest discussions, not presentations.
B Tennessee
Once a year, Urban Green Lab hosts an information session for organizations interested in B Corp certification through B Tennessee. If your organization is exploring what it means to meet higher standards of social and environmental performance, this is a good place to learn more about the path.
Your organization shouldn't have to start from scratch.
Connect with Nashville's sustainability network. Join the Roundtable, explore the Directory, or come to a Community Conversation.
The thing that keeps me showing up to this work isn't the workshops or the metrics, it's watching two people who never would have met otherwise trade notes and walk away with a plan. I've seen a small nonprofit figure out how to apply a sustainability practice from a completely different kind of business, just because someone at another org happened to mention what worked for them. That's the whole point of the network side of UGL: nobody has to solve this alone.
Todd Lawrence, Executive Director
We Want to Hear from You
Would you like to host the Roundtable, or have a great idea for a Community Conversation? email us at connect@urbangreenlab.org.