Part 1: Sustainability Pioneers: The Journey Begins

November 7, 2014

Sustainability Pioneers is a Southwestern Pennsylvania-based series of short documentaries visualizing a bridge from an economy based on fossil fuels to one with more renewable energy. The videos give a human face to energy policy and energy legacy.

This first episode features a local family who feels first-hand the impacts of air pollution from coal-fired power plants, and includes interviews with a climate scientist, energy policy researcher and a pulmonologist. Part 2 of Sustainability Pioneers visits two companies and a private citizen who have already started building a bridge to a renewable energy future.

The series is produced by Kirsi Jansa, a documentary filmmaker and journalist and the producer of Gas Rush Stories, short documentaries on shale gas exploration.

Sustainability Pioneers is funded by The Heinz Endowments (as is The Allegheny Front) and The Fisher Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation. (The Allegheny Front is also funded by The Pittsburgh Foundation through different funds.) Sustainability Pioneers is produced in collaboration with Rachel Carson scholar and energy consultant Patricia DeMarco and The Institute for Green Science at Carnegie Mellon University.