Welcome & AOR Updates

10 - 10:25am

2025 Legislative Updates
presented by: Tom Egleston, AOR Legislative Chair

10:30-11am

Oregon Statewide Busienss Certification Network

Since 2010, BRING has operated Rethink Business, a sustainability certification and technical assistance program.  After years of visioning a statewide network of green business programs, BRING is leveraging a Source Reduction Assistance EPA grant to expand the program into a unified statewide network of green business programs. 

This session will delve into the program’s history, the vision for a collaborative statewide approach, and the benefits it offers to network members, program operators, businesses, communities, and the environment. Attendees will also discover opportunities to partner in building this impactful network, fostering sustainability and innovation across Oregon

11-12pm

Lunch

12-1pm

DEQ’s 2050 Vision: Reducing Impacts Across the Life Cycle 

We’ll hear why you’re here and what you’d like to get out of this forum. Then, we’ll set the stage for the rest of the day with a quick overview of DEQ’s 2050 Vision for Materials Management and why we’re presenting these sessions today. 

1-1:15pm

Reducing the Climate Impacts of Materials: New Research, Policies and Opportunities 

Oregon DEQ's recent studies of "consumption-based" GHG emissions contain both bad and good news for Oregonians and the climate. The bad news is that consumption-based accounting reveals that Oregonians’ global carbon footprint is both large and growing, even as tracking of the state’s official goals report the opposite. The good news is that Oregonians can influence those emissions significantly via their choice of and management of materials, and that a wealth of options exist for policymakers to reduce these emissions in ways that deliver additional societal, economic and environmental co-benefits.  

This presentation will introduce consumption based emissions in an accessible way; touch briefly on how consumption based accounting can influence personal and business choices; describe a major new study from DEQ of a range of state policies that could lower Oregon's global carbon footprint; and describe how this work – and AOR members - could inform the current statewide planning effort to develop a comprehensive climate action plan for Oregon. 

1:15 - 2:05pm

CERTA Funding in Action: Federal Support for Oregon’s Efforts to Cut GHG Emissions from High-Impact Materials 

Oregon DEQ’s Materials Management team is undertaking some innovative strategies with over $60 million in recently awarded Climate Equity and Resilience Through Action (CERTA) grant funds from US EPA. Informed by fresh findings from its recently updated “consumption based” GHG emissions inventory – rooted in a life cycle perspective – to reduce emissions.  

Learn about how DEQ’s Built Environment program, in partnership with nine local governments, is piloting a low-carbon housing program. Focusing on building reuse, space-efficient new housing, and informed selection of construction materials and products holds the potential to reduce both embodied carbon and consumption-based emissions.  

Learn about how DEQ’s Food Systems team plans to reduce the amount of food waste entering our landfills by improving the infrastructure and capacity of our organics processing facilities across the state. 

Rita Haberman, Built Environment Specialist 

Lily Herd, Organics Recovery Specialist 

Daniel Redick, Natural Resource Specialist 

2:05 - 2:50pm

Interactive Break

2:50 - 3:00pm

Oregon’s Plastic Pollution and Recycling Modernization Act: not just about recycling! 

While most AOR members are probably familiar with the many ways in which the RMA will improve recycling, the law features several elements that address broader sustainability concerns. In this presentation you’ll hear about two of them, both formalized by administrative rulemakings in November 2024. The “Waste Prevention and Reuse Fee” will fund an ambitious program to reduce environmental impacts of packaging through means other than recycling. And eco-modulation rules include some of the nation’s first standards, incentives and mandates for the evaluation and disclosure of life cycle environmental impacts, while side-stepping the more intuitively popular approach of incenting recyclable and compostable packaging. 

3:00 - 3:30pm

Cultivating A Resilient Food System: Oregon’s Initiatives in Food Waste Prevention and Organics Recovery 

Join the Oregon Food Systems Team for an engaging session to learn their initiatives in transforming the state’s food landscape. Be among the first to hear details about the launch of the new Strategic Plan, which sets a bold vision for co-creating food system resilience and sustainability. Discover highlights from their other projects like Food Waste Prevention Week, the Statewide Organics Recovery Strategy, and more! 

Lily Herd, Organics Recovery Specialist 

3:30-4:00pm

Closing Remarks & Networking Happy Hour

4:00-6:00pm