Tennessee Environmental Council
Programs
Budget
$0.00
Description
Since TEC is a small nonprofit with limited resources, we only have the capacity to do so much with our current staff. We created the Tennessee Environmental Ambassadors (TEA) Program to amplify the impact of our work by engaging dedicated participants who have this same vision and want to go above and beyond basic TEC program participation.
Ambassadors will help increase TEC's capacity to affect change by manifesting eco-consciousness in their communities. They will do this by building relationships with their communities and elected officials, initiating civic engagement actions (ACE), helping to build district-level policy change, teaching their neighbors to value our shared environment, and engaging others in activities that improve our environment. They are also a point of contact within the TEC network for their local communities.
Beneficiaries
General Public
Long-term Success
The Tennessee Environmental Ambassadors program originated in 2022 is still under development. We hope to build the program with volunteers while we expand the program and build a budget for it.
Program Areas Served
Statewide Environmental Engagement
$0.00
Description
Since TEC is a small nonprofit with limited resources, we only have the capacity to do so much with our current staff. We created the Tennessee Environmental Ambassadors (TEA) Program to amplify the impact of our work by engaging dedicated participants who have this same vision and want to go above and beyond basic TEC program participation.
Ambassadors will help increase TEC's capacity to affect change by manifesting eco-consciousness in their communities. They will do this by building relationships with their communities and elected officials, initiating civic engagement actions (ACE), helping to build district-level policy change, teaching their neighbors to value our shared environment, and engaging others in activities that improve our environment. They are also a point of contact within the TEC network for their local communities.
Beneficiaries
General Public
Long-term Success
The Tennessee Environmental Ambassadors program originated in 2022 is still under development. We hope to build the program with volunteers while we expand the program and build a budget for it.
Program Areas Served
Statewide Environmental Engagement
Budget
$100,000.00
Description
Recycling Roundups are a series of ten events organized and hosted by Tennessee Environmental Council (TEC) where local residents may drop off certain household items to be recycled, free of charge.
TEC is providing this service as a way to help improve Tennessee's environment and communities, reduce litter/ illegal dumping, reduce our reliance on landfills, support Tennessee's recycling economy, and provide an important service to Tennessee households. This project is made possible by an environmental justice grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
These community events are taking place fall 2022 through the end of 2023.
Beneficiaries
General Public
Long-term Success
Check out our website for specifics on how much recycling material was collected at specific recycling roundup events: https://www.tectn.org/recyclingroundup.html.
This short video provides a glimpse into how a recycling roundup works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD-_1XhMKpE
Program Areas Served
10 underserved locations across Tennessee
$100,000.00
Description
Recycling Roundups are a series of ten events organized and hosted by Tennessee Environmental Council (TEC) where local residents may drop off certain household items to be recycled, free of charge.
TEC is providing this service as a way to help improve Tennessee's environment and communities, reduce litter/ illegal dumping, reduce our reliance on landfills, support Tennessee's recycling economy, and provide an important service to Tennessee households. This project is made possible by an environmental justice grant from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
These community events are taking place fall 2022 through the end of 2023.
Beneficiaries
General Public
Long-term Success
Check out our website for specifics on how much recycling material was collected at specific recycling roundup events: https://www.tectn.org/recyclingroundup.html.
This short video provides a glimpse into how a recycling roundup works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD-_1XhMKpE
Program Areas Served
10 underserved locations across Tennessee
Budget
$50,000.00
Description
In recent years, public awareness about the decline in pollinators and their habitats has been widespread. Our Tennessee Pollinator Initiative increases both habitat and forage for indigenous pollinators by finding landowners willing to convert a portion of their properties into pollinator gardens. The vast majority of Tennessee is privately-owned land, presenting an enormous opportunity to engage landowners in converting mowed lawns into native pollinator habitat and helping to preserve North America's nearly 4,000 species of native bees and other pollinators, including hummingbirds and butterflies.
Program Successes
Generate Some Buzz has engaged more than 500 participants in planting over 55,000 square feet of pollinator habitat (i.e. flower gardens that support butterflies, bees and other pollinator species) since 2019.
Beneficiaries
General Public
Long-term Success
Through this initiative, TEC is transforming modern lawns into pollinator and wildlife habitats, educating Tennesseeans about the importance of sustainable yard maintenance and nurturing a community of actively engaged citizens working together to protect the nearly 4,000 native bee species that have been in decline in recent decades.
Short-term Success
Since it began, the Pollinator Project has demonstrated remarkable results statewide in engaging individuals and communities in activities that tangibly improve our environment.
Program Success Monitored By
Outcomes for all TEC programs are measured through registration software, photo-documentation, social media posts by participants, mapping of participant locations, and follow up surveys with all participants.
Program Areas Served
Statewide
$50,000.00
Description
In recent years, public awareness about the decline in pollinators and their habitats has been widespread. Our Tennessee Pollinator Initiative increases both habitat and forage for indigenous pollinators by finding landowners willing to convert a portion of their properties into pollinator gardens. The vast majority of Tennessee is privately-owned land, presenting an enormous opportunity to engage landowners in converting mowed lawns into native pollinator habitat and helping to preserve North America's nearly 4,000 species of native bees and other pollinators, including hummingbirds and butterflies.
Program Successes
Generate Some Buzz has engaged more than 500 participants in planting over 55,000 square feet of pollinator habitat (i.e. flower gardens that support butterflies, bees and other pollinator species) since 2019.
Beneficiaries
General Public
Long-term Success
Through this initiative, TEC is transforming modern lawns into pollinator and wildlife habitats, educating Tennesseeans about the importance of sustainable yard maintenance and nurturing a community of actively engaged citizens working together to protect the nearly 4,000 native bee species that have been in decline in recent decades.
Short-term Success
Since it began, the Pollinator Project has demonstrated remarkable results statewide in engaging individuals and communities in activities that tangibly improve our environment.
Program Success Monitored By
Outcomes for all TEC programs are measured through registration software, photo-documentation, social media posts by participants, mapping of participant locations, and follow up surveys with all participants.
Program Areas Served
Statewide
Budget
$108,000.00
Description
Come, Post Your Compost engages individuals and communities in backyard composting to divert food scraps from Tennessee landfills and restore TN topsoil.
This program is ongoing year-round, with seasonal promotional campaigns, to engage participants through diverse outreach strategies (social media, local partnerships, news media, word of mouth), recruit and train local compost advocates, establish new partnerships with elected officials and other stakeholder groups to deepen involvement in local communities, and to track and report compost totals monthly.
Program Successes
From our Compost Program, TEC calculates that 85 tons of food waste from individuals (plus another 853 tons from partner organizations) was diverted from landfills and turned into compost, thereby keeping the food waste out of the landfill and regenerating topsoil across the state. By diverting food waste and using it to create compost, the Compost Program helps the climate by increasing carbon sequestration through healthy soils as well as reducing methane from landfill gas. Topsoil has recently garnered attention from the global community for its particular ability to trap carbon and retain it within the soil structure, and compost specifically helps improve this function. By increasing the total number of Tennesseans who compost their food waste, TEC is providing a tangible environmental benefit to the State of Tennessee.
Beneficiaries
General Public
Long-term Success
Since the beginning of Come, Post Your Compost, Tennessee residents have composted more than 85 tons of food waste and helped to alleviate our reliance on land fills. The broader outcome of this program is greater public adoption of key sustainability practices and their associated ecological benefits, resulting in improved health of our environment and communities, and an expanded culture of sustainability in the region.
Short-term Success
The program's original goal was to engage at least 1,000 participants in composting at least 60 tons of food scraps to keep them out of landfills. We easily exceeded our goal by engaging over 1,200 participants and diverting more than 85 tons of food scraps (this does NOT include our partners like the The Compost Company who specifically work in this field).
Program Success Monitored By
The Come, Post Your Compost program is measured through registration software, photo-documentation, social media posts by participants, mapping of participant locations, and follow up surveys with all participants. Compost participants, once engaged, receive monthly reports on their individual and cumulative compost totals, for as long as they remain in the program.
Program Areas Served
Statewide
$108,000.00
Description
Come, Post Your Compost engages individuals and communities in backyard composting to divert food scraps from Tennessee landfills and restore TN topsoil.
This program is ongoing year-round, with seasonal promotional campaigns, to engage participants through diverse outreach strategies (social media, local partnerships, news media, word of mouth), recruit and train local compost advocates, establish new partnerships with elected officials and other stakeholder groups to deepen involvement in local communities, and to track and report compost totals monthly.
Program Successes
From our Compost Program, TEC calculates that 85 tons of food waste from individuals (plus another 853 tons from partner organizations) was diverted from landfills and turned into compost, thereby keeping the food waste out of the landfill and regenerating topsoil across the state. By diverting food waste and using it to create compost, the Compost Program helps the climate by increasing carbon sequestration through healthy soils as well as reducing methane from landfill gas. Topsoil has recently garnered attention from the global community for its particular ability to trap carbon and retain it within the soil structure, and compost specifically helps improve this function. By increasing the total number of Tennesseans who compost their food waste, TEC is providing a tangible environmental benefit to the State of Tennessee.
Beneficiaries
General Public
Long-term Success
Since the beginning of Come, Post Your Compost, Tennessee residents have composted more than 85 tons of food waste and helped to alleviate our reliance on land fills. The broader outcome of this program is greater public adoption of key sustainability practices and their associated ecological benefits, resulting in improved health of our environment and communities, and an expanded culture of sustainability in the region.
Short-term Success
The program's original goal was to engage at least 1,000 participants in composting at least 60 tons of food scraps to keep them out of landfills. We easily exceeded our goal by engaging over 1,200 participants and diverting more than 85 tons of food scraps (this does NOT include our partners like the The Compost Company who specifically work in this field).
Program Success Monitored By
The Come, Post Your Compost program is measured through registration software, photo-documentation, social media posts by participants, mapping of participant locations, and follow up surveys with all participants. Compost participants, once engaged, receive monthly reports on their individual and cumulative compost totals, for as long as they remain in the program.
Program Areas Served
Statewide
Budget
$100,000.00
Description
Working with local communities to restore 20,000 miles of polluted streams in Tennessee through education, advocacy and hands-on restoration projects/services.
Beneficiaries
General Public
Program Areas Served
Statewide
$100,000.00
Description
Working with local communities to restore 20,000 miles of polluted streams in Tennessee through education, advocacy and hands-on restoration projects/services.
Beneficiaries
General Public
Program Areas Served
Statewide
Budget
$0.00
Description
Sustainable Tennessee aims to keep Tennessee at the forefront of environmental and economic sustainability.
We meet once a year in August with local sustainability leaders during "Policy and Practice Forum" - a workshop setting in which we identify best policies and practices to advance sustainability in seven categories: Energy, Air, Land, Water, Solid Waste, Public Health and Food Systems. The result of this meeting is a document called "The Agenda and Priorities for a Sustainable Tennessee" that includes the key recommendations from each topic working group. This is published on our website, shared via social media, and available as a hard-copy for elected officials and for other stakeholders in Tennessee.
Currently, we have two projects that fall under the Sustainable Tennessee program. They are Come, Post Your Compost and Recycling and Education Outreach.
Beneficiaries
General Public
Program Areas Served
Statewide
$0.00
Description
Sustainable Tennessee aims to keep Tennessee at the forefront of environmental and economic sustainability.
We meet once a year in August with local sustainability leaders during "Policy and Practice Forum" - a workshop setting in which we identify best policies and practices to advance sustainability in seven categories: Energy, Air, Land, Water, Solid Waste, Public Health and Food Systems. The result of this meeting is a document called "The Agenda and Priorities for a Sustainable Tennessee" that includes the key recommendations from each topic working group. This is published on our website, shared via social media, and available as a hard-copy for elected officials and for other stakeholders in Tennessee.
Currently, we have two projects that fall under the Sustainable Tennessee program. They are Come, Post Your Compost and Recycling and Education Outreach.
Beneficiaries
General Public
Program Areas Served
Statewide
Budget
$150,000.00
Description
Tree Day engages thousands of Tennesseans in a fun, meaningful, family friendly, educational experience with multigenerational benefits to our environment, communities and health. TEC's Tree Day program helps to instill public awareness of the value of trees, improve the health of our environment and communities through the multitude of benefits trees offer, and to nurture a culture of sustainability in our region. Trees provide thousands of dollars of benefits each year including oxygen, reducing air pollution, improving water drainage, increasing property values, and improving human health. Tree Day actively encourages TN residents (and residents of surrounding states) to plant native trees now so that we can all reap the benefits later.
Program Successes
From TN Tree Day 2021, the benefit of planting 62,860 trees that survive 25 years will result in 408,590,000 lbs of oxygen produced, 75,432,000 lbs of carbon absorbed (and stored), 25,144,000 square feet of canopy created, and a whopping 15,715,000,000 gallons of rain water absorbed. These trees will help to alleviate potential flood events and to preserve the temperate forest climate of the southeastern US by combatting the heat island effect, trapping rain water and providing long-term storage of atmospheric carbon.
Category
Environment - Climate Change
Beneficiaries
General Public
Long-term Success
Our long term goal is to plant and care for one million native trees by 2025 and to engage 500,000 Tennesseans in the process. We are achieving this by partnering with businesses, churches, schools and other organizations to host tree events in the community. With the help of volunteers across the state we have already planted 739,000 trees (more than 4,000 acres of tree canopy) in Tennessee and some of the surrounding states, putting our goal within realistic reach in the next few years.
Short-term Success
Tennessee Tree Day 2021 was a great success, resulting in 62,860 trees planted with the help of 14,700 volunteers across the state. Trees were planted in all 95 TN counties and in nine additional states (AL, GA, IL, IN, KY, MS, NC, SD, and VA) as well.
Program Success Monitored By
Outcomes for all TEC programs are measured through registration software, photo-documentation, social media posts by participants, mapping of participant locations, and follow up surveys with all participants. Tree Day tree totals are reported in the month following the event to all participants and partners.
Program Areas Served
Statewide
$150,000.00
Description
Tree Day engages thousands of Tennesseans in a fun, meaningful, family friendly, educational experience with multigenerational benefits to our environment, communities and health. TEC's Tree Day program helps to instill public awareness of the value of trees, improve the health of our environment and communities through the multitude of benefits trees offer, and to nurture a culture of sustainability in our region. Trees provide thousands of dollars of benefits each year including oxygen, reducing air pollution, improving water drainage, increasing property values, and improving human health. Tree Day actively encourages TN residents (and residents of surrounding states) to plant native trees now so that we can all reap the benefits later.
Program Successes
From TN Tree Day 2021, the benefit of planting 62,860 trees that survive 25 years will result in 408,590,000 lbs of oxygen produced, 75,432,000 lbs of carbon absorbed (and stored), 25,144,000 square feet of canopy created, and a whopping 15,715,000,000 gallons of rain water absorbed. These trees will help to alleviate potential flood events and to preserve the temperate forest climate of the southeastern US by combatting the heat island effect, trapping rain water and providing long-term storage of atmospheric carbon.
Category
Environment - Climate Change
Beneficiaries
General Public
Long-term Success
Our long term goal is to plant and care for one million native trees by 2025 and to engage 500,000 Tennesseans in the process. We are achieving this by partnering with businesses, churches, schools and other organizations to host tree events in the community. With the help of volunteers across the state we have already planted 739,000 trees (more than 4,000 acres of tree canopy) in Tennessee and some of the surrounding states, putting our goal within realistic reach in the next few years.
Short-term Success
Tennessee Tree Day 2021 was a great success, resulting in 62,860 trees planted with the help of 14,700 volunteers across the state. Trees were planted in all 95 TN counties and in nine additional states (AL, GA, IL, IN, KY, MS, NC, SD, and VA) as well.
Program Success Monitored By
Outcomes for all TEC programs are measured through registration software, photo-documentation, social media posts by participants, mapping of participant locations, and follow up surveys with all participants. Tree Day tree totals are reported in the month following the event to all participants and partners.
Program Areas Served
Statewide
