A group of organizations are partnering to create a conference that provides you with something more than just a superb learning and networking experience:

Toyota
As the world's second largest automaker, Toyota operates under a global Earth Charter that promotes environmental responsibility throughout the entire company, and recognizes the need for comprehensive approaches to the effective use of resources and to the reduction of pollution and global warming.

For more than a decade, Toyota has pursued development of an "ultimate eco-car" that satisfies the needs of a mobile society and is friendly to both people and the earth. Toyota is the recognized leader in hybrid technology, having pioneered the world's first mass-produced gas/electric hybrid car, the Prius, which launched in Japan in 1997 a full two years before any other manufacturer.

While hybrids remain at the forefront of Toyota's "ultimate eco-car" development, the company is researching and developing many alternative fuel and vehicle powertrains, such as fuel cell hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Beyond the vehicles themselves, Toyota's environmental commitment extends to every stage of producing and selling vehicles. For example, many of Toyota's manufacturing plants have achieved zero landfill, their Sales & Marketing headquarters campus in California has one of the largest commercial Gold LEED certified buildings, and their Vehicle Distribution Center in Oregon is not only Gold LEED certified, but has also received a "Salmon Safe" certification.

For more information: www.toyota.com

UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design
The College of Environmental Design is the first in the USA to bring together the departments of Architecture, City and Regional Planning, and Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, creating a collaborative and dynamic community of students, scholars, creative designers, and planners concerned with the built environment, in all its complexity. Through instruction, cutting-edge research programs, and in their award-winning design practices, the people of this college work in the forefront of the effort to build more aesthetically, more appropriately, and in ways that ethically balance the multiplicity of human, social, and ecological needs.

For more information: www.ced.berkeley.edu/

LandDesign
LandDesign consistently provides a broad range of public and private sector clients with creative project solutions delivered by experienced professionals skilled in urban design, land planning, civil engineering, landscape architecture, branding and surveying. The firm's 275-member team is meeting ever-increasing demands and challenges on a regional, national and international basis from six offices in the United States and one in Beijing. LandDesign's offices work within a culture of collaboration to provide clients with fully integrated solutions that deliver innovative, sustainable and environmentally responsible projects worldwide.

While utilizing the latest technologies and best practices, the team at LandDesign takes a "hands-on" approach to every project, with services typically extending from concept through construction. The firm frequently is retained to coordinate design and planning, thus ensuring quality, continuity and scheduling. As a result, LandDesign maintains long-term working relationships with numerous clients that rely on the firm for creative, cost-conscious and proven solutions.

For more information: www.landdesign.com

Urban Age Institute
The Urban Age is a small non-profit with a special focus on linking urban leaders and innovators with each other and with smart businesses, concerned foundations, effective national government agencies, and multilateral institutions. Organizing and managing this conference is one of several activities in which Urban Age is currently engaged. 'Urban Age Magazine' was founded inside the World Bank in 1992, and became an independent non-profit organization 2000. Some of Urban Age's pioneering research was sponsored by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

For more information: www.urbanage.org

METROPOLIS
METROPOLIS has covered the designed environment for over 25 years. Each issue addresses every area of design-architecture, interior design, planning, landscape architecture, technology, industrial design, wayfinding and graphic design-illuminating the process that creates great design and projects. To METROPOLIS, design is a collaborative effort. METROPOLIS' approach sorts out the significant from the insignificant for its busy audience in accessible prose. And METROPOLIS' influence isn't limited to print--at www.metropolismag.com editorial content serves as a separate voice as well as an extension of METROPOLIS magazine. This website has become one of the most valued and talked about design sites in the world, with specially commissioned articles that cover the same broad range of topics as the magazine.

American Planning Association

APA is a nonprofit public interest, advocacy, and research organization with more than 41,000 practicing planners, public officials, and engaged citizens. APA and its professional institute, the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP), are committed to urban, suburban, regional, and rural planning and the advancement of the art and science of planning to meet the needs of people and society globally. APA promotes the virtues of planning for a better future and advocates public policies at local, state, national, and international levels. APA provides leadership in the development of vital communities by advocating excellence in community planning, promoting education and citizen empowerment, and providing the tools and support necessary to effect positive change.

For more information: www.planning.org

EMBARQ

In 2002 EMBARQ, the World Resources Center for Sustainable Transport was established with a grant from the Shell Foundation in order to find solutions to the problem of congestion and air pollution plaguing cities in the developing world. By bringing together policy makers, civil-society groups, city leaders and other stakeholders, and advising and assisting them to develop solutions to transport problems, EMBARQ acts as a catalyst for creating clean and livable cities. EMBARQ's team of environmental scientists and transport engineers has the experience and expertise to reduce the risk, time, and complexity required to diagnose transport problems, and design and implement appropriate solutions.

EMBARQ has worked with more than a dozen major cities around the world including Istanbul (Turkey), Porto Alegre (Brasil), Bogotá (Colombia), León (Mexico), Shanghai and X'ian (China), Hanoi (Vietnam) and Pune (India). In early 2002 EMBARQ began working with Mexico City to identify, test and then implement sustainable solutions to the city’s transport problems. Metrobús, the resulting Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, opened in mid-2005. Metrobús is a bus corridor 20 kilometers long and serviced by 97 articulated buses that, just a few months in to its second year of operation, carried its 100 millionth passenger.
In 2006, Caterpillar Foundation joined Shell Foundation as one of EMBARQ's Global Strategic Partners.

For more information: www.embarq.wri.org

UC Berkeley Global Metropolitan Studies

For more information: http://metrostudies.berkeley.edu/

The University of California Transportation Center

For more information: www.uctc.net

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