Developing the Basis for Creating Environmental Networking Organizations in Downstate Illinois

Through their work with Illinois industry, the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) prevents pollution from entering the environment while assisting companies to maintain economic viability. A majority of their work has been with companies in the northern and central parts of the state. ISTC would like to increase their visibility and use of their technical assistance services by industry in the St. Louis Metro-East. This project was initiated to develop the concept of and a model for an environmental networking organization (ENO) that ISTC could use to achieve this goal. Four models were evaluated to determine their potential to increase the visibility and use of ISTC’s services by industry in the Metro-East – a new traditional environmental networking organization (ENO), a new web-based ENO, a partnership-based ENO, and an outsourced ENO. It was found that a partnership-based ENO offers the most feasible option at this time. The benefits for ISTC include access to partner organizations’ membership and wider exposure. However, these efforts will need to be sustained to show results through increased use of ISTC’s services. ISTC’s focus should be on providing speakers for partner organizations’ regular meetings, rather than holding separate events. ISTC should develop a list of potential speakers and topics and provide it to the local organizations, in particular the Gateway Society of Hazardous Materials Managers and the Air and Waste Association – Greater St. Louis Section. The key is to offer a variety of relevant topics, both broad and focused, with engaging, informative speakers that will provide a positive impression of ISTC, even if the speaker is not from ISTC.