The forum will examine the environmental impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic that resulted from the drastic changes we have had to make in response to this global health crisis.

Many of these changes, such as reduced commuting, have noticeably benefited the environment. However, to what degree are these changes sustainable as we transition to the “new normal?” How can social marketing approaches help maintain and foster the pro-environmental behaviors we have been seeing more of lately? Speakers working on the environmental issues of climate change, water quality, and transportation will join us for a virtual panel discussion to share their insights, followed by a question and answer session.

Our Speakers

Dave Ward manages long-range planning and environmental programs for Kitsap County. Before that, he directed social strategies for the Puget Sound Partnership, a National Estuary Program focused on Puget Sound ecosystem recovery. He is a founding board member of the Pacific Northwest and North American Social Marketing Associations and serves on the editorial board of the Social Marketing Quarterly. His approach over the past twenty years emphasizes goal-oriented communications; developing networks of people to collectively solve complex problems; building capacity and critical thinking within organizations to produce goal-driven change; and bringing the best available social science to address human and environmental well-being.

 Contact: Dave Ward, Planning and Environmental Programs Division, Kitsap County Department of Community Development, 360-620-3695, dward@co.kitsap.wa.us

Julie Colehour, Partner

Julie Colehour has helped hundreds of organizations with planning and implementing social marketing campaigns. She has also conducted social marketing trainings sessions with many organizations, including EPA, NOAA, Waste Management, Puget Sound Energy and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). In 2010, Julie co-led a six part series of webinars for the Consortium for Energy Efficiency on how to plan social marketing campaigns. Julie has helped EPA’s WaterSense program, the DOE’s Better Buildings Program and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife to create social marketing planning workbooks that are being used by partners and stakeholders to plan and implement social marketing campaigns for these programs. She led the charge in 2014 on the planning and implementation of two social marketing pilot programs for ENERGY STAR focusing on LED recessed can lighting. The results of these two pilots were presented at BECC and published in the Social Marketing Quarterly in 2015. Her strength lies in taking social marketing theory and turning it into practice in a way that spurs real, measurable behavior change for her clients.

Jim Bennett is Supervisor of Marketing and Service Information at King County Metro.  He returned to Metro a year ago after a 28-year hiatus, where he originally helped coordinate communications and public engagement for Metro’s downtown Seattle bus tunnel project.  In the interim, he did consulting work for Sound Transit, helped launch Seattle’s first carsharing program, and coordinated numerous waste reduction and environmental programs, including electronic waste recycling via King County’s Take it Back Network.  Most recently, he spent over a decade as Woodland Park Zoo’s Director of Marketing and Corporate Relations.