Amy Aussieker
As Executive Director for Envision Charlotte, Amy Aussieker is responsible for developing strategic plans for community outreach, fundraising, vendor and partner relationships. Since she joined the team in July 2013, Amy has used her two decades of expertise in strategic planning, relationship management, marketing and creative problem solving to help Envision Charlotte become a global model of urban sustainability.
Over the last few years, Envision Charlotte has brought together Charlotte’s utilities, the City, County, large companies and universities to build a network of projects that tie all of these groups together to use technology to find efficiencies bringing the cost to do business in Charlotte down and creating a more sustainable urban core. Envision Charlotte has brought in leading companies in the Smart Cities space to use Charlotte as a living lab to test new technologies and programs for their success before launching them into the commercial space. This has allowed Charlotte to become one of the smartest cities in the country.
Amy’s background is a blend of corporate, non-profit and entrepreneur expertise. Before joining Envision Charlotte, Amy served as a strategic consultant for businesses and Chambers of Commerce in marketing, fundraising, social media and public relations. She spent several years as Group Vice President for Sales and Marketing for the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, where she was responsible for leadership, fundraising and community relations. She also served as a business development and community affairs executive with Balfour Beatty Construction, and she founded, operated and recently sold a successful retail business.
167: Amy Aussieker, part 1: Can we transform an American City?
Business, based on growth, loves the ideas of a circular economy and recycling because both promote more — more consumption, more material stuff, more growth — but may keep us on track to unsustainability, global warming, plastic, etc.
I’m a big fan of increasing efficiency, but recognize that it is not the same as decreasing total waste. You can make a system more efficient while increasing total waste.
The city of Charlotte contacted me about their Envision Charlotte program, which is one of the larger and more public American environmental initiatives.
I told them I’m cautiously optimistic and can’t tell if what they’re doing in the long run will decrease total waste. I’m not saying it won’t but since few people get the difference between efficiency and total waste, few people are working on reducing total waste. I can’t tell their focus from the outside.
They put me in touch with Amy Aussieker, their Executive Director, and we had a fantastic first conversation where I said the above and she was game for recording a conversation here. I admire her putting herself out there publicly.
You’ll hear my first time challenging someone on these issues. I’m not sure where it will go, but I appreciate her openness and thoughtfulness. I hope I balanced my competing interests for the listener.
Read the transcript.