Doing Your Part

By: Jon Dougal

One of my pet peeves has been how many organizations for environmental causes exist and continue to be created. How many “Save the insert name River” do we need and why can’t all those save the Lake or river or coast line converge, combine, cooperate and save the river(s)?

After chastising myself for thinking critically of all those do-good organizations I came up with “It’s the Locale Stupid”. An offshoot of “think globally act locally”. It’s there river, it’s their city, it’s their pollution problems.

So some thinking people take the helm and start something to give their constituency a hand in their own future – mostly through education.

Here is a case worth studying if you’ve a mind to help the planet for the better, by starting your own group.

The Environmental Marketing Association of Arizona (EMAA) is a new, non-profit, business organization, established in Tucson to promote marketing of environmental services and goods, and related architectural, design, engineering, construction, and consulting activities. Arizona has several advertising, marketing, technical, and trade organizations, as well as green proponent organizations.

However, EMAA founders identified a gap in environmental marketing. Barney P. Popkin and several others established EMAA in mid-November 2009 to fill this gap. Mr. Popkin is a former USAID Foreign Service Officer/ Environmental Protection Specialist, USGS Hydrologist, University of Arizona Hydrology and Environmental Engineering alum, and current UA Affiliate/ Visiting Scientist. Other founding members consist of a hydrologist-mining specialist, an owner of an environmental engineering firm specializing in surveying and mapping, a trade legal specialist, a solar and desalination designer/ inventor, and an environmental field supervisor/ instructor.

EMAA has approximately 50 members on its LinkedIn group from Tucson, Phoenix, San Francisco, Boston, and as far away as Dubai and Saudi Arabia. EMAA members consist of individuals and representatives of small to medium businesses and marketing and sales people in energy management, engineering, environmental assessment and mitigation and permitting, landscape architecture, solid and hazardous waste management, water supply development, water and wastewater treatment, wind and solar energy manufacturers, and related areas.

EMAA plans to liaise with several of the existing business organizations in Arizona and beyond to round out the identified environmental marketing gap and help support the existing organizational structures.

Their contact information is through info.emaa@yahoo.com and their LinkedIn group.