At home, the intersection of nature and culture is at the core of ECCo’s role in the regional planning initiative known as the Green Infrastructure Vision. This vision shows how healthy quality of life and economic growth in the Chicago region depends on sustaining and even enhancing the precious fragments of biodiversity that still help provide us with clean air and drinking water.
A crucial ingredient of this vision is understanding, respecting, and incorporating the cultural richness residing among the nine million people of Chicagoland. Our 2008 initiative New Allies for Nature and Culture brought together hundreds of leaders of local community and environmental groups, resulting in strong, new partnerships for change. Through our nationally coordinated Leave No Child Inside network, several of these new alliances are working to recreate the bond between children and nature that has atrophied with urbanization. Others are participating in developing an action plan to address climate change. ECCo builds the capacity of groups to understand the value of both cultural and biological diversity and to contribute to sustainability initiatives in the interest of both. The power of diverse voices will help turn the Green Infrastructure Vision into reality.
We thank you for your interest and support. And we thank James Costello for donating his services to create our 2008 annual report
| John W. McCarter, Jr. President and CEO | Debra K. Moskovits Senior Vice President, ECCo |