The Foreign Service Journal, April 2014

24 APRIL 2014 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL FOCUS GREENING EMBASSIES State’s homegrown Greening Diplomacy Initiative relies on seeding, harvesting, sifting, implementing and sharing employees’ innovations and ideas, large and small. THE GREENING DIPLOMACY INITIATIVE Capturing Innovation T here is an art to innovation. Sometimes, as at the American embassy in Kam- pala, that innovation results literally in art—such as the beautiful beads and handicrafts that local artisans create from the embassy’s recycled paper and glass. Sometimes it yields creative solu- tions, like the tubes that illuminate the State Department’s LEED Gold-certified Human Resources Center in Charleston, S.C., with concentrated sunlight. At other times, creative innovation can transform the port- folio of energy sources for a locality, such as when the State Department worked with private-sector partners to build new wind and solar farms to generate nearly half the power needed for its facilities in Maryland and the District of Columbia. Such innovations, both large and small, are driving the green- ing of the State Department. Caroline D’Angelo, an eco-management analyst in management policy rightsizing and innovation, works in the Greening Diplomacy Initia- tive’s executive secretariat. She previously worked for the Wharton School’s Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Please follow GDI on Twitter and Facebook @StateGDI, and send questions to sustainability@state.gov . Electric cars and bicycles are parked outside Embassy Bern. BY CAROL I NE D ’ANGE LO League of Green Embassies