General public awareness of sustainability and its related issues has risen considerably in recent years. Despite this trend, real changes have been slow to come. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, over 60% of the American electorate believe that the environment should be an important legislative issue. Unfortunately, this broad-based verbal support does not always translate into action. Despite more than a quarter-century of Earth Days, the rise of Green activism, and the growth of environmental school curricula, the general public is lazy when it comes to pursuing the alternatives needed to secure our planet’s future. The Global Citizen Center believes that four primary factors impede our progress toward a more sustainable and just future.

The primary objective of the Global Citizen Center is to facilitate strategic, cross-sector, regional collaboration among the individuals and organizations addressing sustainability and social justice. The Center will achieve this objective through various programmatic initiatives and by developing a mixed-use facility that will house and support the work of a mission-aligned mix of tenants. The Center’s commitment to collaboration will be a guiding consideration in designing its programs and facilities.

The Green Economy is an emerging marketplace that seeks to optimize the synergy among three sets of values: social, environmental and financial. This is most commonly referred to as the "triple bottom line."