genConnect recently sat down with Jackson to talk to her about various initiatives going on at the EPA to help the environment, and to better understand what the public thinks on a number of green fronts. Watch our video interviews with her below…

Watch Jackson talk about environmental sustainability challenges facing urban communities in the U.S.:

Watch Jackson discuss the EPA’s digital initiative to understand what the environment means to the public: 

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WATCH: City Dwellers Are More Environmentally Friendly 

New York City is one urban area setting a great example for others. “Mayor Bloomberg has really taken sustainability as what is going to be the future of the city,” said Administrator Jackson. “He understands that making a city more efficient is great.”

EPA’s Energy Star program is also an easy way for consumers to buy energy-efficient appliances at low prices. For example, they recommend installing better windows in your home as one of the many ways to help. Providing incentives to migrate toward cleaner practices also is needed, Jackson said. For example, moving from polluting heating oils to cleaner oils is also better for cities, all around. “That’s going to save lives of children on the streets in New York,” Jackson said.

WATCH: We Need ‘New Ways of Thinking’ About Water Crisis

Jackson also discussed lessons learned from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, and preservation and restoration policies being put into place by the Obama administration. For example, earlier this year, President Obama signed the The RESTORE Act, which calls for 80 percent of any penalties paid by BP for the spill to go toward restoration. “Those kind of public policy changes are really important,” she said.

WATCH: 6 Words for the Planet – What Are Yours?

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Related: City Dwellers Are More Environmentally Friendly

What are Jackson’s words? Healthier families, cleaner communities, stronger America.

“I think that’s what EPA stands for,” Jackson told genConnect. “It’s also why we protect the environment. We want our families to be able to breathe clean air and drink clean water but we also know that we can’t grow, we can’t have prosperity without it.”

Related: Heidi Cullen Says Weather of Our Future ‘Puts Us in Harm’s Way’

The Six Words for the Planet initiative started as a quick way to engage digital communities and encourage people to be “thoughtful about issues that are present every day … and to distill down what the environment means to them.”

Lisa P. Jackson

Jackson has been a part of the EPA for 30 years of the organization’s 40-year history. In that time, she has seen a shift from EPA’s original responsibility to identify environmental issues to their current responsibility to find solutions.

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“We’re tackling the big challenges that our country and our world face,” Jackson said. “Protecting the environment isn’t the old days of advocating and just moving. We have to have solutions. We have to know how to give cleaner water. How do you get cleaner air and still provide energy for people? How do you have food to feed the world, a growing population, but not have to sacrifice our water quality? Those are the challenges of today.”

WATCH: How to Feed the Planet

Now it’s your turn. What are your six words for the planet? Write your six-word essay and share it here. For more, visit epa.gov.

genConnect was credentialed press at the 2012 Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colo., where we interviewed the premier speakers and attendees at the conference. For more of our video interviews and articles from the Ideas Festival, click here.

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