Green Drinks is an international program for people from NGOs, academia, government and business. "These events are very simple and unstructured, but many people have found employment, made friends, developed new ideas, done deals and had moments of serendipity. It's a force for the good and we'd like to help it spread to other cities."

There are now almost 200 cities with Green Drinks programs available (and San Francisco and Seattle each have two). You can check the organization's website and see if there is one near you, or find out about starting a group in your area.

The o2 network is an "international network for sustainable design." While not as socially oriented as Green Drinks, it also seeks to bring together green designers and other green-oriented people to share ideas.

Both organizations are very loosely structured. There is no set agenda or formalized program for Green Drinks. It is a very local, ad-hoc kind of get together, so programs will vary widely, both from chapter to chapter, as well as from one meeting to another in the same chapter.

My own local Green Drinks group (which meets on the third Wednesday of the month) combines both Green Drinks and o2 meetings.