2012 Sustainable Cities | Corporate Knights

Which municipalities are making the greatest sustainability effort?

Kent E. Portney — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 03:00:43 +0000

In discussions about climate change and our deteriorating environment, it’s often said that cities – not international organizations, nations or states – are best positioned to put us on a more sustainable path. Indeed, American cities have already laid the groundwork for the pathway to a national green economy.

Cities are crucial to the challenges we face. Ecological and sustainable cities are places where local leaders, public officials and residents recognize the growing need to protect and improve the quality of the biophysical environment and are willing to act. Cities are increasingly looking for new ways of doing business that place city government squarely in the middle of proactive efforts to promote, guide and manage growth in order to carefully improve energy efficiency, the environment and the long-term quality of life for residents. In many cities, the idea that any development is good development is rapidly being replaced by the idea that development must respect and, when possible, benefit the environment.

It hasn’t been easy for them. Practically every city in the United States faces serious social and economic problems, including loss of population and associated loss of tax revenues, the loss of manufacturing jobs and industries, increasing demands to provide services for diverse groups of people, and meeting new demands for first responses in homeland security. Cities that want to build their own local green economies, even where they promise to save money over the long term, find that in the current economic environment they cannot free up the resources to make even the most modest investments in green infrastructure.

Still, many are stepping up. The 2012 Green Cities ranking shows that compared to 2011, several cities continue to make solid progress toward becoming more sustainable.

The annual ranking, first published in 2010, is based on the number of municipal policies and programs adopted and implemented by cities as they work toward saving energy, protecting and improving their biophysical environments, promoting green economic development, and enhancing their overall quality of life. Unlike other city-sustainability rankings, this ranking focuses on the effort cities are making rather than on their results, which could take years to achieve. In other words, this ranking is aspirational in nature. When cities adopt and implement new policies and programs that are designed to achieve greater sustainability, they are making an effort to take sustainability seriously.

Cities typically do not make huge programmatic changes from one year to the next, and this is especially true when their budgets are strained by declining revenue growth. Yet when we compare this year’s rankings to those of last year, some cities stand out as making impressive progress. A number of cities fell slightly, but only because other cities moved ahead of them. In terms of the actual numbers of programs, the vast majority of cities remained the same.

The cities that have exhibited the most change are those that fell in the middle of the 2011 rankings or below. Three Texas cities are featured among the seven that have improved the most. Fort Worth, Dallas and El Paso have all continued to make strides, with Fort Worth now having caught up to its neighbor, Dallas, in terms of the number of programs it has adopted. By implementing five new programs, including the creation of its impressive multi-agency Sustainability Task Force, and developing programs to make city operations more sustainable, Fort Worth is now ranked 17th, moving up from its previous position of 33. With ambitious new efforts on green building, energy efficiency, alternatively fueled city vehicle fleet, a bicycle ridership program, and rainwater harvesting and wastewater reuse, Fort Worth now seems to have caught up to other Texas cities in terms of how seriously it takes sustainability.

Charlotte, N.C., is also on the list of changers. Charlotte has made so much progress that it’s on the verge of joining some of the most impressive city sustainability efforts in the U.S. With new energy efficiency grant and training programs, the issuance of its most recent Environmental Review Manual 2010-2015, and the creation of a new “pedestrian overlay zoning district” to promote pedestrian-friendly building, design and development, Charlotte now has some 32 programs and policies promoting sustainability. With a new initiative to fulfil the next phase of its Centers, Corridors and Wedges Growth Framework zoning revisions, which is about to get under way and is not reflected in the 2012 rankings, Charlotte is poised to make even greater progress in the years to come.

Oklahoma City’s ranking fell to 50 from 48 even though the number of its sustainability-related programs remained the same at 18. Recent events there suggest that the city’s number of programs might decline as well. Oklahoma City has experienced some organized political “pushback” on its sustainability initiatives, and the city has elected not to renew its membership in one of the leading international organizations providing technical assistance, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. This may well affect the city’s climate mitigation and other efforts in the future.

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2012 Sustainable Cities results

CK Staff — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 02:59:25 +0000

Rank	City	Score
1	Portland, OR	35
1	San Francisco, CA	35
1	Seattle, WA	35
4	Denver, CO	33
5	Albuquerque, NM	32
5	Charlotte, NC	32
5	Oakland, CA	32
8	Chicago, IL	31
8	Columbus, OH	31
8	Minneapolis, MN	31
8	Philadelphia, PA	31
8	Pheonix, AZ	31
8	Sacramento, CA	31
14	New York City, NY	30
14	San Diego, CA	30
14	San Jose, CA	30
17	Austin, TX	29
17	Dallas, TX	29
17	Fort Worth, TX	29
17	Nashville-Davidson, NC	29
17	Tuscon, AZ	29
17	Washington, DC	29
23	Boston, MA	28
23	Los Angeles, CA	28
23	Kansas City, MO	28
26	Indianapolis, IN	27
27	Fresno, CA	26
27	Miami, FL	26
27	Las Vegas, NV	26
27	Louisville Metro, KY	26

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Houston Mayor Annise Parker helps green up Texas image

Tyler Hamilton — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 10:00:04 +0000

Cowboy-boot wearing, steak-eating, oil and gas extracting men with big trucks and a deep distrust of gays and lesbians. Oh, and they don’t believe in man-made climate change.

There’s no shortage of Texas stereotypes. Some may hold a kernel of truth, but a closer inspection of the Lone Star State reveals many progressive inclinations, particularly at the municipal level.

Look no further than our Green Cities ranking for 2012. Of the 55 municipalities ranked, seven of them are in Texas. And in Houston, which is tied for 39th place with three other cities, citizens went so far as to elect the first openly gay mayor of a U.S. city.

But Mayor Annise Parker’s sexual orientation is not what has defined her two and a half years in office; nor was it a barrier to her re-election in late 2011. If anything, she’s known more for being Houston’s green mayor than as its gay mayor.

Under Parker’s watch, Houston has implemented a number of green building, vehicle and infrastructure programs that have won the city accolades. The U.S. Conference of Mayors, for example, chose Parker as one of two winners of its 2011 Climate Protection Award.

Houston has the fifth-largest number of LEED-certified buildings in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which also ranks the city seventh for buildings that are Energy Star-certified. Laura Spanjian, Houston’s director of sustainability, said Parker’s goal is to be No. 1 in the country for both LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and Energy Star.

On top of this, an energy-incentive program for building owners and managers is helping accelerate building retrofits, and more than 80 of the city’s own buildings have benefited from energy-efficiency projects. “We’re able to pay off the initial investment with utility savings,” explained Spanjian. “Most of the projects have a return on investment of under 10 years, so it’s been a real success for us.”

Houston, meanwhile, has positioned itself as the largest municipal purchaser of renewable energy in the country. It gets about a third of its supply from wind power, which is supporting one of the largest electric-vehicle programs in the country. Dozens of EV charging stations are being deployed across the city to support the initiative, and Houston has added 40 pure EVs to its own fleet.

To get more people out of cars, a bike-share pilot program was launched in the downtown core. To promote healthier eating, the city saw its first urban garden established downtown and created a farmer’s market in front of city hall. Up next is a program for building gardens in underserved communities, allowing families to own plots of land that can be used to grow vegetables for sale or home use.

Have Parker’s green initiatives faced much resistance? “Houston is considered the oil and gas capital of the world, so sometimes we butt heads against the private sector as we do this stuff,” said Spanjian. “We’re just trying to do as much as we can with as little time we have.”

For her part, Parker believes green cities are just as much about attitude as they are about policy and infrastructure. It’s not enough, she recently said at a city event, to just purchase an electric vehicle or retrofit a building. “It’s more about rethinking everything that we do.”

The same applies to old stereotypes.

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The greenest mayors in America

CK Staff — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 08:02:18 +0000

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Philly’s greener path

Adam Aston — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 08:01:39 +0000

Michael Nutter couldn’t have picked a worse time to win the keys to city hall. In late 2007, after 14 years as a city councilman, Nutter was elected as Philadelphia’s 125th mayor. His victory was built in part on a campaign promise to make his town in Pennsylvania “the greenest city in America.”

Yet mere months after he took office, Wall Street imploded, sparking global financial crisis and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Philadelphia’s fiscal outlook plummeted from surplus to billions in deficit, leaving Nutter facing painful choices.

Rather than retreat on his green agenda, however, Nutter looked to sustainability to help right the city’s finances. In 2009, he unveiled Greenworks Philadelphia, an ambitious blueprint to help the city run more efficiently, with less pollution, and become healthier all while using less energy and money to do so. “Cities are incubators of innovation,” said Nutter in an interview with Corporate Knights. “Congress can’t figure out energy or climate policy. Breaking new ground is happening at the city level because this is where it has to.”

Philadelphia’s eco-planners developed the program by auditing a vast array of urban metrics – from the amount residents walked to the availability of fresh, whole food. Then, they cast the data into the future, assessing how the city might look if “business as usual” continued. Finally, they combed through the numbers to set tough but achievable goals touching on dozen of actions. The final report organized the targets under 15 broad categories.

As an integrated vision for urban sustainability, Greenworks won plaudits for its unusually ambitious timeline. When it comes to energy or climate goals, it’s not unusual for governments to set targets a decade or more into the future. But distant goals can erode political will, Nutter notes, so his team agreed to peg the bulk of the plan’s targets to 2015.

Three years in, the results are showing up on Philadelphia’s city streets, and on its bottom line. Some of the programs are helping the city’s day-to-day operating budget. Consider recycling: The city saw rates soar to 18.9 per cent in 2011, more than triple the benchmark rate of 5.4 per cent in 2006.

The city made recycling both easier and more rewarding. Recycling days were shifted to the same day as regular garbage pickup and doubled in frequency. The city also eased the sorting hassle by expanding the types of plastic that could be recycled to numbers 1 through 7. Most U.S. cities accept just a few of those types.

The shift is turning a cost into a revenue source. Each ton of trash diverted to recycling bins not only saves about $68 in landfill costs, it generates more than $50 from the sale of bulk recycling material.

Other efforts promise to deliver huge, long-term capital savings. For example, Philadelphia was facing a $10-billion tab for new sewage facilities to prevent storm water from tainting regional waterways. Instead of a costly infrastructure fix, though, the city is spending $2 billion over 25 years on a multifaceted solution that restores the urban landscape’s ability to absorb rainfall.

Additional trees, parks and urban green space, all of which act as natural sponges, top the city’s to-do list. For buildings, the tricks include rain barrels and green roofs to collect and hold rainfall. The city is building out permeable road surfaces that let drops of rain soak slowly into the ground, rather than race down to storm sewers. “We recognized we could save money, not dig up half the town, and improve our parks and green spaces,” says Nutter.

The mayor’s green team tapped private partners to help multiply public efforts. To help cut citywide energy use, city programs aim to reinsulate homes and recoat black-tar roofs – which become oven-like hotspots in the summer – with cool, reflective white coatings. To spark homeowners’ competitive impulse, the city teamed up with Dow Chemical on the “Coolest Block” contest. Residents competed to win energy-saving cool roofs, insulation and other efficiency upgrades donated by Dow to their entire block. Said the mayor: “We can’t do this alone.”

For Nutter, the city’s green programs are delivering growing rewards, too. Philadelphia closed a multi-billion dollar budget gap as Greenworks took root. In its 2011 self-assessment, the city found that 135 of its initial 151 green goals have been completed or are underway. That quick success, Nutter says, has fired ambitions, spurring the addition of dozens more new eco-goals.

Perhaps the greatest measure of success for Nutter is re-election. He won a second term in November, assuring he’ll be there to push Greenworks through its 2015 deadline, and beyond.

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Best practices

CK Staff — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 08:00:57 +0000

Energy

Austin, TX: The City of Austin and its public utility, Austin Energy, are making all the right moves when it comes to renewable energy and energy conservation.

Under the utility’s GreenChoice program, any of Austin Energy’s four million residential customers can purchase renewable energy – a mix of wind, solar, biomass and biogas – at a fixed rate. This typically works out to a monthly premium of $25 for customers who use roughly 1,000 kilowatt-hours a month. The voluntary program has been the most successful of its kind in the United States for nine years running. In fact, Austin Energy (tied with Portland General Electric) sold more renewable energy than any other voluntary utility-run program last year, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Green power also runs 100 per cent of all Austin government and state buildings in the city, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

In conservation, Austin Energy received the Energy Star Sustained Excellence Award in March for helping customers become more energy efficient and lower their bills. This is the eighth consecutive year the utility has earned this recognition. Another notable initiative is the utility’s Power Saver rebate program. Customers can get up to $1,800 in rebates as well as other bonuses and interest-saving opportunities. Solar photovoltaic loans are also available to encourage installation of residential rooftop systems, of which there are more than a thousand spread across the city. And last year marked the 20th anniversary of Austin Energy Green Building, the oldest green building program in the U.S.

Austin Energy has set the goal of having renewable energy represent 35 per cent of its generation by 2020. Last fall it signed a power purchase agreement with Duke Energy to buy all the power generated from the 202-megawatt Los Vientos II wind farm, located 120 miles south of Corpus Christi and expected to be operational by the end of 2012. This past December it activated a 30-megawatt solar power plant, which is to date the largest active solar project of any public power utility in the U.S. As well, it is purchasing power from the Southern Company’s 100-megawatt biomass facility when it opens later this year. The utility also has an ambitious smart grid program and has been a pioneer in its willingness to test out new energy-storage technologies.

Transportation

Portland, OR: Oregon’s most populous city has put in place an array of transit options for its citizens. Commuters can begin by taking the WES Commuter Rail, which operates on weekdays for longer-distance travel. Once downtown they can choose from any of the city’s TriMet transit options: a combination of buses, streetcars and light rail. Alternatively, there is always the nearby Zipcar car-sharing lot. To encourage walking and cycling, pedestrian bridges and bike lanes are abundant. One unique feature: a 3,300-foot aerial tram line that connects a satellite property owned by the Oregon Health and Science University, located in the densely populated South Waterfront district (SWF), to its main campus on Marquam Hill. SWF itself is a 38-acre neighborhood close to the city’s downtown core that has set the ambitious goal of reducing vehicle miles traveled by 30 per cent by 2030.

Ten years ago Portland launched the first modern streetcar system in the country. The track spans nearly four miles and serves some 12,000 riders daily. The streetcar system is largely located in the SWF district and connects passengers to the MAX light-rail systems that move travelers in and outside of the downtown center. The city currently has plans to expand the streetcar infrastructure with a new loop system that will include 28 new stops and add six new streetcars. It estimates that the $150-million expansion, when it becomes operational in September, will increase ridership, link more neighborhoods and reduce parking demand, traffic and pollution.

In the downtown core, people can ride whatever public transit is available for free – all day, every day. Commuters can literally just take a seat and travel throughout the metropolis without needing to fumble around for tokens, coins or transit passes. This area covers the main downtown area up to the SWF district and across the bridge to the Rose Quarter and Lloyd District. To encourage more cycling, the city is also taking bids from vendors with an eye to launching a bike-share program in early 2013. Like other cities, Portland has found that bike sharing is a simple way to bring inexpensive and environmentally sustainable transit to citizens and tourists.

Waste

San Francisco, CA:

Land-filling rates in the U.S. have increased by more than 60 per cent since 1960 and the majority of landfills that remain open are within five to 10 years of closing unless capacity can be expanded. Waste management has never been more important, and on that front, the City of San Francisco has earned top marks for its landfill avoidance efforts.

San Francisco was the first of the major U.S. cities to establish a three-stream sorting system (including food waste) for its municipal solid waste. In 2009, it became mandatory by law for every property owner to recycle and compost. The enabling legislation was the first of its kind in the country, and was designed to achieve “maximum separation” with a goal of reaching 100 per cent diversion from landfills and incinerators by 2020.

City residents are given three free bins: blue, green and black. Green bins take food waste, soiled paper and plant material; blue bins are used for bottles, cans and most plastics; and black bins are designated for landfill waste. The basic monthly fee for weekly collection based on the standard-size 32-gallon black bin is $27.55. That fee will double or triple if a resident requests a larger black bin option.

However, residents who consistently reduce their weekly garbage volume to 20 gallons or less are eligible for a 20-gallon black mini-can at a discounted rate of $21.21. The underlying concept is that the less recycling you do, the more you pay. Those who make the extra effort can request larger green bins and blue bins from Recology, the city’s main trash hauler, at no additional cost.

Businesses, meanwhile, have a big incentive to divert. A few years ago Recology, under direction from the city, began offering a commercial recycling discount. Under this program, businesses that are aggressive with their recycling and composting can reduce their waste bills by up to 75 per cent.

There’s no sign of slowing down for San Francisco, which has been well ahead of the curve for more than two decades and is consistently moving beyond the actions of its municipal peers across the country.

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2012 Sustainable Cities Methodology

CK Staff — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 05:00:20 +0000

A list of 38 specific policies and programs was assembled from analysis of what cities around America have been doing to try to become more sustainable (see below). Each of the 54 largest U.S. cities, plus Pittsburgh, Penn., was assessed to see which of these programs it has adopted and implemented. Cities received one point for each adopted/implemented program. The total number of points received determines a city’s final ranking. City websites and web-based materials, as well as recently conducted surveys of local officials, were used to confirm that programs were indeed being implemented. Assessment of changes in sustainability programs is especially challenging because cities rarely explicitly eliminate previously adopted programs. Instead, they may opt to de-emphasize, modify or de-fund them without any announcement. For the period between 2011 and 2012 we were unable to identify any sustainability-related program in any city that had been repealed or canceled.

Project lead: Jeremy Runnalls

Researcher: Kent E. Portney is a professor of political science at Tufts University in Medford, Mass.

The City Policies, Programs and Activities assessed in the Rankings:

Smart Growth Activities

1. Eco-industrial park development

2. Targeted or cluster economic development

3. Eco-village (urban infill housing) project or program

4. Brownfield redevelopment (project or pilot project)

Land-Use Planning Programs, Policies and Zoning

5. Zoning used to delineate environmentally sensitive growth areas

6. Comprehensive land-use plan that includes environmental issues

7. Tax incentives for environmentally friendly development (other than energy efficiency counted elsewhere)

Transportation Planning Programs and Policies

8. Operation or sponsorship of public transit (buses and/or trains)

9. Limits on downtown parking spaces

10. Car pool lanes on city streets (high occupancy vehicle or diamond lanes)

11. Alternatively fueled city vehicle (green fleet) program

12. Bicycle ridership program

Pollution Prevention, Reduction and Remediation

13. Household solid waste recycling

14. Industrial recycling

15. Hazardous waste recycling

16. Air pollution reduction program (e.g., reduction in volatile organic compounds)

17. Recycled product purchasing by city government

18. Superfund (non-brownfield) site remediation

19. Asbestos abatement program

20. Lead paint abatement program

21. Pesticide reduction program

22. Urban garden/sustainable food system or agriculture program

23. Heat island mitigation program (other than green roofs)

Energy and Resource Conservation/Efficiency

24. Green building program

25. Green affordable/low income housing program

26. Renewable energy use by city government

27. Energy conservation/efficiency incentives or rebate program (other than green building program)

28. Alternative energy offered to consumers (solar, wind, biogas, etc.)

29. Water conservation program

Sustainable Indicators Project

30. Sustainable indicators project active in last five years

31. Indicators progress report in last five years

32. Does indicators project include “action plan” for policies/programs?

Organization/Administration/Management/Coordination/Governance

33. Single government agency, office or person responsible for implementing sustainability programs

34. Sustainability an explicit part of a citywide comprehensive or general plan

35. Involvement of county government or metropolitan council

36. Involvement of mayor or chief executive officer

37. Involvement of business community (e.g., chamber of commerce, sustainable business organization)

38. General public involvement (public hearings, visioning process, neighborhood groups or associations, etc.)

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