St. Louis is taking sustainability to the streets – literally. In a test program, the city redesigned the streetscape of six blocks on South Grand Boulevard. The redevelopment of the street is to create a more sustainable community – results benefitting the social, economy, and environmental character. The updates include: fewer lanes and shorter crosswalk [...]
Federal Officials Praise Green Impact Zone In KC’s Urban Core
The green economy bug has hit Kansas City, and the federal government is taking note. The city has established a 150-block area as a Green Impact Zone. What exactly does this mean? This area will be the focus for home weatherization on a massive scale, bus rapid transit and more sustainable energy approaches. Already Kansas [...]
Young People Are Key Partners In Sustainable Development
UN’s Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon has announced that the theme of this year’s International Youth Day will be “Sustainability: Our Challenge. Our Future”. This reflects the belief that our societal, economic, and environmental issues most impact the young as they are the ones who will be affected by the actions for decades to come. They, however, [...]
Initial Regional Sustainability Council Draws Interest
Southeastern Massachusetts regional planning agency, Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District (SRPEDD), held a kickoff meeting in June to launch the Southeastern Massachusetts Council on Sustainability. SRPEDD’s intention for the Council is to provide education, advice and assistance on the broad issue of sustainability in Southeastern Massachusetts. Made up of representatives from education, [...]
The Clean Energy Economy
While the economy itself may be in the tank, the greening of the US economy is still moving forward. A recent study by The Pew Charitable Trusts shows that the clean energy trend is actually growing quite rapidly in every state of the US. From job creation to investment, each state is showing signs of [...]
GE: Smart Grid Yields Net-Zero Energy Home
$0 energy bill? That’s what General Electric is striving to provide homeowners – with the purchase of GE products of course. GE announced a new project to cut annual energy consumption to zero by 2015 for homeowners. The program includes on-site power generation via solar panels or wind turbines coupled with energy-efficient appliances and on-site [...]
Earth Charter Initiative
The Earth Charter Initiative is a global network of people, organizations, and institutions with the focused goal of promoting and implementing the values and principles of the Earth Charter. Following the Brundtland Commission of 1987, Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev launched the initiative in 1994 to develop an Earth Charter. After a number of revisions [...]
Sustainability At The State Level
In 2003, The New Jersey Sustainability State Institute put together a study detailing the strengths and weaknesses of managing and promoting sustainability via state governance. As they found, there are a number of positives and negatives. As the data is available, it is easier for the state to track sustainability goals. There is also the [...]
San Diego Regional Sustainability Partnership
San Diego is taking a regional approach to promoting sustainability. This partnership of businesses, organizations, governments, and academia is working together to promote an improved quality of life, pollution reduction, and energy savings in their region. The region is unique in that it incorporates both the United States and Mexico – further emphasizing that economic, [...]
Ten Principles for Sustainability
Back in 2007, Danish think tank Monday Morning worked with Realdania to develop the “Copenhagen Agenda for Sustainable Cities” initiative. The initiative spells out the ten main principles that can help cities provide their inhabitants a more sustainable lifestyle. In the end, it was determined that there needs to be “a radical change of mindset, [...]
