Kent Portney's "Our Green Cities" Blog

Environmental Governance Scholars Network

I had a chance in May to attend the Wesley Conference of Environmental Politics and Governance on Bainbridge Island near Seattle.  This conference was organized by Peter May and Aseem Prakash of the University of Washington, and was held at Islandwood Resort and environmental education center, a truly gorgeous location.  In any event, there were about 40 or so outstanding scholars from around the world who presented their research on some aspect of environmental governance. Jeff Berry and I wrote, and I presented, a paper called "Fifty Shades of Green," based on analysis of data from 50 of the largest cities in the U.S.  Ok, the title is a little over the top, but it accurately captures the essence of the paper. Check out the conference web site.

There is a second environmental politics and governance conference planned for Gerzensee, Switzerland, June 16-19, 2016.  I am posting the "call for papers" here.  Download EPG_Call_2016_Conference

100 Resilient Cities' London Office

I see that the 100 Resilient Cities project just opened an office in London, marking it's first organizational foray into Europe.  Check the announcement and details at the 100 Resilient Cities web site.

New Web Site

I have finally put up my new faculty web site (Tufts took away my previous one), and this is a good place to access most of the research I have conducted.  I post some information on the ourgreencities web site, and a lot of the details can be found in my faculty web site at tiny.cc/portney.

Sustainability book due out soon

I have a new book called Sustainability coming out with MIT Press, due to appear in print in early October 2015.  This book is going to be one of the "Essential Knowledge" series, and provides an overview of the concepts of sustainability, and a summary of different studies that examine factors that affect sustainability.  You can read a full synopsis of this book at the MIT Press web site. 

Good News in Philly

In November, the Philadelphia city council approved a change to the city's charter making the Office of Sustainability a permanent office in city government.  Up until that point, the office, which had been created by Mayor Nutter, existed essentially at the pleasure of the mayor. Undoubtedly because of the incredible work by the office and its director, Katherine Gajewski, the sustainability results achieved there made it relatively easy for the city's policymakers to make this office a permanent part of the administrative landscape there. This decision, and similar decisions in other cities around the country, are testament to the idea that local sustainability is not some sort of fad. It has become an important function of city government, and I expect to see more cities following in Philly's footsteps.  If you read Chapters 7 and 8 in the new edition of my Taking Sustainable Cities Seriously book, you will get the distinct impression that I have been very impressed with what Philadelphia has achieved in its effort to try to become more sustainable.  This is yet more evidence to support that view.

Sustainability in San Antonio

Bill Barker from the San Antonio Office of Sustainability has provide an extensive update to the many impressive initiatives in their effort to try to become more sustainable there.  There is a short summary report available highlighting some of the many new initiatives in San Antonio, including impressive commitments to renewable energy, to energy conservation, and many other sustainability elements.  The summary report is called "SA Keeps Getting Greener," and although the title sounds more like simple marketing, it does provide insight to the very real and substantive efforts being made there. Congratulations to the city and to Barker for the tremendous work being done in San Antonio.

In June, Barker authored the Barker Rivard Report documenting the City's progress on a number of sustainability initiatives, and this is worth reading to see how aggressively the city is moving in a number of important areas. Although there are a number of important improvements, the one that jumped out at me is the commitment the city has made to water conservation, including creating an infrastructure for water recycling and reuse. 

Major Progress in Atlanta Sustainability Policies

Many thanks to Ruthie Norton from the Mayor's Office of Sustainability for keeping me up to date about the many new and impressive sustainability-related policies and programs there.  Most of the recent changes focus on internal city business practices.  City employees now must endeavor to eliminate vehicle idling, to use alternative transportation for work-related trips during business hours, to run all meeting with an eye toward reducing waste and energy, to engage in recycling, and to adhere to new printing standards designed to reduce paper and ink usage.  Aside from being just basic good business practice, this clearly sets the tone for others in Atlanta.  For a summary of these new policies and programs, see the document Atlanta Download Atlanta Sustainable Policy Packet.

As reported by Ruthie, Atlanta also has developed an impressive Better Buildings Challenge (BBC). Led locally by the City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Sustainability and initially spearheaded by Central Atlanta Progress and the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District, the goal of the Atlanta BBC is to reduce energy and water consumption by at least 20 percent in participating buildings across Atlanta by 2020.  Also, Mayor Kasim Reed and Denise Starling, executive director of Livable Buckhead, announced in July major expansion of the Atlanta Better Buildings Challenge (Atlanta BBC), bringing 41 Buckhead buildings- half of the Buckhead office market- into the energy and water efficiency program, which is administered by the U.S Department of Energy. The Atlanta Better Buildings Challenge now encompasses more than 120 buildings in the city’s three major submarkets, with a total of more than 65 million square feet. The newly added Buckhead buildings represent a 50 percent increase in participation, further building upon Atlanta’s role as the national leader for the program, which is supported by the Department of Energy.

Finally, following the adoption of the revised residential stormwater ordinance in winter of 2013, the City of Atlanta (“the City”) formed the Green Infrastructure Task Force to ensure green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) becomes the norm rather than a bonus.  The task force is in the process of formalizing goals around GSI and identifying key projects to promote.  The multi-departmental taskforce is also focusing on educating key communities, especially where GSI will have a big impact.

Civic Engagement and Water Diplomacy

As part of the Water Diplomacy doctoral program at Tufts, I recently put together a once-a-month symposium on "civic engagement and water diplomacy."  The idea behind this symposium is to bring together students, faculty, and practitioners who have experience or interest in the involvement of people other than water engineers in water decision making.  Peter Levine from Tisch College at Tufts is the coordinator, and as one of the world's experts on civic engagement, he has brought a new dimension to the study of water decisions.  The first discussion in September focused on what the great political scientist Elinor Ostrom had to say about the role of ordinary people in overcoming the tragedy of the commons and related common pool resource problems.  The second meeting focused on "integrated water resource management" which, among other things, prescribes extensive public participation in water policy and decision making. Jerry Delli Priscoli from the US Army Corps of Engineers (one of the world's experts on civic engagement in water issues) was our special guest. The third meeting, scheduled for later this month, will likely address collaborative watershed management.  And the final meeting in December will look at mutual gains approaches to stakeholder engagement in water negotiations. Larry Susskind from MIT will likely lead this discussion. For more information, go to the water diplomacy web site.

Non-state actors workshop

I was fortunate to have been invited to participate in a workshop last week on "Social science perspectives on non-state actors in environmental governance" at the National Socio-environmental synthesis center at the University of Maryland in Annapolis.  Many thanks to Carmen Sirianni, Dana Fisher, and Andy Andrews for the invitation and for putting the workshop together. Not all of the presentations had to do with cities, but research by Dana Fisher from the Universty of Maryland and by Suzanne Staggenborg from Pitt focused on local groups of various sorts.  Dana's work is about what she calls local "hybrid" organizations which perform lots of different environmental functions. Her analysis is largely focused on New York City, Washington DC, and Philadelphia. I presented work with my colleague Jeff Berry that looks at how local groups engage in advocacy with local policy makers.  Several papers on this subject are accessible at the ourgreencities web site.

Climate Action Plans in Cities

For those of you who wish to be able to easily access cities' climate action plans, I have created a library of these plans for the 55 largest U.S. on the OurGreenCities web site.  Just go to this site, and look for a the link on the left side.  Clicking on the city name will open a pdf file of the plan or report.  Since the library contains the pdf files (rather than links to city web sites), these will not disappear.  I hope to add cities to the library in the future.