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.