CitiesGoGreen - October 2008 - (Page 23) The Spillway Bridge, part of Fayetteville’s extensive trail system. government buildings to be LEED-Silver at a minimum, and the city is currently studying incentives for private buildings that achieve LEED certification. In addition, the city has joined the Clinton Climate Initiative’s purchasing cooperative (see below), which allows cities to buy energy-efficient and clean energy products and technologies at highly discounted rates. When the city started looking at their purchasing practices, they realized that each of the city’s divisions had been budgeting for and buying building products individually, at different rates, which didn’t make much sense. “Through the Clinton initiative, we are buying better products now, that are much more environmentally friendly, at a fraction of the cost we were spending on the bad stuff,” said Coody. “As Yogi Berra said, you can observe a lot just by looking. When you really look at your organization and figure The Clinton Climate Initiative is working to leverage the buying potential of cities throughout the world to achieve favorable pricing on energy-efficient and clean energy products and technologies and to encourage their use. To date, more than 1,100 cities worldwide have access to these affordable prices. Learn more at www.clintonfoundation.org. October 2008 out how you’ve been doing business, you can end up solving a lot of problems.” If step number one in shrinking a city’s carbon footprint is developing an overarching plan and educating citizens about their role in it, what is step number two? “Getting the community to understand how important it is to reconsider our purchasing habits,” said Coody. “To give one example, we recently followed San Francisco’s lead and banned the purchase with government money of bottled water. We made this pitch to our citizens: when you buy bottled water, you are not only paying eight dollars a gallon for drinking water which we will provide you for a third of a penny a gallon at the tap, you are also buying the carbon footprint that goes with that bottle of water—the packaging, the shipping, the marketing, and everything else.” Coody held a press conference recently on the steps of City Hall to discuss this issue and announce the city’s new policy. “I think that our press conference alerted a lot of people and made them rethink their position on bottled water. Of course that’s a small dent, but it’s an example of how all of us are in this together. It’s not just the government, it’s not just the citizens, it’s not just business—all of us share this atmosphere, and it’s important for all of us to participate in the resolution of these issues.” That kind of thinking typifies the approach of Fayetteville’s city government. When the city decided to develop an “energy scorecard” for new homes, similar to the one used for appliances to rate energy efficiency, they gathered a committee of builders, architects and other industry professionals to help with the task. They plan to follow the same model next year to look at reducing Fayetteville’s total carbon footprint, using their success at the city government level as a model. “It’s really important to have everyone involved in that conversation,” Sustainability Coordinator John Coleman said. “This includes the business sector, the Chamber of Commerce, the environmentalists, and other groups across the spectrum.” According to Coleman, this is not a divisive conversation. “It’s more a matter of us saying, look, this is what we were able to do as an organization and this is how we accomplished it. Let’s look at how this can impact you as well.” Other cities are developing sustainability coordinator positions using the Fayetteville model, and many are beginning to see Fayetteville as a model for how other cities can move in the direction of energy efficiency and a reduced carbon footprint. Smaller cities, especially, may not relate so well to the green initiatives of a city like Chicago or Seattle, but they can relate to Fayetteville, which has a population of less than 70,000. “We’ve piqued the interest of a lot of towns our size or larger who are following our lead, because they can relate to us,” said Coody. “We work on a scale that they can get their head around.” Of course, not everyone will agree that sustainable practices make sense. “There will always be people who will complain, who think it’s bogus, who don’t want to change anything, who want the status quo to be maintained at all costs,” Coody added. “You just have to work around those folks. Because the status quo is not sustainable. It’s gotten us into this mess, and maintaining the status quo is not going to get us out of this mess. Plus, we can have a better lifestyle and a better quality of life by living more sustainably.” Lia Ayley is a freelance writer and contributing editor for Cities Go Green. She can be reached at (360) 303-0882 or at lia@openaccess.org. 23 http://www.clintonfoundation.org/explore-our-work/#/clinton-climate-initiative/ http://citiesgogreen.com
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