Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a series of initiatives to move forward the Administration’s plans to create an ambitious environmental agenda for New York City and its municipal government.
The key components of the plan include the creation of the Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability within the Mayor’s Office of Operations; the undertaking of a major greenhouse gas inventory for City government and the City overall; the appointment of a Sustainability Advisory Board to advise the City on environmentally sound policies and practices; that Douglas I. Foy, former Massachusetts Secretary for Commonwealth Development, will serve as a special advisor on sustainability; and the creation of a new partnership with the Earth Institute of Columbia University to provide the City with scientific research and advice on environmental and climate change-related issues.
“New York City has a long tradition of leadership in environmental protection – from creating the largest municipal park system in the nation, to pioneering water conservation, to banning second-hand smoke in public places. Now, we intend to make New York City a national leader in meeting the challenge of making ours an environmentally sustainable city.
To make New York a truly sustainable city, we need a bold plan to use our land in the smartest way possible – not only by developing areas ripe for growth, but also by cleaning up brownfields so that no piece of New York City is too contaminated to be used for employment, housing, or recreation. The water along our shoreline is cleaner than it has been in generations – but we want it cleaner still, so that we can fish, swim, and enjoy the rivers that have always been the City’s most distinctive feature. We’ve made great strides in cleaning up our air but we still have too much pollution. And the constant threat of global warming means that we have to think about the urban heat island effect that makes our summer days even hotter than the greener areas around our City.”
The Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability is led by Director Rohit Aggarwala – within the Mayor’s Office of Operations, headed by Director Jeffrey A. Kay.
The Office’s mission is three-fold:
1. to help develop a plan for the City’s long-term growth and development
2. to integrate sustainability goals and practices into every aspect of that plan;
3. to make New York City government a “green” organization.
In addition, on an on-going basis, the Office will coordinate the City’s various efforts that contribute to a cleaner environment and make more efficient use of our resources. Finally, once a long-term sustainability plan is established, the Office will be responsible for tracking, measuring, and reporting the City’s performance against the targets set in the plan.
As a first step, the City has been undertaking a greenhouse gas inventory to measure the total climate change impact of the municipal government’s operations since a key element in achieving sustainability is reducing the volume of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that we discharge into the air. The inventory seeks to measure the carbon emissions from all City government operations – from electricity consumption in City buildings to the tailpipe exhaust of City-owned ambulances – and the results will be released this Fall.
Further, the Mayor announced the launch of an unprecedented effort to measure the entire carbon emissions of throughout the City. This much broader effort, with a target completion date within six months, will give us the first picture of the total carbon impact of everyone who lives in, works in, or visits New York City.
The Sustainability Advisory Board will be chaired by Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding Daniel L. Doctoroff, and its kick-off meeting will take place on Wednesday, September 27th. The objectives of the Sustainability Advisory Board will be to assist the new Office in identifying the highest-priority issues the new sustainability agenda should address; setting the targets the City should aim to achieve; and choosing the best methods of achieving those goals.
The members of the Sustainability Advisory Board are:
* Christine Quinn, Speaker of the New York City Council
* James F. Gennaro, Council Member and Chair of the Committee on Environmental Protection
* Carlton Brown, COO and Founder, Full Spectrum
* Marcia Bystryn, Executive Director, New York League of Conservation Voters
* Robert Fox, Partner, Cook + Fox Architects
* Ester Fuchs, Professor of Public Affairs and Political Science at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs
* Peter Goldmark, Program Director of NYC Office, Environmental Defense
* Ashok Gupta, Program Director of Air and Energy, Natural Resources Defense Council
* Michael Northrop, Program Officer of Sustainable Development, Rockefeller Brothers Fund
* Ed Ott, Executive Director, NYC Central Labor Council
* Elizabeth Girardi Schoen, Senior Director of Environmental Affairs, Pfizer, Inc.
* Peggy Sheppard, Executive and Co-Founder, West Harlem Environmental Action Coalition (WE ACT)
* Daniel Tishman, Chairman and CEO, Tishman Construction Corporation
* Kathryn Wylde, President and CEO, Partnership for New York City
* Robert Yaro, President, Regional Plan Association
* Elizabeth Yeampierre, Executive Director, UPROSE
Last year, the Mayor and the City Council worked in partnership to develop Local Law 86 – which established “green building” practices for municipal construction. This year, the Mayor and Council worked to pass a landmark, 20-year Solid Waste Management Plan that will improve the environment by switching solid waste export from trucks to barge and rail transportation, increasing recycling and reducing waste and pollution.
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