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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Business Civic Leadership Center and the Siemens Corporation just named Columbus as one of their three finalists for their 4th Annual Siemens Sustainable Community Awards in the category of U.S. cities with populations of 500,000 or higher.
“The award shows that sustainability is about building a better community for the long-term,” said BCLC Manager of Corporate Community Investment Hanna Felleke. “Good sustainability planning goes hand-in-hand with competitive communities.”
Initiatives in Columbus that were specifically recognized as contributing to our city’s sustainability include the Get Green Columbus program, the Greenspot program, the Bicentennial Bikeways Plan, the Central Ohio Green Pact and many others.
Columbus was recognized along with Baltimore and San Jose in the large community category. North Little Rock, Pittsburgh and Raleigh were finalists for mid-sized communities, and Brea, CA, Burlington, VT and Greensburg, KS were named as sustainable small communities.
The winners in each category will be announced on April 12th at the Chamber BCLC’s National Conference on Corporate Community Investment in Philadelphia.
For more information, visit sustainablecommunity.uschamber.com/columbus-ohio/.
For information on making your local business more sustainable, check out the “Going Green” series on TheMetropreneur.com
Not to diminish the great work done by the sustainability communitiy here, but I’m surprised Columbus is a finalist. I don’t think the city is anywhere near ready for things like peak oil or climate change. Also the US Chamber is probably using this as green wash, they fight federal policy on climate change: http://chamber.350.org/
This strikes me, too, as somewhat odd. I certainly don’t feel like I live in a top-3-most-sustainable community. I mean, we don’t even have an effective household recycling system, and every time I ride my bike on the road (where I’m directed to by city code), one of my fellow citizens either side-swipes me or cusses me out.
I think the two areas you both pointed out (lack of rail transit, curbside household recycling) are places where our city still needs drastic improvements. Looking back over the past decade, I’d say our city’s biggest shortcoming is the failure to implement any of the rail transit proposals that have been studied and considered by our city and state leadership. It’s going to really come back to bite us as gas prices continue to rise.
That being said, I’m able to take the bus most everywhere I need to go, and I recycle my household material for free at a drop off point. Not a perfect solution for everyone city-wide, but options and alternative certainly exist for many people in Columbus.
Regardless, this is good recognition and press for our city and the specific sustainability programs that were recognized.
Did you see the prize? 20,000 trees. I’m not sure whether to be impressed or disappointed by that.
I have to agree that much is left to be done but this is a great thing for Columbus. It’s showing we’re growing in numerous aspects and are willing to be successful in various categories.
With the trees as a prize, I guess it depends on how mature the trees are 20,000 seedlings is not as impressive as 20,000 mature trees. You can have trees planted in Africa for 10 cents each (edenprojects.org)! Certainly it would be more than $2,000 for seedlings but not that much more.
ScottUlrich Says: Did you see the prize? 20,000 trees. I’m not sure whether to be impressed or disappointed by that.
Why disappointed? We could line quite a few streets with 20,000 trees. And there are plenty of streets that could use them. ;)
+1 on green wash @irishred
No rail system plays into peak oil … or oil period. Who’s friendly with oil? Certainly not those who seek and would ride the rails. Nothing new and still very unfortunate.
I believe Columbus is far more sustainable -long term- than most cities in the U.S. I came back here for multiple economic reasons. It’s in the data. The area continues to prove the data true.
I think this might just show how bad other places are and not necessarily how outstanding Columbus is. We need some freakin’ rail before anyone calls us sustainable, in my opinion.
Either way I would like 20,000 trees please.
Its nice to be recognized….but we certainly are way behind other cities in terms of Carbon Footprint. We were 83rd out of 100 in a study by Brookings Institute in 2008.
http://green.wikia.com/wiki/Carbon_Footprint_of_American_Cities
Clearly this has to be (in part) a product of poor regional transportation and land use planning.
I think in terms of economic sustainability, I think Columbus has outperformed most other cities and there have been a lot of major strides in the last several years in other areas.
Household recycling is only a mere part of it. There are many office buildings in downtown that do not have a means of recycling their waste, nor can you walk down the street in downtown Columbus and find a container for recyclables next to a trash can. Yes, there are drop off recycling bins at selected locations; however, it seems to defeat the purpose considering you need to DRIVE there to make a drop off. (Hmmm, double edged sword?)
The good news: my condo building FINALLY decided to implement a recycling program (after much prodding from a certain tenant). YAY!
seems bogus to me. Chicago, NYC, San Fran, Oakland, Portland, Seattle way more sustainable and green than Columbus. Sh!t Earth hour passed us by again with nary a peep from anyone
worldwildlife.org
Earth Hour is as pointless as a one-day gas strike. Many of the programs mentioned in the award recognition are functional year-round programs and not just a one-hour-per-year event.
Symbolism is important especially for large issues like global warming. I am just surprised that a city, like Columbus, which values symbolism and half-measures can’t get behind another symbolic effort.
Yea, trees please. Great Job Columbus. But yes rail is a lacking part of our infrastructure here in Columbus. Perhaps we could call in the Japanese bullet train specialist to help us out. Since all we can manage is a rail system that goes 70 mph.