Sunnyvale Cool Green Letter, Second Edition
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Sunnyvale Cool Green Letter, Second Edition

Posted by barbf on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 16:33

 Sorry for the late post.  Technical difficulties.  Please note the the American Clean Energy Act, mentioned under "Armchair Activist"  narrowly passed the House and now moves on to the Senate.
Sunnyvale Cool Green Letter
 
June 19, 2009

Welcome!
Welcome to the second edition of the Sunnyvale Cool Green Letter!  We'll publicize local Earth-friendly events and highlight our community's actions to create a sustainable community.  We hope to inspire individual and group actions to help protect our planet for future generations.  This letter is brought to you by the Sunnyvale Cool Cities Team, aka Sunnyvale Cool.

 
 
A Year of Progress in Sunnyvale
 
As the fiscal year of the City of Sunnyvale comes to a close at the end of June, we note the progress of our city government toward its sustainability goals.  Since July 1, 2008 the City: 

  • hired a full-time Sustainability Officer to help coordinate and implement the increasing number of City energy-conservation and other environmental efforts,
  • limited the use of bottled water at City events and among staff,
  • agreed to individually meter water in multi-family residences, with the goal of reducing water use,
  • passed a Zero Waste policy,
  • created a staff Green Team,
  • presented staff workshops on sustainability issues,
  • reduced energy-consumption of City operations and facilities, thus saving money, reducing pollution, and minimizing the City's carbon footprint, 
  • hosted the Walkability Workshop, a talk on low-water landscaping and a wide array of Earth Week events,
  • organized the Earth Day Garbage Reduction Contest for interested Sunnyvale elementary schools,
  • made waste-reduction presentations to numerous classes of elementary school students, 
  • opened the Borregas Bike and Pedestrian Bridges over 237 and 101,
  • supported Bike-to-Work Day, 
  • adopted a comprehensive Green Building Ordinance, setting higher standards for municipal, commercial and residential buildings.

Together these actions will reduce energy costs for the City government and residents, encourage water conservation, reduce our solid waste and the costs associated with it, help our staff and residents learn how to better protect the environment on which we all depend, help us become a more bike and pedestrian-friendly city, and discourage the use of toxics in our buildings.
 
Still high on the Sustainability "to do" list is a carbon audit--determining how much greenhouse gas pollution the various sectors of our community generate, so we have the numbers on which to base a Climate Action Plan to reduce our community's carbon footprint.  In 2007 Council agreed to strive to reduce our community's carbon emissions 7% by 2012; it is time we followed through with a community carbon audit and a Climate Protection Plan.
 
 
Composting/Recycling Teamwork at the Sunnyvale Art and Wine Festival
 
The Sunnyvale Chamber of Commerce, the City of Sunnyvale Solid Waste Department, Specialty Solid Waste, the Boy Scouts, Sunnyvale Cool, Homestead High School's AP Environmental Science Classes and California Scholarship Federation partnered to reduce waste headed for the landfill by 2640 lbs--29%--below last year's levels. Bottle and can recycling was up 160 lbs, 6%, over last year.   
 
Composting was the big reason for such a substantial reduction in waste. The Chamber saw to it that special bins were provided for compost--food waste, paper plates and cups, skewers, and  compostable cups and flatware made of corn and potato starch. Since composting is new at local events, seventeen volunteers from Sunnyvale Cool and Homestead High donated a combined 56 hours to help festival-goers make the best choice at the recycling/composting/waste stations. Although we could have used many more volunteers, it was clear that those stations that were staffed sent much less to the landfill than unstaffed stations. The volunteers made a huge difference. With more volunteers next year, we could approach zero waste.
 
Upcoming Opportunities

Armchair Activist
 
Please consider writing today to support and strengthen the American Clean Energy Act:  http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageServer?pagename=adv_aces