Create or participate in a marketing/outreach/incentive program to promote/achieve residential energy/water use reduction and energy efficiency.
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Buildings and Lighting
Provide incentives for energy, water and sustainability improvements in existing residential, not-for-profit and commercial buildings/building sites.
Integrate green building and EV charging best practices information and assistance into the building permit process.
Implement an energy rating/disclosure policy for residential and/or commercial buildings.
Conserve/protect drinking/groundwater resources by creating a water-wise landscaping ordinance/guidance, WaterSense purchasing program, or guidance on rainwater harvesting and home water softener use.
Provide a financial or other incentive to private parties who add energy/sustainability improvements, meet the SB 2030 energy standard, or renovate using a green building or energy framework.
Transportation
Increase active transportation and alternatives to single-occupancy car travel.
Increase walking, biking and transit use by one or more of the following means:
Conduct an Active Living campaign such as a Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program.
Promote carpooling, ridesharing, carsharing, and bikesharing.
Environmental Management
Adopt environmentally preferable purchasing policies and practices to improve health and environmental outcomes.
Establish purchasing preferences that support local, Minority, Disability, and Women-Owned businesses and, working with a local business association, develop a list of locally-produced products and suppliers for common purchases.
Lower the environmental footprint of meetings and events in the city.
Minimize the volume of and pollutants in rainwater runoff by maximizing green infrastructure.
Create a stormwater utility that uses variable fees to incentivize stormwater infiltration, minimize the volume of and pollutants in runoff, and educate property owners and renters on the importance of managing stormwater runoff.
Adopt and implement guidelines or design standards/incentives for at least one of the following stormwater infiltration/reuse practices:
Increase active lifestyles and property values by enhancing the city's green infrastructure.
Develop a program to involve community members in hands-on land restoration, invasive species management and stewardship projects.
Improve local water bodies to sustain their long-term ecological function and community benefits.
Adopt a shoreland ordinance for all river and lake shoreland areas.
Adopt goals to revegetate shoreland and create a local program or outreach effort to help property owners with revegetation.
Reduce flooding damage and costs through the National Flood Insurance Programs and the NFIP’s Community Rating System.
Assess and improve city drinking water and wastewater systems and related facilities.
Create a demand-side pricing program to reduce demands on water and wastewater systems.
Implement an environmentally sound management program for decentralized wastewater treatment systems.
Report to landowners suspected noncompliant or failing septic systems as part of an educational, informational and financial assistance and outreach program designed to trigger voluntary landowner action to improve septic systems.
Work with homeowners and businesses in environmentally sensitive areas and areas where standard septic systems are not the least-cost option to promote innovative waste water systems, including central sewer extensions.
Increase waste prevention, reuse and recycling, moving to a lower-consumption, more cyclical, biological approach to materials management.
Improve/organize residential trash, recycling and organics collection by private and/or public operations and offer significant volume-based pricing on residential garbage and/or incentives for recycling.
Prevent generation of local air contaminants so as to improve community health.
Replace small internal combustion engine lawn and garden equipment (e.g. lawnmowers, weed whips, etc.) with lower polluting equipment.
Decrease air emissions from vehicle idling, gasoline filling stations, business trucking, and pollutants/noise from stationary engines/back-up generators.
Install, assist with and promote publicly available EV charging stations or public fueling stations for alternative fuel vehicles.
Resilient Economic and Community Development
Adopt outcome measures for GreenStep and other city sustainability efforts, and engage community members in ongoing education, dialogue, and campaigns.
Inclusive and Coordinated Decision-Making: Use a city commission or committee to lead, coordinate, report to and engage community members on the identification and equitable implementation of sustainability best practices.
Communicating Progress on Goals: Organize goals/outcome measures from all city plans (social, environmental, economic) and report to community members data that show progress toward meeting these goals.
Public Education for Action: Conduct or support a broad sustainability education and action campaign, building on existing community relationships, networks & events involving:
Engaging the Next Generation: Engage wide representation of community youth and college students by creating opportunities to participate in city government (including commissions).
Expand a greener, more resilient business sector.
Conduct or participate in a buy local campaign for community members and local businesses.
Remove barriers to and encourage installation of renewable energy generation capacity.
Install a public sector/municipally-owned renewable energy technology, such as solar electric (PV), wind, biomass, solar hot water/air, or micro-hydro.
Strengthen local food production and access.
Create, assist with and promote local food production/distribution within the city:
Plan and prepare for extreme weather, adapt to changing climatic conditions, and foster stronger community connectedness and social and economic vitality.
Increase social connectedness through engagement, capacity building, public investment, and opportunities for economically vulnerable residents to improve their economic prosperity and resilience to climate change.