Mayor Nutter

It’s official: Mayor-elect Jim Kenney has officially named Christine Knapp the new Director of Sustainability. Christine will be taking the reigns from current Director of Sustainability Katherine Gajewski. No stranger to the blog, we wanted to hear more from Katherine...

When Mayor Nutter took office in 2008, he set two important goals: for Philadelphia to become the Greenest City in the USA and to reduce homicides by 30-50%. In 7 1/2 years, the city has reduced homicides by 37%. So how...

Over 400,000 individuals invaded New York on Sunday to make a statement to world leaders about climate change. Mayor's National Climate Action Agenda Yesterday, Mayor Michael Nutter announced the formation of the Mayor's National Climate Action Agenda with Mayors Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles and Annise Parker of Houston. Nutter is currently in New York City for the Clinton Global Initiative meeting and was announced on day one of Climate Week, an international platform for government, business and civil society to work together on low carbon solutions to the climate change crisis. Find out more about the Mayor's new initiative, and what Philadelphia & Pennsylvania are doing about climate change, after the jump.

You've probably heard about the Clean Power Plan, the Obama Administration’s new proposal to help set carbon-emissions standards. For those of you who haven’t, here’s a quick synopsis of the Clean Power Plan:

Mayor Michael Nutter signed an executive order yesterday to ban smoking in Philly's parks. According to the City of Philadelphia's official wordpress account (speaking of which, can't City of Phila afford a URL that doesn't include .wordpress?),

Today is Arbor Day, yo. As Arbor Day is all about planting (and appreciating) trees Mayor Nutter will appropriately celebrate Arbor Day with TreePhilly at the tree planting and volunteer day held at Marian Anderson Recreation Center.

Mayor Nutter shocked environmentalists in Philadelphia today when he announced that he was lowering his ambition for sustainability in our city. Rather than aiming to be the greenest city in the USA in Greenworks Philadelphia plans, Nutter wants to hit less sustainable goals in lieu of reaching the top 10. As he mentioned today in a press conference: "Just like the rest of Philadelphia and especially our sports team - the Eagles, Sixers, Flyers and Phillies, we don't need to be the best to prove our dedication. We can settle for almost reaching the best without claiming the number one spot. We're not even the fattest city anymore! Not the healthiest, most attractive, nor a travel destination. Why should our greening efforts be any different?" The Greenworks plan is knocking down its 15 sustainability targets to a solid 10 and discouraging compositing where it costs too much. Find out more about this cut-back green plan, after the jump!

Mayor Michael Nutter has done a lot of cool stuff for Philly's sustainability scene. In 2009, he realized that the city needed to treat every street as a "Complete Street" to accommodate the different ways Philadelphians choose to travel - whether by bike, bus, car, train or strolling. Thus, the Complete Streets Policy was required to accommodation safety and convenience for all users and balance the needs of ALL users. (This is why the recent Bill 120532, which increases fines for improper parking AND bicycling behavior emphasized importance on multiple transit types.) The result? Check out the Complete Streets Handbook 2013 final version, which has been released for your eyes here. We reviewed the 163 page handbook for you. To save you time, here are some sustainable observations:

Philadelphia gets more sustainable street cred, this time from the Mayors! The US Conference of Mayors recognized Philadelphia's public-private partnership with Recyclebank with an Outstanding Achievement Award. Last weekend, the Washington DC ceremony honored the city's Philadelphia Recycling Rewards program, based on criteria including: