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The new director for Indianapolis’ Office of Sustainability came to the city to help set plans for climate action. Now, she’s staying to follow through on it.
Morgan Mickelson joined the city in 2019 as climate advisor through Bloomberg Philanthropies’ American Cities Climate Challenge. The program, which lasts two years, selects 25 cities across the country to receive about $2.5 million in resources for building sustainability.
She transitioned into the director role in March, almost a year after the previous director left the position and on the tail end of a major pandemic that threw a wrench into many of the office s sustainability plans in the last year. Now, she s tasked with understanding how to carrying out those goals.
Here are the main takeaways:
Certifying buildings for energy efficiency
In 2018, buildings alone accounted for 66% of Indianapolis greenhouse gas emissions. By 2025, the city hopes to reduce those emissions from buildings by almost 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year.
Since 2018, the city has certified 36 additional buildings as green buildings through LEED or Energy Star ratings bringing the total to 295. The 2025 target is 498.
Notably, the city is also on the brink of finalizing a Benchmarking and Transparency Ordinance that staff hopes will reduce utility costs and cut back on emissions by obtaining energy use data from municipal and commercial businesses.
SunStar
+ May 06, 2021 WHILE not a few local government units (LGUs) in Negros island and Panay are still unsympathetic and unsupportive of civil society organizations (CSOs), interchangeably referred to as people’s organizations (POs), in Bacolod, a city of half a million people and classified as a highly urbanized city (HUC), a sizable number of city CSOs are already represented in the City Development Council (CDC), Local Special Bodies (LSBs) and sectoral committees.
Local Development Council, LSBs like Local School Board, Local Health Board, Local Bids and Awards Committee, Local Peace and Order Council among others, the sectoral committees and the Barangay-based Institutions or BBIs, are the citizens participatory mechanisms mandated by the Local Government Code of 1991 or Republic Act 7160. People’s participation is one of the important goals in the passage of LGC.